Assassination (Metafiction Project)

Assassination

Also the main idea is basically that Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth switch places after they shoot Kennedy and Lincoln respectively


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John was watching the collapse of the confederacy in real time, under the command of President Lincoln. He had visited Ford’s theatre this morning, and received news that Lincoln and Grant would be attending the play that night. He realized that if he didn’t take this opportunity, he might never get another chance.. He already regretted his hesitation at the inauguration, but now might be an even better time to strike. He needed to prepare.

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Lee was fed up with the state of things. Since having returned from the Soviet Union, he and his wife had been ostracized for their politics and harassed by the FBI, and fascists in the military and US government had led to anticommunist and imperialistic attacks against Cuba, spearheaded by the President. Something needed to be done, and with the announcement of a presidential motorcade coming through Dallas, he had an idea.

With the map of the path of the motorcade in front of him, and his curtain rods beside him, he planned the execution. His job at the book suppository would allow him a proper alibi, and the secluded upper floors would allow him to shoot without being seen. Lee slept soundly, knowing that tomorrow, he would make the world a better place.

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“We have an opportunity.” John said to Surratt. “Lincoln and Grant will both be at Ford’s Theatre tonight”

“Killing him won’t stop what’s already coming.” Suratt said.

“Yes, but if we do this right, it won’t just be Lincoln. We have a chance to cut off the whole head of the Union in one fell swoop. Tell Weichmann to ready the guns, and we can meet here tonight at seven.“

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Lee walked into the building with his paper bag and quickly proceeded to the 6th floor to stash it. The paper bag, and the rifle inside it, would be the only incriminating evidence, so Lee wanted as few people to see it as possible. He would securely store the rifle after he used it, so that it couldn’t be found.

About an hour before the motorcade, Lee walked down to the first floor for his lunch. The longer he was seen away from where he would make the shot the better. He read the day’s newspaper up until about 11:50. He decided to make a call to Maria, just in case he didn’t make it out of this, but no one picked up. He proceeded back up to the sixth floor of the building to ready his rifle.

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John was meeting his co-conspirators for the final time before they would execute their plan.

“I have a good chance of getting to Lincoln and Grant’s booth, and I won’t be suspect entering the theatre. Powell, you can get the Secretary at his home, and Herold and Atzerodt can get Johnson at his hotel in Washington. After that, Herold will need to come back and rendezvous with me.”

“Are you sure about this?” Atzerodt said. “We’ll be chased to the end of the Earth”

“Not if we do this properly.”

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John entered Ford’s theatre, passing by a local policeman on his way out, during the halftime of the play, Our American Cousin, and made his way to the hall behind the President’s box. Surprisingly enough, there was no one guarding the door. After John had been granted entrance through the door, he barricaded it behind him with the metal brace that he had prepared earlier. Having performed the play several times, John knew it by heart, and prepared to shoot just as the audience was laughing at the play.

As John heard “... sockdologizing old man-trap!” from the stage, he opened the door, aimed his pistol at Lincoln’s head, and fired.

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From the corner window on the 6th floor of the suppository, rifle in hand, Lee watched the motorcade turn the corner, hundreds, possibly thousands, standing to the edge of the street watching. As the President passed the building, Lee raised his rifle and fired two shots in quick succession, paused, and fired a final shot into Kennedy’s head.

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John found himself not on the stage, but in an unfamiliar building, looking out a window that must have been ten stories high. He was holding a large rifle that was pointed outside the window, towards a crowd of hundreds with a long, smooth road in the middle. He was confused, but it looks like the rifle he was holding had just been fired, so he figured he should get out of wherever he was. He quickly buried the rifle he was holding under some nearby boxes of books, then headed for what looked like the staircase downwards.

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Oswald suddenly found himself behind several sitting figures, and rather than holding his rifle he had a small, old-fashioned pistol in his hand. One of the figures appears to have been shot by the pistol just moments before. He appeared to be in an upper box of an old theater. Suddenly, one of the figures jumped up in a move to attack him. Oswald dropped the pistol reflexively, and reached into his pocket to find his knife. He managed to fend off the attacker, but knew he had to get out of this situation. He glanced behind him but the door to the box appeared to be jammed, so he started running towards the only way out, forward onto the stage. He fell for what felt like twenty feet, and landed hard on his leg, pain shooting through it. He ran across the stage towards what appears to be an exit, and left the building.

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John found his way to the bottom of the building he was in. He wanted to get away from wherever he was as quickly as possible. While on his way out, he passed a woman who told him that the President was shot. Whether that was in reference to his plan at Ford’s theatre, or something to do with where he was now and the rifle that he had been holding, he needed to get as far away from here as possible. He walked as fast as he could out and away from the building.

A short while later, after he had been walking away from the building for several minutes, one of the mobile machines that he had seen pulled up alongside him on the road and a person who appeared to be a policeman got out of it. John, realizing that he was trapped by the policeman, who had drawn a handgun, quickly fired his own pistol at the cop, then started running as fast as he could.

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Oswald had fled the Theatre as fast as he could with his injured leg, and made his way across a bridge. On the bridge, he was confronted by a guard, who wondered why he was out so late at night. Oswald said he was just going home to Charles, a name he had seen on a sign a few minutes beforehand. The guard let him pass, and he continued walking until he found himself in a small town. He stumbled to what appeared to be a 19th century doctor’s office. The doctor seemed to recognize him, and after splinting his leg, the doctor led him to another man, Herold, who also recognized him.

“We need to get out of here quickly, and hide somewhere.” the man named Herold said.

“I led Atzerodt to Johnson, but he didn’t seem ready to do it.”

Oswald was led by Herold out of the town, and to a farmhouse where he said that they would be hiding out at.

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Booth, after shooting the policeman, continued fleeing, until he saw what appeared to be a theatre. He quickly entered the building, but was surprised when there was, instead of a stage, a large wall displaying moving photographic images. He quickly hid at the back of the theatre, hoping not to be found by whomever was looking for him.

Several minutes later he saw several people, dressed like the policeman he had shot before, enter the theatre. He knew that he was done for. When the policemen came up to arrest him, he said “Well, it’s all over now.”

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Oswald had spent the last several days in the barn of a farmhouse, hiding out from the people that were chasing him and Herold. He, over the course of the several days, had picked up that he was part of the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, with him in the place of Booth. Somehow he had traveled 100 years back in time just at the moment he fired his rifle at Kennedy. He might never know if he succeeded in his assassination.

The next day he was awoken by the sound of soldiers shouting from outside the barn.

“Surrender and exit, or we will fire on the barn.” they said.

Oswald grabbed his gun and made an attempt to exit out the back door of the barn, only to come face to face with another soldier, who quickly shot Oswald. Over the next few hours, he drifted in and out of consciousness. He knew he was dying.

“Useless …. Useless”, he said with his last breath.

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John had been interrogated for the past several days about the murder that he had supposedly committed. Rather than suspecting him of killing Lincoln, or even caring about the policeman that he had shot, they were accusing him of killing a man he had never even heard of, who was supposedly the President. He continued to deny the accusations, as he had no idea where he even was. However, the people interrogating him seem to be absolutely sure that he had killed the President, and refused to even let him speak to anyone else.

They were preparing to lead him out of whatever building he was in, to transport him somewhere else. He suspected a prison. They nearly dragged him out of the room he was in, and down through a long hallway. He could see dozens of people standing at the exit of the hallway, most of them with what appeared to be cameras of some sort. As he got to the end of the hallway, the last thing John saw was a man stepping out in front of him, and pointing a small pistol at his face.

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