Emails from Jonathan Garret, president and CEO of Genetic-Connection/Gen-C Entertainment LLC, to Jan Smekowski, Personal Assistant.
January 3rd
Elevator pitch, Jan: Think Jurassic Park (haven’t actually seen but like the merchandising!) but instead of dinosaurs it's the former Leaders of the Free World! Nifty, yeah? Our dedicated team of scientists think it will be no problem at all to successfully replicate all 46 POTUS's, alive or dead.
February 11th
Little hiccup. Turns out we might not have enough DNA from the bodies of the deceased presidents. Bill, head DNA guy, said that there’s some genetic code that we’ll need to patch up, but a solution has been found. To fill in some of the gaps we'll have to use bits of chimp DNA (chimps being our closest genetic cousins, egghead Bill tells me), and also elephant, because, if you didn't know, humans and elephants are the only two animals who have chins and we're going to need a lot of elephant chin-DNA if we're going to make a whole new Ronald Reagan.
April 22nd
Presidents are coming along nicely. I checked in on the hatching room today and watched as a tiny Grover Cleveland push, push, pushed his way out of a synthetic eggshell. Adorable.
William Howard Taft, only about six inches tall at this time, was born with a full bushy mustache. Science is amazing.
May 1st
The presidents are doing great! We nixed the idea of placing them into re-creations of their Oval Offices. The idea was to build 46 separate spaces with a glass window at one end so a tour can come through and look in as each president sits at their desk “working.” They wouldn't have really been working though, because, for safety's sake, we limited their brain functions to that of a dolphin (the dumbest of the sea creatures; I don't care what Bill says) and so no actual work, just scribbling on important looking papers or whatever. Pretty boring stuff.
Instead, we'll be putting the presidents into nature enclosures. This’ll save us some money and now, without the glass, people can get an up-close experience. We’ll sell bags of treats and some kid can go home and tell his friends that he fed Jimmy Carter a peanut.
May 20th
Bill says the presidents have reached their full size. And what a size that is! The George Washington is about 15 feet tall. He is also covered, head to toe, in coarse black fur. The Teddy Roosevelt, clocking in at 12 feet, has his trademark toothy smile but also a pair of formidable ivory tusks.
I feel confident that people won't notice, or at least that they won't care. I figure if we put some powdered wigs on the old ones and stuff the rest in fancy suits, people will hardly notice any difference.
July 5th
Re: Test Tour No.1
Jan, we have some fires that need putting out. Not literally, thank god. It’s just that, unfortunately, a young man was gored by Teddy Roosevelt during the tour. I think he'll be okay—Roosevelt that is; his tusks are very durable—but the guy is going to need a new liver or something. Could you look into his social media feed, maybe see if we can get ahead of this, find out if he's an Antifa or an anarchist or a neo-something-or-other? We’re gonna need a positive spin. Thanks!
July 11th
Re: Test Tour No.2
Jan, Tour 2 had some bumps. James Garfield spit corrosive bile onto a tour car and melted its tires. The test group was stuck there for over an hour while the 13ft tall Lyndon Johnson took multiple dump-truck-sized shits in his nearby enclosure. It stunk up their car and by the time the service crew reached them everyone was gagging and throwing up. Uck.
Also, John Quincy Adams has disappeared from his pen. The crew is thinking that he might’ve slipped out during a maintenance job—he’s only about 9 feet tall, so relatively small compared to the others—but Bill (ugh) is starting to fuss and worry that maybe Adams is still in his pen, but that he’s developed some sort of biochemical cloaking device. I don’t see a problem, really; if he wants to play hide and seek we’ll just put a bell on him or something. And let’s be honest, people aren’t coming here to see him anyways; he’s so tiny and hardly has any horns at all.
July 20th
Final Test Tour
Jan, as I write you from my private escape-copter, I need you to understand that I don't think the park, as a whole, was a mistake. No. I can see now that there were some slight missteps that we made along the way. Sure. The chimp, elephant, rhino, and alligator DNA was, thinking back, a misjudgment. I will be the first to admit it was a miscalculation, no matter how much it saved us dollars-wise, to use biopsied brain matter from executed death row inmates. Bill and I must shoulder the blame for most of these decisions. Hindsight, 20/20, and all that.
It's entirely possible, Jan, that this email will never reach you, that you and the rest of the team have either fled or been killed. Last I saw, a hulking six-armed Zachery Taylor was tearing through our office building, making a terrible mess. But, if you are still at your desk (and I would like to remind you that, as of my writing this, it is still technically work hours) I ask that you scrub all of our files from the computers. And please make sure to wipe my name from all the records. I am owning up to my mistakes, but I would like to speak for myself and I don't want any pesky files or other “evidence” doing the talking for me.
Thanks! 🙂
JG