Jack Manassas and Company

 How Solomon Donkey Saved the World Bob Livingston sat at his breakfast table, sipping coffee and watching the video feed from a security camera on the West Road out of the Donkey Hotel.  Nothing much was happening, at least so far.  Livingston glanced again at his newspaper, but his gaze soon returned to the video screen. Solomon Donkey looked in on his friend and guardian through the open kitchen window for some time, not without curiosity.  It had been two weeks since Solomon’s return from Washington, DC.   At the request of the American Secret Service, Solomon had traveled to the United States.  The US President had lost the ability to understand human speech, but mysteriously could understand Donkeys.   After they confirmed that Solomon could converse with the President, the kindly donkey thought that he would be able to help pass along instructions from the President’s advisors.  At the last minute, the Vice President called it off...

I really shouldn’t be telling you about this.  It’s probably top secret--But since it’s probably some other government’s secret, I guess it will be OK.   You know where the Donkey Hotel* is?  That place where old donkeys go to eat grass and live out their retirement years in peace?  That’s where it started, almost a month ago.  Bob Livingston* was taking the donkeys out to pasture that Sunday morning, when a black limo appeared, a black horse trailer in tow.  I say ‘appeared’ because Bob didn’t hear it drive up.  He was forking hay or something, looked down for a while, and when he looked up, there it was.  The trailer had some sort of gold emblem on the front.  Bob couldn’t quite make it out, and was squinting at it when he noticed three men in dark suits and sunglasses, standing a couple of meters away from him.   How they got there without him noticing, he couldn’t say, but there they were, just looking at him with their han...