The Button

It was square, ivory-colored, set beneath the edge of the desk exactly where Claire Danner’s right hand came to rest when she stopped writing. There was one in almost every room where a decision was expected of her: one press to summon the private secretary, another to ask for the secure line, a light to signal that the room could be interrupted. Nothing spectacular. The first time it had been shown to her, the day she took office, she had asked how many people started moving when she touched it.

The president of the United States remembers a nuclear war she herself started.