I wrote a story compelled by the NPR contest "3-Minute Fiction," or some derivative thereof. Counting the story to six-hundred words(roughly translating to a three-minute stretch of breath and voice married to story-telling), I found my story exceeds four-minutes when it is read aloud. Therefore, absent condensing and parsing the story to fit within NPRs time-frame, I leave it to the world as intended, rough and raw.
The theme of this edition of "3-Minute Fiction" is to write a story based upon the President of the United States: be it a story of historical fiction, fiction that expounds upon a President never existed, or one yet-to-come, the options are limitless save that it has to be President-centric.
So it is:
The theme of this edition of "3-Minute Fiction" is to write a story based upon the President of the United States: be it a story of historical fiction, fiction that expounds upon a President never existed, or one yet-to-come, the options are limitless save that it has to be President-centric.
So it is:
Writ in Burnished Rows of Steel[1]
Dusk.
She capped the pen and tucked it away in her shirt pocket.
“Madame President,” Campbell said redfaced, haltingly, as if phrasing a question. He stood from the couch. “I do wish we prepared a signature statement coterminous to the Constitutional amendment. At least it would pacify the House and the Senate.”
Sliding out a drawer of the campaign desk she inherited patrilineally—from General Winfield Scott, given her tenth great-grandfather as guerdon for his contribution to The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signing, then passed in-kind and perpetually on through for 292 years—to a measurement allowing her visual on whether or not Campbell heeded her admonition from that morning, she touched her cheek as if startled by finality itself parsed into myriad repercussions whose sum was neither numerical nor physical, but enunciative.
“Come again?” she said, looking askance Campbell to a menagerie of fireflies loping frenzied revolutions against the shadowed wall, marked by a staggered pulsing of infinitesimal bulb as if feigned prelude. Long had the day been vanquished wherein she could think in terms of absolutes and fallacies; now, there was only movement.
His fealty to her impregnable, Campbell rephrased his suggestion with less an accusatory tone than one lamentful.
“Wilton Campbell,” she said.
“Yes, Madame President?”
“Shut up.”
“Madame President,” Campbell said redfaced, haltingly, as if phrasing a question. He stood from the couch. “I do wish we prepared a signature statement coterminous to the Constitutional amendment. At least it would pacify the House and the Senate.”
Sliding out a drawer of the campaign desk she inherited patrilineally—from General Winfield Scott, given her tenth great-grandfather as guerdon for his contribution to The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signing, then passed in-kind and perpetually on through for 292 years—to a measurement allowing her visual on whether or not Campbell heeded her admonition from that morning, she touched her cheek as if startled by finality itself parsed into myriad repercussions whose sum was neither numerical nor physical, but enunciative.
“Come again?” she said, looking askance Campbell to a menagerie of fireflies loping frenzied revolutions against the shadowed wall, marked by a staggered pulsing of infinitesimal bulb as if feigned prelude. Long had the day been vanquished wherein she could think in terms of absolutes and fallacies; now, there was only movement.
His fealty to her impregnable, Campbell rephrased his suggestion with less an accusatory tone than one lamentful.
“Wilton Campbell,” she said.
“Yes, Madame President?”
“Shut up.”
Night.
Their long angularity showed a penumbra flickering in the sallow lantern light
against the razored huddle of tuliptrees and deodar cedars. Air redolent of
cannonfire. The icebound Potomac reflected the stars back to them in mute
solemnity as the pair walked soundlessly along the river rippled with stasis,
caped by ice like that of annealed glass. To an eidolon was his attention rapt
upon and he spoke to her as if in concert with its inversion on all things
essomenic.
“Your predecessors should not have been held in contempt or praised; you should not have been considered cthothonic or mirific, Madame President,” he said, the galanty of his arms and hands, now creeping along the hemispheres of ash abutting the river, in restrained gesticulation a kind of parry, evasive, “You were simply human.”
“All of this, Wilton,” she said, “is the cumulative effect none had ordinance to avert. We were regarded as we were regarded for a reason: the least always outnumbered the most, yet…always was the minority.”
“No” Campbell said quietly, shaking his head. He lowered the lantern against his leg and what amphitheatre of light engirded them stole away, thinning to an elliptic carpet which they rode along the ice. “We should not talk like we are uncoupled from this, like we are ghosts.”
“Wilton Campbell,” she said.
“Yes Madame President?”
“What then are we?”
“Your predecessors should not have been held in contempt or praised; you should not have been considered cthothonic or mirific, Madame President,” he said, the galanty of his arms and hands, now creeping along the hemispheres of ash abutting the river, in restrained gesticulation a kind of parry, evasive, “You were simply human.”
“All of this, Wilton,” she said, “is the cumulative effect none had ordinance to avert. We were regarded as we were regarded for a reason: the least always outnumbered the most, yet…always was the minority.”
“No” Campbell said quietly, shaking his head. He lowered the lantern against his leg and what amphitheatre of light engirded them stole away, thinning to an elliptic carpet which they rode along the ice. “We should not talk like we are uncoupled from this, like we are ghosts.”
“Wilton Campbell,” she said.
“Yes Madame President?”
“What then are we?”
Dark. Their
voices timorous employed to do nothing but give position went to silence. She
heard him stand from the couch and sigh.
“Wilton Campbell?” she said
hurriedly, the drawer creaking woodenly as she slid it open against her stomach
“Yes Madame President?”
She quaked in her chair.
“What is it?”
“My mother’s favorite bird was the male red-winged blackbird. A patch, an epaulet I believe was her term, of fire she described the markings on his wings as being. An antistrophe to Icarus. She thought we didn’t have to fall; that we could burn and heal and go on; that it was not unavoidable, our ultimate demise at…”
Her voice trailed into a curl of hushed whispering, soft and clear, like a child intoning vespers.
“Madame President?”
“Keep your eyes open please, Wilton.” The subtle turning of the ratchet against the pawl in her hand was like a last heartbeat against her ear. “This forevermore becomes her red-winged blackbird.”
“Yes Madame President?”
She quaked in her chair.
“What is it?”
“My mother’s favorite bird was the male red-winged blackbird. A patch, an epaulet I believe was her term, of fire she described the markings on his wings as being. An antistrophe to Icarus. She thought we didn’t have to fall; that we could burn and heal and go on; that it was not unavoidable, our ultimate demise at…”
Her voice trailed into a curl of hushed whispering, soft and clear, like a child intoning vespers.
“Madame President?”
“Keep your eyes open please, Wilton.” The subtle turning of the ratchet against the pawl in her hand was like a last heartbeat against her ear. “This forevermore becomes her red-winged blackbird.”
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