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“I’ve got nothing. What about you, Munoz?”
Alicia Munoz shook her head. “Beats me, Lambert. My Abuela said she was a Bruja and did some pretty strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Secret Service Agents Munoz and Dallas Lambert were investigating the objects in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Eleven small pots, burnt wood, a collection of stones and bricks, a bag containing feathers, and a plastic water bottle.
“The eclipse maybe?”
“Maybe. The crazies are coming out of the woodwork over it.”
“Has the suspect said anything, Munoz?”
“Hunt and Murray are doing the interrogation. Let me call in…”
Alicia’s cell rang. “Munoz here.”
“It’s Hunt. You won’t believe it. Suspect’s told us everything.”
“What?”
“He’s Stephen Keller, homeless, in and out of state mental hospitals.”
“So what’s this crazy shit in front of the White House.”
“Get this. He was cursing the President. He was cursing Trump with blindness.”
“What, he wants Trump to look at the eclipse without his protective glasses? That is nuts. Oh, Hazmat’s here. Gotta go.”
I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge for the Week of August 22, 2017. The idea is to use the image above to craft a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long with 150 being the ideal. My word count is 174 and I had to do a lot of editing to get my original story down to that size.
Yesterday, the “twitterverse” went nuts because President Donald Trump really did look briefly at the solar eclipse without his protective glasses. I saw the video and he glanced up just for an instant and may not have looked directly at the sun. Still, it was a foolish thing to do since even the tiniest bit of exposure can result in eye damage. Nevertheless, I’ve not heard any subsequent reports that he’s suffered from vision loss.
I made up all the stuff about a curse and I have no idea what any of the objects in the photo are used for. I had to think of something, though.
By the way, “Abuela” is “Grandmother” in Spanish and “Bruja” means “witch”.
To read more stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.
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This is brilliant, James!
And thanks for the laughs too , I hadn’t heard the latest about your Mr President .
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It was all over the news here. The solar eclipse was kind of a big deal since it’s been 99 years since one has been visible across our nation from coast to coast.
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I had heard about the Solar eclipse and seen pics on FB , a one or two . But learning about the Trump news from you , let me search the details . Should be fun to read .
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I’m sure it is, Moon. Thanks again.
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I absolutely love this. I think you should expand it into a short sstory and find a home for it in a publication!
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Thanks for the complement, Rosemary. Actually, I just wrote this as a lark. Not sure it would be worthy of being published. I appreciate your kind words, though.
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James, if you expand this, it is definitely worthy of publication!
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Great story James! The “crazy” was cursing the president with blindness! LOL! So funny that Hazmat was called in! Haha!
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Hazmat was called in to evaluate and remove the materials of the curse. That part’s actually pretty realistic, Priceless Joy.
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Yes, I understand. 🙂
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True story. I used to work for the US Postal Service as a “Casual,” which means ten dollars an hour and all the abuse I could take. I was being trained on a Collections route in a two-ton truck (they’re surprisingly easy to drive) and my trainer and I pulled up to a mailbox to collect the contents. It was the middle of summer and really hot out. I used my “arrow key” to open the mailbox and someone had dumped a huge fish inside over the weekend. It was really disgusting. My trainer reported it and the next time we passed by, there was a Hazmat team in full environmental suits cleaning up the mess.
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I believe you! How awful that someone would do that!
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According experienced Postal collectors, they’ve found all kinds of strange things in mailboxes, although I think a big, dead fish probably counts as one of the oddest.
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I would think so. So awful!! A decomposing fish inside a mail box!
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Yes, it was pretty disgusting. Even in protective suits, I didn’t envy the Hazmat team.
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No kidding! LOL!
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Haha! Well, it seems the curse worked! He did look at the eclipse. Way to stay on top of the news.
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Thanks, but like I mentioned in a previous comment, I’ve not read any report that the President’s eyesight was affected, so I guess the curse wasn’t strong enough.
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Yeah, but the bruja certainly gave it the ole college try. Made ‘im look. 😉
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Maybe he was interrupted before he could complete the curse. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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Actually, according to this article, President Trump might not realize right away if he damaged his vision. Oops.
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haha I thought that straight away The curse worked lol Enjoyed this
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We didn’t experience a full eclipse here. but pictures of Trumpy were all over our newspapers! Brilliant – literally!
Click to visit Keith’s Ramblings
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Ironic story. Very good.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for the chuckle. I can literally imagine one person crazy enough to do this 🙂
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Glad you liked it, Jacqueline.
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