#34

Nolan Hendricks III was a rising star. Everyone said so.

Born and raised in America’s heartland, he had the good breeding of John Kennedy, the charm of Bill Clinton, and the grass-roots political savvy of Barack Obama.

Hendricks raised $300,000 in the first few days of his campaign, mostly from small donors. He appealed to a broad cross-section of America, from the liberal-leaning cities on both coasts to the vast, empty breadbasket in between.

We all knew this would make Hendricks the man to beat in Iowa. What we didn’t realize, or maybe realized too late, was that it also painted a big red target on his back.

“Uh oh. We have a problem.” Charlie was sitting on the creaky third-hand couch in the corner of Hendricks for America headquarters, staring at his laptop screen.

I slurped up the rest of my lo mein and pointed at him with my chopsticks. “What problem? Do I want to know?”

“You definitely do not want to know,” Charlie replied.


About Prompt-A-Day: The rules are simple. Every day, I generate a promptĀ using Story Shack’s awesome writing prompt generator. Then I set a timer for one hour. At the end of the hour, I post what I’ve got. Sometimes it’s decent. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes I fail at the prompt. Sometimes I do okay. I do not edit, unless I find a typo, because I can’t help fixing those. Feel free to join in and post a link to your writing in the comments.

Similar Posts

  • #20

    Joseph knew deep down in his heart that Uncle Lou was dying. No one had actually told him, and it took him a while to figure it out for himself. In fact, it was the lack of information that first caused Joseph to think harder about things. Every other time Uncle Lou had come to…

  • #25

    There was a crash in the kitchen, like the sound of a bowl breaking. The syringe was just millimeters from Penelope’s arm, just moments from sweet relief, when the sound caused her to jump, sending the serum flying across the room. It rolled under the radiator. “Dammit,” she hissed. She’d put Danny to bed three…

  • #30

    Turnout was not as big as expected at the “Something Old, Something New” wedding flea market at the Baltimore Convention Center. This was due, in no small part, to the surprise late-winter snowstorm that had blanketed the city just a few days before. It wasn’t a blizzard – Baltimore gets its fair share of those…

  • #7

    The last time Jax saw his mother, it was the middle of the night. Well, to say he “saw” her isn’t exactly true. It was very dark and she didn’t turn on the light. It would be more accurate to say Jax felt her. He felt her weight on the mattress. He felt her hand…

  • #11

    “Shut up. You never let me think.” The lion turned in his little cage, his mane caked with sawdust and straw. He was making a humming sound. Gary never thought a lion would make a sound like that. But there was a storm outside and they were both on edge and a little seasick. Gary…

  • #27

    The Butcher, also known as Emperor Ubuluff of the Gamma Lyrae star system, had finished his work for the day. He felt productive, having ordered 16 beheadings and 427 lashings. Only one prisoner was set free – a female, beautiful but retiring, accused of the murder of a palace guard. The evidence was flimsy and…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *