I wrote this particular story as a genre piece for a competition that required 150 words.

The genre that I had in mind was not strictly typical genre fare like Crime, Sci-Fi, etc – this is dark poetry noir.

Imagine James Earl Jones reading Edgar Allan Poe – that’s the vibe I was driving at and this story is meant to be very tongue-in-cheek.

Comments as always are very welcome.

Office Politics (by David Ellis)

Teddy was running for office in June.

Teddy was going to be mayor soon.

The bomb under his chair did not know this and Teddy did not know it was there.

Teddy had been going steady with Doris and was blissfully & completely unaware.

Teddy did not have many enemies but he had just the one whose only crime was that he cared.

Teddy should have known better than to trust his brother, since he also desired the office chair.

Teddy should have considered his brother’s commitment, when his brother lost the election year.

When the bomb went off, Doris felt completely lost and Teddy’s brother was there to console her.

The truth came out one day, while their kids were at play, in the garden they had bought together.

Teddy’s brother you see, was reunited it seems, with Teddy soon after that day.

Doris called it a gardening accident.