You know the drill if you’ve been around a while. Prompts at the bottom. Flash Fiction of Fridays is written live with very minimal corrections. Enjoy!

“Who holds a press conference with a koala?” The surgeon asked.

There were a thousand reasons I could have been pulled from that race. I was hip deep in dirty money. I was having an affair with my secretary. Two of them actually. But that hasn’t been a reason to dump a politician in years. I have thirty-six unpaid parking tickets.

I didn’t have a clear policy objective on anything. Seriously, anything.

I was the right guy in the right moment. The polls had me ahead by eighteen percent. Eighteen percent!

All I had to do was be insanely persuasive and normal for three more weeks. But then I think Paul got wind of the second affair, which happened to be with his girlfriend. And calling it an affair is going a little far it was a long night at the office that turned into a hook up. Twice. I think.

So PR Paul sets me up with a special event at the zoo.

“It’ll be great,” he said. “Show your compassionate side. Everyone loves animals.”

Thing is, koala’s are mean little beasts when they haven’t had all the eucalyptus leaves they can stomach. They get high and sleeping and they just look so dang cuddly. So I’m standing there hold about twenty pounds of fuzzy ball while trying to look dignified. And the stupid thing smelled awful. Which all animals do.

And then it grabbed on too tight. The little devil put holes in my suit coat. It drew blood. I yelled something about it needing to be on the endangered list, it took a swipe at my face, and now I’m getting my face stitched back together while the party is throwing their support behind anyone who isn’t me.

Paul gets his revenge, my wife finally gets grounds for the divorce she’s wanted since I went in to politics and convinced her it would look better for me to be married, and with scars like this I’ll never work my way up high enough to end up on a thirty dollar bill.

“Well, if it’s any comfort I wasn’t going to vote for you anyway. Now hold still or I’m going to end up suturing your mouth uneven.”

Prompts: politician (yeah, not a fan of that one either), drop out, medium sized wild animal.

This ended up being semi cathartic, since I think politics– all of it– is at the heart of what is destroying the culture and country I love. Giving this straw man his just desserts was most satisfying.

As always you are welcome to put yours in the comments, or link to where it can be found. Have a great weekend everyone.