By John Sheirer
After a year of making hundreds of calls each day, wearing out another pair of shoes every few weeks, and knocking on more doors than he thought could exist in the whole country, David planned to take his family for a well-earned weekend in the country on the first Saturday of November.
As he watched the famous buildings of the capitol city fade in his rearview mirror, David nicked a tiny patch of early morning ice and spun his car through the railing of the Virginia side of the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge. His wife and kids slipped through the windows before the car dipped beneath the water. They had only cuts, bruises, and a terrible scare.
But David had to be pulled from the Potomac River’s chilly water by the strong hands of a local fisherman who happened to be a former college swimmer. His plunge sent him into a coma that lasted for two long months in a sad wing of the city’s largest hospital.
When he unexpectedly awoke, the medical staff sprinted for the room’s television, clicking off a shouting match on a news program that he couldn’t quite hear. Dark expressions hovered above the lab coats crowded around his bed.
“I’m alive?” he asked.
The faces nodded but remained troubled. David grimaced, swallowed hard on his arid throat.
“My wife?” he croaked. “My children?”
“They’re fine,” the nurse told him, expelling a held breath. She encouraged him to drink slowly from a small plastic cup. The icy water burned.
“Why?” he asked between painful sips. “Why do you all look so terrified?”
“We have some—” The head physician halted. His gaze found the floor.
The nurse rescued his sentence: “Some bad news.”
She inhaled a long, slow, deep breath of filtered hospital air and spoke two hushed words: “Trump won.”
David’s screams could be heard all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue.
John Sheirer a teacher and author who lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. He has taught writing, literature, and communication full-time at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, Connecticut, for the past quarter century. His books include memoir, fiction, poetry, essays, political satire, and photography. His most recent book is the satire, Donald Trump’s Top Secret Concession Speech, available in print and as an audiobook read by Mike Hardeman (Rocky Mountain Mike of the Stephanie Miller Show.) Find John at JohnSheirer.com.
Photo credit: Mike Maguire via a Creative Commons license.
John, I throughly enjoyed your story. It was short, sweet and to the point. My one observation is your title, Horror Story. It feels too generic. I had to go back at the end to see what the title of your piece was as opposed to the title sticking and I’d never forget it. Congratulations on your work.
Mark V.