Here is a very short piece of fiction I wrote just after the last presidential election. It's called, "Let Them Have Pudding".


He surveyed the empty street with paranoid, glazed eyes. Clear. He ran across. An air of readiness surrounded him, yet it carried with it the smell of incompetence. His boots on the broken glass and soggy newspaper made his passage across loud, nerve-racking even. When he arrived at the next alley, breath left his lungs, and relief crept in.

A voice behind him said, “You shouldn’t have come here, George.”

At first, George was scared, terrified, but slowly recognition seeped through his simian brain.

“Ken, I think they’re on to us.” he said, eyes wandering, he pulled a cube-ish package from his coat pocket.

“It’s not safe for you here. Are you insane, man?” Kenneth said.

George drew a spoon from his front pocket. Kenneth gasped. After George applied the spoon to the package, there was a popping noise, followed by the familiar noise of someone opening a single-serving pudding snack.

“Great scott!” Ken said, “Think of your career. Your career! Sweet Christ, you’re throwing it all away.”

As George ate the pudding snack, a look of ecstasy spread through his body. He had lost the prejudice to distinguish between flavors. He could only describe them as “good.” Ken was still whispering in a fierce voice.

“I’m telling you, what if you’re seen? All hell, that’s what. We can’t be seen together, it’s not safe for you to keep coming to see me.”

Kenneth Lay finally pierced through George W. Bush’s defensive, pudding shell.

“But… I love you, Ken.” George said, turning to face the man.

“Don’t start on me again,” Ken said, “you know how I feel. You have a country to lead. You won this time. Good God, you won, man.”

George ate the pudding like a prisoner at an Iraqi prison camp. He ate it fast, but savored every mouthful, with every taste bud enraptured.

He said, “Do you want some of my pudding?”

Ken sighed, “Yes, of course I want pudding. That doesn’t change—“

He was silenced as the sticky, sweet gelatin was forced into his mouth. The spoon even tasted good, and Ken couldn’t resist. He could feel the “W” engraved on it with his tongue, he could taste the oxidizing silver, but mostly the pudding. He sucked on it eagerly, until he was sure there was none left.

George said, “Okay, now you do me.” He handed Ken the pudding cup and his silvered spoon, opening his mouth and closing his eyes.

Ken cleared his head, once he had a spoon in one hand and pudding in the other. He said, “George, you know this can’t work. I love you, but I won’t let you ruin yourself for me.”

At that he dropped the pudding cup on the ground and fled into the night. It spilled, in slow motion, catapulted across the wet pavement. George screamed a screamy, pain scream.

“NOOOO!! MY PUDDING!”
Then he ran back to his big, White House