I had a piece planned for today, I really did. It was a memoir piece about visiting my parents’ house, now my parent’s house, a place I’ve never lived yet still feels like home to me. The gist of that story is that the house isn’t the thing but rather the things and the people that it contains: the photo albums, artwork, knickknacks, etc. That’s what makes it home to me.

My mother is a knickknack now. She rests in a jar that sits upon a shelf of dusty photographs. The climax of that story would have been a moment where I found myself alone with my mother’s urn. I placed my hand upon it, expecting to feel something but I didn’t. It’s just a jar, not my mother.

I wrote a couple pages of that piece, but then I woke up with an idea for a short story.  I’m not a “muse” kind of writer, but I do believe in making hay while the sun is shining, so I tabled the memoir piece in favor of the short story.

I wish that this particular idea came to me four years ago. It’s the kind of thing that would flesh out to novel length nicely, and given the political climate I’m pretty sure I could have sold it. On the other hand, I’m not bright enough to come up with this particular plot whole cloth. Without the barrage of headlines over the last year, I never would have landed on this little story.

But even if I’d hit upon it a year ago, I could have turned it into a polished short story and shopped it around. Instead, what I have is a rough draft of something that could’ve been pretty good. As it sits, I don’t think it’s too bad. It’s a plausible but completely fictitious take on how this year’s presidential election turned into such a mess.

That’s what’s supposed to be posted in this space; unfortunately, I don’t seem to know the current date. I accidentally scheduled said short story to post on Sunday rather than Monday, and that’s why you’re reading this instead of that.

We can fix that, though. All you need to do is click here, and you can read the fabricated story of how Secretary Valerie Clifton persuaded businessman Dan Crump to take a dive for her…or did she? Enjoy.