Weekend Write-In Story Collection

Snow Job

In 500 words, tell the story of something discovered under a pile of snow. Written for the Weekend Write-In prompt "Pile", 4-6 December 2015.

Let's follow David on his first day as an elected Member of Parliament. It would help to be Canadian to follow this, but those south of the border will appreciate much of it.

New Government

"Hodgekiss... Hodgekiss?... HODGEKISS!"

"SIR..."

"Where are you? I need some answers here"

"In the kludge, Sir," he called through the door down the short hallway. "Just doing the paperwork... Shortly."

"Sorry to disturb you... When you're done there, I need answers on this pile of crap."

"Gimme another mo."

Hodgekiss came into the room buckling his belt and adjusting. "Which one have you?"

"The first one, the top of the stack...What in the name of sweet Jehoshaphat is this?"

"Which one, Sir? Still can't see from here."

"This... Look at it." David turned the opened folder toward Hodgekiss as he approached.

"Oh that... The policy direction on aligning with the American Rifle Association. That's a mild one... You've barely started into it."

David was spending his first day as an elected Member of Parliament, and to welcome him, a huge stack of file folders had been placed on his desk. Trudeau's new majority government was patiently waiting as the deposed Conservatives packed up and vacated their offices. Meanwhile, he was ensconced in temporary quarters buried in a pile of files.

"Align with the ARA? Harper was moving us toward neighbourhood, school and mall shootings?"

"It appeared so to me, Sir."

"Call me David... Sir is a tad too — too Conservative."

"Yes, Sir... Err David, Sir."

"They were really into power, weren't they?"

"Yes, Sir... David Sir... Sir David... Fuuu! Yes, they certainly were, Sir... David... Yeah, they really were."

"Sit down, Hodgekiss... What's your name?"

"Hodgekiss, Sir... Err David Sir... Fuuu!"

"First name? You must have a first name."

"Yes Sir, I do."

"And?"

"And what, Sir?"

"David."

"That's your name, Sir."

"And yours?"

"Timothy, Sir."

"Good, Timothy... Let's start there. You're Timothy and I'm David."

"Yes Sir"

"Sir?"

"Err... David."

"Alright... This stack, what's in here?"

"Mostly my stash of files that he wanted destroyed. You can see here..." He stepped forward, and pointed to the red imprint: Read Absorb and Destroy."

So give me a précis on what's in here."

"All over the place, but support for continuing the war on drugs, so assisting the organised crime, the mobs.... Some of the initiatives in response to the donations from the bikers, the Families..."

"Fuuu!"

"Yeah, my response, exactly."

"And what else? What else is in this pile?"

"A lot of stuff from Bush and Bush. How to topple foreign governments, how to blame all of our interventionist activities on religious radicals, how to sway the people to the truth that all Spanish speakers are sucking our hind tit... Republican diatribe... Regular pap for the party."

"Regular?" How frequently?"

"These are weekly policy direction papers. There's some really scary stuff you should see. Actually hilarious if it weren't so scary." He flipped down through the pile. "Here, a fellow interpreting where Trump could lead us and recommending the need to support the campaign and then follow his leads."

"And they continued this to the end?

"Yessir... David... Through Duffy and the avalanche of public opinion, they continued the snow job."