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I
almost missed a deadline to submit the the next five chapters of my
novel to the publisher. Been pounding away furiously, and
Fedex just picked them up. Whew. I thought some of you
might enjoy reading a snippet (Remember, my editor will fix spelling and punctuation).
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Excerpt from my novel, "Crescent at Five-o-clock High.
Chapter XXVII - Arghhhh
<snip>
Just an hour earlier Special Agent Jerry Moore's head had been comfortably
nestled in Suzanne's soft bosom. Soft like the chunk of plaster now
under his foot wasn't. Their reverie had been shattered by a harsh
crack from the television speaker that cut the president's voice in mid
sentence. Then a shrieking, like when the power
goes out in a sports bar with 30 seconds left on the clock.
"What do we know," Jerry asked the uniformed Secret Service guard, as he surveyed the destruction before them.?
"A meteor about the size of a bowling ball hit the capitol building at
a speed in excess of 200,000 mph. It cut through the stone like a hot
knife through butter, and smashed into the House chamber, just moments
after the State of the Union address began."
Jerry twirled a finger through his neatly trimmed beard, like a doctor
doing a pelvic exam. "How in hell could that happen without a
warning," he asked absently, not really expecting a reply?
But the guard answered.
"Funny that. It seems a radar station in the Blue Ridge mountains
picked it up. The crew telephoned it in to the White House switch
board, but it wasn't relayed for several hours. Then a staffer
dismissed it as being a flight of stealth bombers expected at Andrews
AFB. One of those SNAFUs you only read about," he finished.
The chamber was a mess. The meteor had ended its deadly journey from
the vastness of space on the House floor. Assembled congressmen
listening to the speech, many preening for the C-Span camera that
lazily scanned the assemblage, took the brunt of the blow. Like a
boxer who is distracted by his girl friend waving to him, and takes an
upper-cut to the jaw. He looked up to the gallery. A piece of green
and orange chiffon hung lazily from the railing, like pasta thrown
against the cabinet door to see if it would stick, signifying ready to
eat. Just an hour ago he had seen the First Lady, wearing a dress made
of that material, take her seat to much applause from the Democrats
below. "She must be smithereens now," he thought.
"What's going on over there", he asked? A pointed finger directed the
guard's gaze to several dozen people engaged in some ceremony at the rear of the hall.
"That 's what's left of the Republican caucus. They just
voted to reorganize the House, and elected John Boone Speaker."
"What the - "
Speaker Pirogi was killed in the blast, as was the Vice President, and
every single Democrat except Sen. Frink who was in the bathroom.
Boone will be the new president once they take President Ochumsky off
life support."
<snip>
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