Larger-Than-Life, Smaller in Truth ~ prosery

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr

Larger-Than-Life, Smaller in Truth

Pen poised above his notepad, the correspondent had stopped taking notes shortly after the president started speaking. He sat at the White House press briefing, confident that little more than inflated accomplishments and no real news would be heard as he thought back on the president’s briefings for the past four years. As he had always done, the president spoke as if campaigning for re-election, loudly proclaiming that nothing that comes from the media is anything more than “fake news,” while little truth could be found in anything that left his own lips.

As the president left the podium and his fellow reporters rose from their chairs, he thought, “From across the room, we look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time. With that telescope reversed, the future will recognize him for the small man that he truly is.”

This bit of flash fiction is my response to Prosery: Telescope of Time, presented by Kim at dVerse ~ Poets Pub. With Prosery, the challenge is to write a piece of flash fiction with a 144-word limit. Included in the bit of prose is to be a complete line from a poem. My flash fiction also meets the additional challenge of hitting the 144-word mark, exactly.
For this prompt, the line to be included is from “Humming Bird,” by D.H. Lawrence. (the complete poem can be found here)

“From across the room, we look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time”      – D.H. Lawrence

Image source: Politico / Getty
(edited here)

41 thoughts on “Larger-Than-Life, Smaller in Truth ~ prosery”

    • Thank you, Peter.
      My vote has been cast. I hope to be traveling in early November, so I went to the county office to request an absentee ballot. As it turns out, they are set up with a voting machine, so I didn’t have to rely on the US mail. As much as I trust the mail, I don’t trust the system to protect a vote sent by mail.

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  12. Being a political correspondent these past four years must have been so difficult. I’m surprised they didn’t all give up, considering his opinions of them and of himself. Where is that telescope when we need it? Small man indeed, Ken!

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