Beltway Gremlin – New Fiction Writing by R. L. Saunders

Indecision has been known to kill people. In politics, it just makes fund-raising harder.

That’s why we gremlins love the politicians. When they built Washington on our swamp, we got the best deal out of it.

Us and the faerie-folk.

Until then, we only had the natives and the migrant colonists to work with. Influencing their minds and helping them to live more “interesting” lives.”

But when they paved over that swamp and replaced it with all sorts of statuary, and homes and lots of unelected bureaucrats, then the fun began.

It’s said that the Beltway changes people. No – they are all listening to us – and changing their minds, constantly. Just to keep from going crazy..

Beltway Gremlin – New Fiction Writing by R. L. Saunders

Excerpt:

Let’s be clear: Gremlins bring out the worst in humans. They make them say the “darnedest” things. Because humans are often more like children than adults. All that poppycock about brains “maturing” is more gremlin-speak for having parents who were sheltered and spoiled as children raising spoiled children of their own who also can’t determine fact from dreams or from opinion.

There. I said it. Even fairies like me have to stomp our pretty feet at times.

Not that it bothers gremlins. It only bothers humans to be “wrong” about something or to not get their “way.”

And our job as fairies to to bring out the best in humans. So we work to balance the gremlins as we both ride on the shoulders of our selected humans. All around the Washington Beltway.

If you can see us “faerie-folk” you can probably see the gremlins, too – they are just on a different wavelength. We’re both over-talking the other at the same time. Over-shouting, in many cases.

That’s the stupid, blank looks you see on TV. Deer in the headlights. Non-sequitur responses when people are interviewed. Losing their “train of thought.” Even going so far as quoting song lyrics as statistically-proved facts. (I think Meat Loaf still holds the record for direct quotes to support the senator’s arguments.)

Not that they don’t have a lot of actors there (regardless of any witness’s ability to swoon the press.) In general, it seems that if you had a character that ended in -er, like “Gopher” or “Cooter” you had a better chance at a nationwide office. (And this doesn’t include so many who made the transition just up to or beyond local May-or, like Salvato-re Bono) And having a president with an acting background seems to help on the campaign. Apparently, the more movies you’ve been in, the more Republican you get…

All this constant play against the Gremlins has made my own otherwise light-hearted responses a bit sarcastic, so I apologize.

We fairies often have to take breaks in Statuary hall, and read the inscriptions on the buildings around Washington, just to get our balance back. Something like the observation – that you become like the five people you most associate with. So we try to rotate our staff occasionally.

It’s unfortunate that the humans cannot “tag-team” their position.

This is what makes their infection become more permanent.

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