Lenny and the Underwater World

Lenny takes an instant dislike to the woman his mother hires to teach him piano. But he realizes the situation is far, far worse when a piano arrives and the strangest things happen…"Midterms" was my entry in NPR’s Round Nine of their occasional feature, “Three Minute Fiction,” in which they invite listeners to submit an original, unpublished story of 600 or fewer words which fulfills a condition set by that Round’s author-judge. In this case, each story had to “reference a U.S. President, real or fictional.” Inasmuch as the day before the September 23 submission deadline was the 150th anniversary of one of our history’s most momentous—and politically shrewd—decisions, I felt dutybound to indulge that reality. My conceit: What if that “game-changer” presented itself in an electoral environment like today’s?