The Life of Cronkite

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.


The prompts: This story must be written from the perspective (in the voice of) an animal.


The Life of Cronkite

Cronkite leaned on his horn. Dam traffic.

It had been a long day down at Henderson’s Log & River Works. The dam foreman had been riding his tail all day, literally. The small chipmunk with the white hard hat of a boss had taken a shine to Cronkite’s long flat tail. He loved sitting on the plank-like appendage as his underling towed him around the facility.

The foreman considered such treatment leadership. Cronkite thought that the chipmunk might look better strapped to the wet side of a dam log. Things at L&R had been better before Mr. Henderson had attended that dam lecture on diversity. Now everything had changed. In addition to the chipmunk foreman, they had a duck and a moose working on dam engineering. There was even a trout on the quality team. A dam trout! Heck, those things barely even had enough brain stem to remember to how to swim. What did they know about dams?

The traffic started to break up just as he reached his off-ramp. dam. A lot of good that does me now that I am almost home.

As usually, the dam street was littered with fallen trees. dam kids. When I was young, we knew how to pull those things off to the side of the road.

Celia was waiting for him at the door. She was the best thing in his life, setting aside her lack of cooking skills.

“Dam, girl! You look hot.”

“Oh Cronkite, you keep your dam hands to yourself,” she said playfully slapping his advances away.

“You go make yourself comfortable. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

He waddled in thinking, Please, please, please don’t let it be stew.

“What are you cooking, Sweetness?” he asked cautiously.

“Your favorite, tree bark stew.”

Damn.

Word count 298