Title: Death Of A Turnip
Word: archbishop
Challenger: Andy Salzman
Length: 200 words exactly
“It is a pity,” said the archbishop to the local vicar, as they entered the church, “that despite parliamentary draftsmen spending their lives ensuring clarity, no-one has managed to codify via any legislature the law of unintended consequences.”
He viewed his current predicament as a perfect example of the rule; he had not intended to stay the night with this vicar, but his car had skidded on some root vegetables upon the road, and had gently collided with a tree. The local vicar had asked him to stay and offered him the opportunity to deliver the sermon the following day.
He walked to the front of the church, consulted some notes and began, planning to recount his misadventures.
“Consider the turnip,” said the archbishop, and the members of the congregation shifted in their seats and looked uneasily at each other.
“I say again, consider the turnip,” repeated the archbishop, and then he paused at the obvious hostility beginning to become apparent.
Once he’d told them it was his car that had crushed the turnip, his fate was set. They were an old church, ancient with their own customs. One did not simply murder a turnip and expect to escape justice.
© Lee Barnett, 2013
This is the seventeenth story in The Twenty-Four Hour Fast Fiction Challenge. There will be seven more stories… Sponsor me to complete them!
budgie's perch 