The President Shot Somebody in the Middle of Fifth Avenue

While I publish most of my stories in my weekly Substack newsletter, now and then I post a short work in Notes. I hope you enjoy this brief tale, The President Shot Somebody in the Middle of Fifth Avenue. This is a drabble, a story that’s exactly 100 words. 

The president roared, “Stop the car,” his words nearly shattering the limousine's five-inch-thick windows.

“Lou?” his wife asked. “Why are—?”

The president fled the limo, sprinted to a seven-foot-tall man wearing oversized sunglasses and a fedora crossing Fifth Avenue at 49th Street, removed a silver-plated pistol from his suit’s right pocket, and shot the man in the heart. Or where he thought the heart should be.

President Louis Saunders foresaw an inevitable impeachment, indictment, trial, conviction, and imprisonment. But he had to kill because nobody else would. And nobody could ever know: He stopped the alien invasion before it began.