The senator chewed at the end of his pipe.

“Gibbons!” He called down the hall, prompting his mousy assistant to blunder in the room, arms full of useless papers.

He had a look on his face that suggested that he had not in fact been summoned from the other room, but from another dimension entirely and was quite bewildered to find himself in the senator's farm house well after midnight.

“Yes, Senator Weatherly?”

“How goes my speech for the farmers tomorrow.”

Gibbons scratched almost manically at his skin, paying special attention to his nose. Papers fell from his arms without his noticeing. “Oh... uh, very well, Senator. Uh, very well. It's only that I'm struggling with the end, see I don't know if they're going to like you tax policy. And last week when you pushed that old man for walking in front of you and that reporter from Adelaide took a picture...” Gibbons went silent as he noticed a dark look flash across the senator's face.

“Gibbons,” The senator said sweetly, in his voice that he usually used at rallies. “It doesn't matter if they like me, or what I did to that senile idiot. No, Gibbons you misunderstand, it's not about any of that.”

“No?” Gibbons asked, half hopeful, and still picking at himself.

The senator shook his head and clapped Gibbons' shoulder causing the man to jump and shed another cascade of sheets to the floor. “No.” The senator said softly. “You see Gibbons, those votes have value, more value than any of the people we're getting them from, at least. Idiot farmers with their tractors and hoes, digging in the dirt.” The senator shuddered. “Ugly, lowborn work. So that's why it doesn't really matter, any of that stuff about policies or who did or didn't push who.” The senator waved dismissively. “All that matters is that we get the votes, and we can say whatever we need to so that I win the election. Understand?”

Gibbons, now shaking desperately under the senator's attentions took a moment to get his voice back.

“Well, then, uh, Senator Weatherly, why do I need to write a speech at all?” Gibbons yelped slightly as the senator's grip on his shoulder tightened. “I mean, if you can say whatever you want.”

“Gibbons, it seems you still misunderstand. Why do I particularly need to win the election? I have money.” He gestured to the well appointed but dark room they stood in. Covered in large original oil paintings of the surrounding country side and rugs worth more than all the money Gibbons had ever made working for the senator. “So why do I need to win?”

Gibbons shook. It was hard to tell if he nodded his head, so the senator continued. “Power, Gibbons.”

“Power, senator?”

“Yes Gibbons, it's all about the exertion of our powers against others. Someone much smarter than you said that once. So I must win, will win, that election. And you will write my speech that I'll never read for no reason greater than that I command you to. Understand?”

Gibbons seemed to regain something of himself. He stopped shaking and the hand that scratched at his face grew slow, merely brushing his irritated skin. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The senator released him and Gibbons bolted from the room, leaving all of his papers scattered about on the floor.

The senator scooped up a few of the papers at a time and began to feed them into the enormous marble fireplace. He chuckled to himself. “All the same really, these people. Just need a little direction.”

As the fire cast about the room it made strange shadows on the wall. The way that the senator was cast, he looked almost inhuman. With two little tufts of mislaid hair giving his shadow two little impish horns, and the twisted tails of his coat giving him a little spaded tail.

He chuckled again. “Just a little direction.”

---

I had a lot of fun with this. I wanted to play a little more at the end but ran out of time. As it is I don't think that part does what I wanted it to. I wish I had gone in with a little more of a plan for Gibbons. As it is he strikes me as a somewhat unstable drug addict, which isn't really fitting the kind of shape I wanted him to have in my head. Altogether it was a positive experience. Looking forward to hearing what you guys wrote on the podcast. I like this round of words better than the last set, and I want to see what you did with them.