27 August 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2477: the home front
“Listen, the Lofton Trust is not the cleanup case for when y'all do not listen and blow your finances up – we've got enough to deal with on the home front with Covid-19 going on to not even think about being bothered with you taking in Trojan Horses marked 1864. Nothing in Lofton County is 'too big to fail,' so your insurance company can go on and fail, and when you are completely bankrupt, we may buy the pieces that we want, and not be bothered with you and the other leadership that let yourself be taken in by the Bernie Madoff of Lofton County. Y'all are rich and smart and superior and all that. You were at an event and even said about me, on September 18, 2019, at exactly 6:18pm, that 'we ain't gotta hear from none of the crazy mountain set of Lees.' You will ever speak to me again in life if I have anything to say about it, so y'all figure it out.”
“You know, Col. Lee stayed calm this time,” eleven-year-old Velma Trent said, “but that was Angel-of-Death-level calm.”
“He really doesn't need to say anything but a memorable no,” Velma's grandfather Thomas Stepforth Sr. said. “We are witnessing history of the worst kind in Lofton County, which can't afford $11.5 billion being lifted out of here right now – and yet, it's gone. It's going to get worse before it gets better for the county.”
“Look, though – here's Grayson, because – Grayson, we need help and you're into engineering,” nine-year-old Milton Trent said. “How do you even lift a bag of $11.5 billion to fumble it – I mean, what kind of engine does that take?”
Six-year-old Grayson Ludlow from next door looked at the little red wagon of Legos he had brought with him.
“Way more than that,” he said, “because even if that was all Lego engines, still, that's gotta be a big bag by itself, and we gotta have clamps and stuff to attach. Maybe that's why they fumbled it.”
“Maybe,” Milton said. “That actually makes sense – if you don't get the bag secured, it doesn't really matter what you put in it.”
“The other thing is,” Grayson said, “you might want to actually load that into trucks instead, because you gotta get the bag, and then that's way bigger than a Lego crane, and then you gotta think about the skyscrapers you may hit swinging that thing around, and then some streets are not as wide.”
“But how do you fumble a truck?” Milton said.
“That's just it,” Grayson said. “Right tool for the right job. Maybe they fumbled the bag because they shouldn't have been using a bag anyway.”
“Oh,” Milton and Velma said.
“Right tool for the right job, with the right people handling it – you know you're hired, Grayson, whenever you get your engineering degree done,” Mr. Stepforth said.
“Just know I'm coming for it, as soon as I can,” Grayson said. “I need a few more Lego sets, first.”