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November 4, 2012 President Agnew is tired after his daily briefing and ready to watch a re-run of The Love Boat. Next to his glass of jug wine on the kitchen table rests The Football, an old scuffed Detroit Lions model. He refuses to go anywhere without it.

Summary

• Three-Minute Fiction Round 9 Challenge
• Three-Minute Fiction Round 9 Winner

November 4, 2012 After six weeks and nearly 4,000 stories, we've reached the end of Round 9 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest, where we ask listeners to come up with an original short story that can be read in about three minutes. This round's judge, novelist Brad Meltzer, has chosen the winner.

Transcript

On All Things ConsideredPlaylist

• 'The Dauphin' By Marc Sheehan
• Three-Minute Fiction Round 9: Pick A President
• Three-Minute Fiction Round 9 Official Rules

November 1, 2012 I'll tell you this: I had wanted this thing, really wanted it, almost the whole time I was running. I say almost, because at first I thought I couldn't win.

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October 28, 2012 It was to be her fifth State of the Union address. Under other circumstances, her history of past oratorical success would have calmed her nerves. The speech was well-written, quite possibly her best ever. But her delivery would cross a new frontier.

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October 28, 2012 Two years after faking his death, Warren Gamaliel Harding moved into a little bordello off the Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris. He figured it was the last place on earth that anyone would look for a former president of the United States, even if they discovered the coffin in the Ohio tomb was full of ballast.

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October 27, 2012 He had hoped that getting close to it would steady his heart. It had been rolling like a drum all day, a relentless build with no release. Padding blindly forward, the density of the thick turf caused him to stumble slightly, but he caught himself and kept going. As if it hadn't happened.

Summary