Harwick: Small Town, Large Voice

Written for Muse On Monday. David asks us
to write a story where something is caught on
camera. Here’s where the prompt took me.

Mayor Dennis Podell had rehearsed his speech for weeks and polished his personality until is gleamed. The mint green blazer …. his “power jacket,” he called it …. had been dry-cleaned twice. He’d even practiced his “thoughtful statesman” hand gesture in the bathroom mirror.

Everything was going perfectly.

Then Gary happened.

From somewhere in the third row, Gary Hutchins …. who had opinions about everything in Harwick, Minnesota, population 4,218 …. shot out of his chair like a man who’d sat on a wasp. Finger pointed, mouth open, wife already cringing beside him.

Dennis Podell kept speaking. He was a professional …. with gleaming personality.

What Podell had not accounted for was Channel 5. Specifically, the Channel 5 cameraman, who had swung his enormous lens away from the mayor mid-sentence and was now capturing Gary’s magnificent meltdown in living color.

Police Chief Robert Butler, seated at the panel table, stared straight ahead with the thousand-yard look of a man who had seen everything in thirty years on the force.

Michael Macasero, Town Administrator, quietly slid his coffee cup an inch further away, establishing plausible deniability from whatever was about to happen.

The banner on the wall read: YOUR TOWN. YOUR VOICE. YOUR FUTURE.

Gary was certainly using his voice.

The clip, naturally, went viral by 9pm. “HARWICK MAN LOSES IT” racked up 2.3 million views. Gary’s sister texted him from Arizona. His high school gym teacher texted him from Florida.

Mayor Dennis Podell’s mint green blazer received seventeen separate compliments in the comments.

At the follow-up meeting the next week, Gary arrived early, sat in the front row, and kept both hands firmly in his lap.

The Channel 5 cameraman set up directly behind him, just in case.

NAR©2026

This is “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour

Muse on Monday – June 1, 2026

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}