The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race by J. G. Ballard (Ambit #29, 1966)1 does what the title promises:
Oswald was the starter.
From his window above the track he opened the race by firing the starting gun. It is believed that the first shot was not properly heard by all the drivers. In the following confusion Oswald fired the gun two more times, but the race was already under way.
Kennedy got off to a bad start.
The rest of this short piece provides a number of oblique observations about this historical event:
[It] has been suggested that the hostile local crowd, eager to see a win by the home driver Johnson, deliberately set out to stop [Kennedy] completing the race. Another theory maintains that the police guarding the track were in collusion with the starter, Oswald.
The final observation, “Who loaded the starting gun?”, is an effective finish.
I thought this was a striking piece when I first read it many years ago, but it is one that is bound to have less of an effect the second time around.
*** (Good). 700 words. Story link.
1. This piece (which was inspired by Alfred Jarry’s The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race) was reprinted in New Worlds #171, March 1967.