Infinities
Chapter one: Prelude to madness
The year was 2020.
Millions of people had already been infected with a new strain of the virus.
We were shut away in our homes trying to make it to that magical first Tuesday of November.
We risked our lives all summer marching in the streets trying to change the country, striving for racial justice. Each time we inhaled we risked being afflicted with the virus. We marched, we sung, we cried in the streets for Jubilation and Justice.
But that ended when the president sent tanks to Portland. We had questions before then of course. Unsettling reports of unmarked vans kidnapping people off the streets in the middle of the day. Families up and leaving in the middle of the night without warning. That horrible accident with the military flyover in Georgia. The gassing of protesters in Layfette square. But all of those could be explained away as accidents or mishaps. But when they disbanded the Portland National Guard and sent in tanks to end the protests it was impossible to ignore. They set half the city on fire just to arrest 300 people. They sued the protesters for damages the tanks caused. They chose the protest with the whitest population to make an example out of them.
There were pictures of the tanks driving over a man, this was quickly taken down. The pictures of the tanks with “Race traitors to the front” and Nazi flags lasted a few days longer.
The President issued a directive in a live broadcast urging citizens to stay home, and called for police departments across the nation to end the American carnage. His attorney general detailed the new powers being granted to local departments: funding of course, military surplus without question. But also warrantless wiretaps, a 90 day suspension of congressional oversight, nationwide curfews. Any police department that refused to play ball would lose funding. Not a single department blinked, sure a handful of officers asked for desk detail. A few even quit. Most told themselves they had no choice. For some reason no one on T.V. pointed out that we were right to march. For some reason they blamed us for this unprecedented action.
Predictably Police departments across the nation stepped up their brutality, Kettling became routine. Unmasked officers used threats of long nights with Covid positive inmates to elicit confessions. Prosecutors started to push for higher sentences. Judges refused to dismiss cases, holding hundreds of people in jail cells without a charge.
We agreed to pause the marches and fight in the courts until the election.
Without people marching in the street, the news returned to pretending everything was normal.
We caught occasional snippets of horrifying news, but honestly I couldn’t tell you any of it now- or if it could break through to pierce my hardened heart at this late date.
No matter, hope was on the horizon.
We were 15 days out from the election, our guy was winning. It was as close to a sure thing as could be expected given the circumstances.
We were supposed to win the House, and the Senate, there were even rumors that the Senate would be shamed into holding open the vacant Supreme Court seat until the next inauguration.
CNN talked about a 42 state sweep, commentators were joking about where all the Texans would emigrate to when Texas went blue.
This would just be a bad chapter on our way back to greatness, everyone agreed.
The polls agreed, polite society agreed, I agreed.
I voted for him the first day of mail in ballots. I broke curfew and went door to door urging others to do the same. I cold called strangers to remind them to register to vote. I argued online for this man at 1AM in the morning, convincing members of that despicable party join me in voting for… Damn what was his name again?
He was another guy promising to deliver us from an evil person while promising to keep the evil system.
Another guy who managed to beat people who had better ideas than him.
Another small step forward for white men, another giant leap for corporations.
Mr. Uninspiring. Mr. Could be worse. Mr. help us regain our sanity. Mr. Please win this election and save us from fascism.
And I can’t even tell you the man’s name anymore.
I can tell you that 15 days before the election I fell asleep to the news anchor saying “Record superstorms brewing on the east coast, this could make landfall anywhere from Canada and FL. No telling how bad the damage will be but experts agree that we are looking at flooding and high wind. Governors from the affected states have all declared a state of emergency.
The president could not be reached for comment”.
A storm was brewing, but a storm was always brewing in FL.
Why would we care about this one? I closed my eyes, I’m convinced I never woke up. That there is still hope.
Maybe we were fools to ever hope. Maybe hope was just another unrealistic American dream.
End of Chapter one.
Authors note — This is original writing, some events and character depictions are of course based on 21st Century America however this is a fictional reimagining of events that we are still learning about and living through. This should serve as a reminder that we were not far off from the events depicted, and that we can descend into fascism quite easily. Things could have been worse, but that doesn’t mean we should minimize the 500,000 Covid deaths at the time of this publishing. Or the hundreds of people harmed by law enforcement in the summer uprisings in 2020. Or the failed insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6th. Or any number of things that we will learn in the coming weeks and years about what happened in 2020. Things were (and still are) bad.
