The Day it Finally Happened
speculative fiction
It was in the morning. Big, jet black lettering rang like a siren around the globe. An announcement so loud and pronounced, it brought the morning commutes to a sudden halt. Some would call it the story of the century.
Heart attack?
Car crash?
Rogue gunman?
Doesn't really matter all that much, does it?
Couldn't have happened to a worse man.
Good riddance.
I hope it was anything but peaceful.
What soon followed was an overwhelming wave of relief. It was finally over. All of it. The decade long saga, seemingly without end, a machiavellian takeover meant to cheapen and demoralize human life, to hoard and hoard what they haven't already destroyed, gloating and sneering at those less fortunate as they're stripped of all dignity and autonomy.
The putrid, alabaster heart at the center beat mightily like a drum; seeing families ripped apart and communities set ablaze, laughing as it blew holes into its own apparatus to watch its passengers sink. Today, this heart stopped beating. And everybody could finally breathe.
The television news did their best to remain civil. You can only hide joy for so long. The suits in Washington were less amused, puttering in about "smooth transitions" and "national grieving." Clearly unable to read the room. Across the country, every neighborhood, borough, and community made preparations.
Giant, plastic grocery bags of snacks dumped onto kitchen counters and dining room tables across the country. Potato chips, cheese puffs, sugar cookies, various fruits, vegetables, and cocktail shrimps. Two liter bottles of soda pop, handles of liquor. Everybody's favorite beer.
But the most important ingridient was music. The night will not be silent. Playlists with obvious, uninspired picks: Born in the USA, American Pie, Bombs Over Bagdhad, American Idiot, just to name a few. And of course, the Star Spangled Banner to be played at the end of the night, while everybody is too drunk to stand. And they will sing. By god, they will sing. Tears in their eyes, draped in the flag's color, recognizing the moment of history they're currently living through. But it's all theater.
A father sits quietly in a makeshift detention center 15 miles from the southern border, nervously waiting to be sent from his family to a place that was never his home. In Ocala, Florida a seventeen year old girl massages her pregnant belly, the permanent reminder of a once trustworthy Algebra teacher, the next three months uncertain. And what about the young man in Salt Lake City? Trapped in his own skin, he looks in the mirror every day and sees a woman he was never meant to be.
Echoing through the annals of this country, the alabaster heart beat continues to murmur. It poisons the blood; a milky venomous sludge polluting the vein. The same poison that conquered the first to call this land home. It travels through mountains, through plains, all the way to the foamy seashores. It is still here, it was always here, it will be here.
But right now, there is music. And in the streets, they will dance. The music is deafening and they are dancing. The ship continues to sink and there are no more life rafts. But for now, they will dance.