I awoke to the usual on this February morning, coffee, snow and watching state-run television. I miss the days of looking at the Weather Channel with some homespun weather person giving a humorous perspective of daily barometric pressures or possible storms emanating from the belly of the Plains. I relish the memory of those afternoons listening to NPR, and a refreshing view of the world from late night BBC broadcasts. Now I sit and watch as pundits and news heads deliver only what has been written. They speak only talking points from bulleted scripts written in a backroom of the White House.
I guess the attempt to blow up said White House by factions of the Liberation Party didn’t sit too well with the White Nationalist Party. I mean, I get the whole issue of learning to live in a fascist state, but blowing up government buildings ideally should result in those parties in those buildings going away.
Since the revolution began two years ago, I haven’t been able to visit California since it seceded or Texas since it became the gulag and gas chamber of the many. Once the Western Wall rounded the Baja and made its way along the western side of Arizona, Nevada and Idaho, I don’t hear or see what goes on in my family’s homes near San Francisco. Radio Free America set up shop somewhere in Seattle from what I can tell. They speak to pleasantries among the islands and along Port Angeles. I smile when I can get through the internet and radio jamming that seems to get stronger every year.
I can’t find solace like I used to when I’d enjoy the shores of Lake Michigan at the western edge of my northern enclave since they’ve receded as new wells and drainage viaducts take water to what was once Nebraska and Kansas. Unfortunately for them that Keystone pipeline rupture really did a number on their water. Once the Ogallala went awry, all they had was dust. Outright dwarfed the dust bowl of the Great Depression. But that new state of Nathan, where Nebraska and Kansas used to be, truly is aptly named after Nathan Bedford Forrest. After all, it was he who first put on a hood and advocated the killing of the blacks after the Civil War. West of Nathan now sits the Territory of Bannon. A no man’s land filled with only military fending off the Liberation Party.
I do wonder where they’ve all gone? The people of non-Templar decent. Only seeing and interacting with Caucasians of the Christian Warriors of Templar I can only attempt to recollect the diversity I once knew and cherished. In fact, my black son-in-law and my daughter were the first of the family out once they could get through Canada and over and around the Western Wall. That skirmish of Canadian and Nationalist troops was a short one north of Lake Superior. That Northern Wall is only now under construction. Hope my daughter is well.
I miss my wife most of all. As a local government councilwoman in 2017, she was one of the first to be shipped off to Texas. I couldn’t get to her through the barricades and armed guards as the first trucks left from what used to be City Hall. I’ve been lonely. The kids kept trying to tell us what was happening, but we wouldn’t believe them. Grateful they all made it. Where, I may never know, but at least they made the best of their chances. I stare at their pictures through the faint light from upstairs as it filters through the old wooden floor.
I get claustrophobic sitting in my studio under the floorboards of my house. So far, I’ve been lucky to miss the door-to-door inspections. At first, they were random for those who wouldn’t show for Sunday services, but now if anyone even looks suspicious, the gendarmes come knocking. I smile and give the appropriate salutes then come home and write, hoping someday someone will find these notes and look back with surprise that we actually devolved into this era.
2017 came and went so fast, by the time 2020 arrived it was too late for elections or any other means to bring back the good ole’ days. That’s when the revolution violently took hold. FOX State Media says the Nationalists are winning on all fronts, but I’m not so sure. The rationed groceries and lack of fuel in the North lead me to believe things aren’t going all that well. Unless you’re one of the Populist Intermediaries. They get the good stuff. I watch out the windows as the armored trucks bring them boxes of food, wine and what looks to be newspapers. Boy, how I miss the papers. If you’re not among the Populists, you get a Daily Sheet in your mailbox with some headlines written by Breitbart International. And it’s so painful going to the internet after you’ve smuggled in the encryption software that eludes the jammers. Everywhere else in the world peace has erupted as the siege takes hold of this united Nationalist Masada.
I’ve struggled with what else to call my new country. Well, not my country. I was too naive to see what was coming. I was too late in making a last-ditch effort to ask for deportation among the other religions and people of non-Templar DNA. But that is what’s kept me alive. When we all had to line up and give DNA samples before either deportation or being exiled to Texas, I knew my ethnicity and Templar roots would shelter me from the worst. Besides, with my late-stage cancer and no allowable health care, I figured what the hell. Once I met the mandate of no-care due to the expense, I abdicated for peace and sanity in my own little realm. Maybe my Lake Michigan electronic scrolls will some day match those of the Dead Sea. That is my death wish.
On that note, I’m not sure how much longer this old laptop can survive. It’s been years since I could obtain a battery for my state-allowed computer and hook it up to my Rube Goldberg mechanism to heist the juice and keep my own machine running.
Wait, I hear footsteps.
An Update from the Future: free flowing trepidations No. 672, February 26, 2022
May 4, 2017
stewert james
The Author
An author with a story. Living in a quiet Northern Michigan community, nestled into a serene Lake Michigan bay, James writes to the rhythms of current events mixed with romanticism and experience that can only be found by living the same adventures. Whether it’s a provocative story line or blog, this website will certainly take you beyond the keyboard.
Nice writing, Mister! What a nasty picture you painted so well for us. I almost stopped and listened for footsteps when I read the last line. I wish I believed it could never happen here, but things have truly gotten scary.