I didn't love her at first, but I quickly grew to tolerate her. She was a force. She whipped the tops of the trees when she left the house. And she was never comfortable inside. I would find her, late at night, curled up under the moon, making puppy noises in her sleep.
When the fire started, I couldn't find her. I could sense that she was gone. I stood in the damp grass and watched that old wooden house burn to the ground.
She came back a few weeks later, but it was never the same. She was haunted in a new way. She trusted no one.
Not even me.
Reserving for Mader.
ReplyDeleteWhoa. Powerful. And great images!
DeleteThis is one of my absolute favourites of Dan's. Something ineffable and sad at its heart.
DeleteThe mood was glum around the table in the back corner of the out-of-the-way restaurant. Beverages of choice were sipped with little conversation; another toast was raised to the memory of the thirty-ninth president. Finally, the meeting was called to order.
ReplyDelete“Old business?” Forty-four asked.
“I got some old business right here,” said Forty-six, the newest member of the group.
“Me, too,” said Forty-two with a lift of his eyebrows, which got a jab in the elbow from his wife, honorary member Forty-three and a half.
Forty-four gave them the serious eyes.
“Fine,” said the man from Delaware. “I extended the invitation for honorary membership to her under the moniker Forty-six and a half. She…declined. Respectfully, so let the record report.”
Forty-three and a half looked aghast. “We’re not keeping actual records, are we?”
“It’s an expression.”
“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Forty-four said. He’d heard a lot lately about women taking a break from politics. Especially the women in his own family. I am so done with this, she’d said to him before leaving for Hawaii. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder if she was ever coming back.
“I did miss Michelle at Jimmy Carter’s funeral,” Forty-three said. “Brought a bunch of extra hard candy just in case.”
“Can we get back to our agenda?” Forty-four said. Sounding more snappish and testy than he liked to.
“Sorry,” the man from Texas said. “Old business. Unfortunately, my time-travel escapade with Dr. Franklin didn’t work out the way I intended. I’d hoped 2021 Mitch McConnell would vote to convict on the second impeachment and keep our orange adversary out of the White House. Seems certain parties didn’t keep their agreements.”
“Bad intelligence?” Forty-two quipped. Silence. “What, too soon?”
“New business,” Forty-three and a half said, cutting off her husband. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
Forty-four leaned back in his chair and scrubbed a hand over his face. Lately he’d been wondering if the Council had outlived its utility. He often felt like Wile E. Coyote failing at his repeated attempts to catch the Road Runner. Just running straight into the side of a rock every time.
“Are we all wasting our time here?” he asked the group.
Four pairs of eyes stared blankly back at him. Then the man from Delaware said, “Why, did you accept an invitation to go down to Mar-a-lago?”
“No, and never,” he said. “I mean, think of the hubris. That we, forged in our vows to uphold the Constitution, should be going against what the people voted for. If this is what the people want, then maybe…this is what the people want. And the best we can hope for is that those currently in power will be guided by their better angels.”
“Angels, my ass,” the man from Texas said. He let out a long sigh, dropped his gaze to the ice cubes floating in his Diet Coke. “His ‘guiding principle,’ if it can be called that, comes from the opposite direction. And I happen to know that for a fact.”
“Well, yeah,” Forty-four said. “That he’s not a choir boy isn’t exactly breaking news.”
Delete“Wait,” Forty-three and a half said. “What do you mean, ‘know that for a fact.’”
Forty-three’s eyes slid left, then right, then lowered his voice. “He’s made a…deal.”
“Deal?” Forty-two said, laughing. “Like in ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’? Man, if that were even possible, I’d give selling my soul a think or two.”
“I only wish I was joking,” Forty-two said. “Reason I know about is that, well, I made a deal too.”
Dead silence fell. Then Forty-two explained. That he wanted redemption for what had happened during his two terms as president. The bad intelligence. The bad decisions. The whole “Mission Accomplished” business. A being calling himself Lucifer had offered him that redemption, while he was having a weak moment, for a price, and he accepted. That same Lucifer told him that the only living ex-president who will never be a member of the Council had made a deal, too.
“I knew it,” Forty-three and a half said, eyes narrowing.
“Come on,” Forty-four said. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you? The devil is not real.”
“Sadly, I am not, and he is most assuredly real.” He drew in a breath. “But I don’t believe we are completely out of options, here. See, I bargained my way out of the deal by offering certain services to humanity. So these deals have the potential to be reversed.”
Forty-four raised his brow. “Wait. If I’m understanding you correctly, the devil is open to negotiation?”
“Basically,” George said. “Although it will have to be one juicy worm to dangle in front of him, because Donald is, in Lucifer’s own words, his favorite toy.”
“Undoubtedly,” Forty-three and a half said. “But what could we even offer in exchange? How many politicians haven’t already sold their souls?”
Reluctant hands went up around the table. “Hypocrites,” Forty-three and a half said. “Every last one of you. And I should know.”
After a long pause, during which each member of the group eyed each other with trepidation, Forty-four cleared his throat. “Look. Politics is what it is. We play the game. But I cannot in any kind of good conscience live out the rest of my days worrying about what shenanigans he might pull to bring about the end of democracy as we know it. Especially with this new information that he might have supernatural help. This is serious WTF territory here. And I…well, I am plumb out of ideas.”
“I can take him.”
“Hill. How?”
“Because he’s a bully, like the Orange Menace. Which means he’s a coward. Which means he’ll fold like a cheap suit if a woman stands up to him. Tell me something, George. You’ve met the guy. Does he have a single woman in his organization?”
“Uh. None that I can think of. Frankly I’d kind of assumed—” He went red in the face from her ice-cold stare.
“That he already owned me?”
“Um. No, ma’am.”
She stood from the table. Whipped out her phone. Punched in a number then said, “Get me my fighting heels. We ride at dawn.”
Is there a genre called wish fulfilment? A different vibe, yet it reminds me of Tarantino in that way. And it's cinematic too.
DeleteThanks, David! "Wish fulfillment political satire..." I like that,.
DeleteIt definitely works!
DeleteA tribute of sorts.
ReplyDelete_________________
“I’m here to see Dorothy. A woman in trouble.”
A dark-suited man is eating a slice of cherry pie. He's fastidious. The diner staff are beautiful, but he’s too well mannered to stare.
“She isn’t here.”
Each year, the logging trucks pass with their downed haul increasingly twiglike. Soon we’ll be building homes with matchsticks and kindling.
“When will she be here?”
A daylight owl traces its parabola among the conifers. Who cooks for you? Watch for the Canadians; they will hurt you.
“Not for a while.”
Bobby has his eye on that snakeskin jacket. Don’t stop. Don’t wait up.
“But I’ve been told I have to see her.”
Southwise, the winds and the drought make cruel companions, like Bittaker and Norris, Bianchi and Buono. Fire walk with us along the boulevard of broken dreams.
“I’m sorry.”
A muted trumpet leading a sad jazz figure a slow dance through the detritus of an alleyway. You expect clowns. Sad ones. You don’t get clowns. But you do get mimes. No hay banda.
“Can you tell me where she is?”
“Seattle.”
The Emerald City.
“Seattle?”
“Yes.”
Follow the Yellowhead Highway not the Highway of Tears. Mulholland not Sunset.
“Well, that’s not far. Tell her I’ll find her in Seattle.”
“Okay.”
Will someone please quiet that diseased and limbless thing? Its ovine cries will bring the tender heart of every smalltown Clarice. We will have to make a choice too terrible to imagine.
“This is good coffee.”
Someone is in trouble.
“Thanks.”
Something bad is happening.
“I’ll be on my way.”