A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom

by John Boyne

  “NASA’s budget got slashed under the Obama administration,” he told me with a shrug. “Mr. Trump wants to put people on other planets.”

  “He can start with himself,” I said. “I’d pay for him to move to Mars.”

  “Obama didn’t like the space program because he’s a Muslim from Ethiopia,” said Unwin.

  “Okay, first off, he isn’t a Muslim from Ethiopia,” I said, “so you already lose your argument by saying that. And anyway what you meant to say is that he’s a Muslim from Kenya, but he’s not even from Kenya, he’s from Hawaii, which, last time I checked, is part of the United States. And he’s not a Muslim. But even if he was a Muslim from Kenya or Ethiopia, which he isn’t, why on earth would that prejudice him against the space program?”

  “We don’t know the answer to that yet,” she replied. “It’ll have something to do with the Illuminati, I expect. Mr. Trump will find out once he’s in the Oval Office. He’s going to dismantle everything Obama ever did and kick out the immigrants.”

  “His own mother was an immigrant!” I shouted. “And if he hates immigrants so much, why the hell does he keep marrying them?”

  “He’s promised to increase our funding,” said Raymond. “He’s a man of ambition. Under him, we could go anywhere.”

  “Great,” I said. “So he’s going to make Jupiter great again, too.”

  “It’s perfectly possible,” said Raymond.

  “We’re taking back our country,” said Unwin.

  “From who?” I asked. “The nasty black man?”

  “And all his Muslim friends.”

  I looked around the room. There were five of us there and only one, only I, had voted for Hillary. For a moment, I experienced a quick burst of concern. The country couldn’t possibly be as insane as the people in my living room, could it? But I shook my head, laughing at my own stupidity. No, of course not. The idea was crazy.

  Hillary came on the screen again.

  “Lock her up!” they shouted in unison.

  * * *

  • • •

  The election had come at the end of a difficult few months for me. The publishing house where I worked as an editor had released a novel earlier in the year by a gay Muslim woman and, although it hadn’t received a lot of attention at first, it had gone on to win a prestigious literary award, leading to an organization calling themselves the Coalition for Traditional American Values announcing a boycott of any bookstore that stocked the novel, saying that it was insulting that a prize should be denied to an American author and given instead to an immigrant with “questionable ties” to “a troubling organization in Syria,” for which there was, of course, absolutely no evidence.

  On the campaign trail, Trump himself had been asked about the controversy and he’d remarked that it was the kind of novel that Crooked Hillary would probably take with her on vacation. Asked whether he’d read it himself, he shrugged and said, “Look, I’ve read all the books, okay? There’s probably no one who’s read more books than I have so I know all about this,” which didn’t really answer the question, but that didn’t appear to matter to anyone.

  A week later, at a reading in a bookstore in Philadelphia, an obese red-hatted man had walked in, pulled out a gun and taken a shot at the author—missing her, fortunately, but destroying a display of Maude Avery reissues and a tall pile of Danny Angel novels—before being wrestled to the ground and arrested. Again, Trump had been asked to comment and he’d nodded and jutted out his lower lip like a petulant child before saying, “From what I understand, he’s a very good man. And I think maybe the writer herself has made some provocative statements in the past. So I don’t think we should be too quick to judge him.”

  Naturally, the publishing house had put out a statement condemning what the candidate had said, but this had, in turn, led to a backlash in middle America, with people threatening to burn all our books in the streets, while the author herself, a mild-mannered lady whose novel was an inoffensive tale of caring for a relative with Alzheimer’s, had been forced into hiding, with the FBI stating that a number of serious threats had been made against her life.

  And this was just a minor incident compared to everything else that had been going on in the country. I was pretty sure that, by this point, everyone was exhausted. The right and the left. We just wanted all of this to be over. None of us could take any more of the tweets, the vulgarities and the name-calling. Even the right-wing commentators looked as if they were looking forward to the result being called. Peace would, at last, be restored. Sanity, too. And we’d never have to deal with such a vile human being again. Trump and his like would be sent into exile and the world could return to a semblance of normality. We just had a few hours to go.

  * * *

  • • •

  “I’m almost sorry now that I didn’t go to New York,” I said, as I watched Kellyanne Conway pursing her lips and insisting that Trump had never had the support of the Republican infrastructure. Well, of course he didn’t. The Republicans might have been nuts but they weren’t crazy.

  “Why?” asked Joe.

  “It would be nice to be at the Javits Center tonight,” I told him. “To watch Hillary’s victory speech live. It’s history in the making.”

  “It would be a wasted trip,” said Zoe. “She won’t be making any speech. Other than a concession speech, that is.”

  I sighed. “You keep telling yourself that if it makes you happy,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the first polls closed and the news anchors burst into life. After hours of speculation, they could stop repeating themselves endlessly and share some hard news. Trump had taken Kentucky and Indiana, while Hillary had won Vermont.

  “Two–one,” said Unwin.

  “Well, they’re not surprises,” I said. “Everyone expected him to win those states. Kentucky hasn’t gone blue since Clinton in ’96 and Indiana went for Romney last time.”

  “Still,” said Joe. “It’s a good start for our guy.”

  “Your guy,” I said.

  Not long after that, West Virginia also went to Trump.

  “Also not a surprise,” I said.

  “MAGA,” said Zoe.

  “MAGA,” replied Joe.

  “MAGA!” shouted Unwin.

  “MAGA,” declared Raymond, and I glared at him.

  “I’m sorry!” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But I’m part of the space program. I want funding!”

  “But isn’t that the problem here?” I asked. “This is what that idiot wants. People to vote based entirely on self-interest. With no thought for the rest of the country. It’s always about putting the individual ahead of the community.”

  “MAGA,” said all four together.

  “Christ on a bike,” I muttered, shaking my head.

  Another hour passed, more states closed their polls, and I breathed a sigh of relief as Hillary took Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and the District of Columbia.

  “Ha!” I said, and the rest of them just looked uninterested.

  “You know she’s at the center of a pedophilia ring, don’t you?” said Zoe. “And that she has personally murdered children? And she shot Vince Foster? And she burned a flag? And she speaks fluent Klingon? And she has six fingers on her left hand? Also, she’s never said where she was on the day that Kennedy was shot.”

  “Well, since she was about sixteen years old I’d imagine she was in school,” I said. “And none of those things are true anyway. I mean, there must be millions of photographs out there of her hands, for one thing, and she has the regulation number of fingers.”

  “That’s what people like Donna Brazile and Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett want you to believe. But the truth is, she has six.”

  “She has five.”

  “Actually, she has four,” said Raymond. “Four fingers and
a thumb.”

  “It’s going to be so great when all the Mexicans are thrown out,” said Unwin, tucking into the burrito she’d brought that was helping to mask her own peculiar fragrance. “They’re just awful people.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why are they awful people? What have they ever done to you?”

  “They’re killing us economically,” she replied. “The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” She paused for a moment to pull a piece of corn out from between her teeth. “And some, I assume, are good people.”

  “You’re just quoting him!” I yelled. “You’re quoting him directly from that first day when he rode the escalator down to say he was running for President.”

  “I have eighteen of his speeches memorized,” said Unwin proudly. “When he gives his inaugural address, I’m going to get it tattooed onto my back.”

  “Well, you’ll have a bare back, then,” I said. “Because he won’t be giving any inaugural address.”

  But then the anchors started to talk about Florida. How could it be so close there, they wondered? The candidates seemed to be tied at the moment and it was looking like Hillary really needed to win Florida, especially now that Trump had just taken Tennessee. And how the hell had Arkansas gone for the ignorant baboon? Arkansas, of all states! After everything she’d done for them!

  Hillary took Illinois and New York. Trump took Texas, Wyoming, Kansas and the Dakotas. I didn’t like the look of this. Shouldn’t it have been clearer by now that she’d won?

  And then things started to shift. He took Missouri. And Ohio. She took Colorado, but no, no, no, he won Florida.

  “MAGA,” said Zoe.

  “MAGA,” said the other three.

  “Oh shut up,” I snapped.

  North Carolina. Georgia. Utah. Iowa. Pennsylvania. Wisconsin. Michigan. All went to Trump.

  It was over.

  The end of civilization as we knew it.

  “Told ya,” said Zoe.

  * * *

  • • •

  Hours later, I found myself standing on the balcony alone with the lights turned low behind me, drinking a beer. I could sense the disbelief emerging from the streets below me, could hear the howling and the tears from the disenchanted and frightened people as they wandered home.

  Raymond came out and stood next to me.

  “Happy?” I asked.

  “For NASA,” he said. “For the space program.”

  “And that’s all that matters, is it?”

  He said nothing but offered a small shrug.

  “And what are you going to do with the money anyway?” I asked. “Now that he’s in. Even if he gives you what he promised, which he probably won’t, because I assume that he won’t fulfill any of the promises he made during the campaign, I can tell you one thing for certain: Mexico is never going to pay for any wall. The man doesn’t even know when he’s lying. So what will you do with the money if it actually comes your way?”

  He pointed up toward the sky.

  “Put people up there,” he said.

  “But you’ve already done that. Man has landed on the moon; astronauts go into space all the time. What more can you want?”

  He broke into a wide smile, something he almost never did.

  “Colonies,” he replied.

  EPILOGUE

  SPEARTHROWER OWL

  A.D. 2080

  WHEN THE FIRST SETTLERS ARRIVED HERE, they numbered seven hundred and fifty, but since then, two hundred and sixty-eight people have died while four hundred and forty-seven have been born, so our population has risen to nine hundred and twenty-nine. I have fathered a child myself, Xavier, whose mother is a Chinese biologist named Qinyang. Our relationship is based solely on friendship and mutual respect—no one on any of the space stations adheres to the traditional moral constructs of the home planet anymore—but we are compatible beings and when she decided that she wanted a baby, she asked whether I might assist in the conception, and I was happy to say yes.

  One of the great advantages of our new world is the changes that we have made in the social paradigm. There are no men or women, no boys or girls, no transgender or intersex people, and no one refers to themselves as binary or gender fluid. Instead, we are simply Beings, some of which are able to create life within their own bodies, some of which are not. I have read many of the history books and am aware that, in the past, there were those who would engage sexually with only half the population. This strikes all of us as most peculiar, for we no longer limit ourselves in any such way. If a Being is in need of tenderness, or comfort, or sex, it is a simple thing to ask another Being whether it would like to partner in this activity. It is no different than asking whether it might like a cup of tea or to take a stroll around the garden deck. Our lack of prudishness makes life very simple and we are a happy tribe here on Spearthrower Owl, as the station was named by the Designers, content to live out our days in a harmonious and peaceful fashion, all the time sending data back to the home planet, which continues to evacuate the young as quickly as more stations can be built.

  For decades, there were innumerable signs that Earth was reaching its final days, and while some attempted to change the manner in which humankind lived, the truth was that it was already too late. It was only a matter of time before it could no longer sustain life and outside colonies would need to be established. Estimates now are that there are only four years left before those who remain will run out of oxygen and, from what I understand, competition to escape the dying planet is intense.

  It is generally agreed that the Great American Earthquakes of 2023 marked the beginning of the end. Fourteen million people were killed over six days when the ground opened up from the Six Rivers National Forest in northern California to Tijuana on the Mexican border, and, a week later, with the entire landmass dangerously unsettled, another eight million died on the East Coast when an enormous fissure opened up from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Miami, Florida, devastating that part of the country.

  A few days later, speaking from the steps of the Sydney Opera House, President Trump addressed reporters, denying that he had fled the country because he was terrified that the earthquakes would spread north.

  “Listen, I don’t even know what’s going on down there,” he said to the assembled journalists as he stood with his family, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the American ambassador and his entire cabinet, who had also found reasons to be in Australia that week. “They say there are earthquakes, but who knows? The fake-news organizations might have put these images together just to scare us. As you know, I have a property in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, it’s a terrific place, very beautiful, probably the greatest resort in America, and they tell me that it’s still standing, so who’s to know the truth?”

  It was at this moment that something strange occurred, a phenomenon that was subsequently watched and rewatched by four billion people over the following months and has been analyzed from every angle. As he spoke and waved his hands in the air, a flame appeared from the tip of the President’s right thumb. He glanced at it, frowned, and shook his arm to put it out, staring at the small dark spot that remained in its place.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, looking around, but the flame had been so small that almost no one had seen it.

  “Many people are saying that it’s the climate change know-it-alls who have instigated some of these things,” he continued, his tone a little unsettled by what had just taken place, but returning to his speech, nevertheless. “That it’s a plot on the part of the Democrats and the liberal elite, who, let me tell you, are really sick people, some of them.
I mean they will just lie and deceive and say whatever it takes to—”

  Before he could say another word, another flame sparked, this time running along his right arm, and he yelled out in fright. One of the Secret Service agents rushed forward and extinguished it quickly with his jacket but the President was clearly disconcerted.

  “I’m not sure what’s happening here,” he said, and for once his voice betrayed fear. “But I have some tremendous people on my team, really tremendous people, doing great jobs, and sooner or later the fake-news media—”

  And those words, “the fake-news media,” were the last that President Trump ever uttered. His entire body suddenly burst into flames in a moment of spontaneous combustion, and as he ran screaming around the steps of the Opera House, his family and colleagues pulled back in fright, watching as he burned to death before the entire world. Ivanka, his daughter, appeared to smile. Soon, he tumbled to the ground, coming to rest at the entrance to the Botanic Gardens, where he continued to cook until all that was left of him was a charred skeleton and a lot of bright yellow hair that seemed completely immune to the flames.

  By now, of course, much of the population of the United States of America had attempted to migrate to Mexico, but the government there immediately paid for and erected a wall to keep them out, their own president insisting that they could not take any refugees. “Mexico will not become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems,” she declared on national television. “When America sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” She paused for a moment, considering this. “And some, I assume, are good people.”

  But, of course, Mexico wasn’t safe either, as the earthquakes soon spread there and, within weeks, the entire planet had become plagued by catastrophe. Tsunamis destroyed much of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region, Europe was roasted by dormant volcanoes, while the explosion of a dozen or more nuclear reactors in Russia laid waste to most of Asia. Only Africa seemed to withstand the worst phenomena, but soon that continent was overrun by people from around the world, each one desperately trying to cling on to life. But one region could not sustain them all and, as fighting broke out, it was declared a no-go zone.