by Cat Rambo
As I write this, I’m reading an AP story that says Medicare will become insolvent in 2026, as though this were a foregone conclusion. Is healthcare something that should be restricted to those who can afford it? What happens if we push that even farther? This story shows a world where “the last charity clinic in Chicago closed” years ago.
In that world, what do you do with those ill with a deadly and communicable disease? Does the government send them in to a quarantine from which no one returns, as in this story? Too nightmarish? But so is a system that allowed Martin Shkreli to raise the price of a drug for AIDS patients from $13.50 to $750 per dose less than three years ago.
Healthcare needs to be affordable and universally available if the US is to reverse the current trend of being behind other countries in terms of mortality rates. That might be a nice step towards making it great again.
King Harvest (Will Surely Come)
Nisi Shawl
Listen to the wind as it blows across the water. How it slows. How it stills as we approach the day’s peak. Pretty soon the carnival begins.
Seven years I’ve reigned. And before me, your grandfather. Twenty-one years. That was a mistake, despite our peace and prosperity. The mud people refused to put up with him any longer. Of course, they had no real say, but they muttered under their breaths. Neighboring realms sent embassies overseas on their behalf to rouse shithole nations to their defense. Even here, in the Heartland, we whites felt that wrath. The mercy shown us—weakness, without a doubt—meant they killed only our anointed ruler. And so I took the American throne.
And so the luxury of your upbringing. Only the softest of cotton knits, t-shirt grade, gathered fresh and stainless from the loading docks of abandoned mills, have ever graced your lovely form. Yes, I see you fingering their thin folds as I remind you of them. Your teeth shine as pure as ice between your smiling lips at the pleasantness of that touch. But then your pampered hands let loose the cloth to reach for mine and meet stiff plastic—my royal bonds. Then worry corrugates your brow.
Yet you are silent. Obedient. A true woman.
It’s this that gives me strength. I know you will endure. I wish I could go to the first of your weddings—but what good would that do? Your husband must take my place as king, and therefore I must vacate it. To put things plainly, I must die.
Ah no, dear Tiffany. No tears. Our Savior will welcome me personally into his arms, and you and all America will profit from my suffering and sacrifice. Just as we have profited by the deaths of my decoys, those black effigies burned and hung annually as substitutes. Listen to the ripening sighs of the heavy-headed wheat.
At least he had that much right. Though he carried it a bit too far, the decoys were a very good idea, starting with your grandfather’s five captured runaways and continuing with the three slaves who volunteered. And the twelve chosen by collection plate lottery, and of course he was smart to limit the number provided by that method to the exact same number as that of the Apostles. I think, however, that allowing the mud people to vote for that final effigy based on his slate of nominations brought back some strange sort of race memory . . . triggering the unholy mission that nearly proved—Well, that made regime change final.
Yes, much appreciated. My goblet’s on the table. The water bucket’s the one to the left—the right is vinegar, to wash me after my scourging. No. I told you, Tiffany. No! Quit crying. I’ll call the guard to send you home immediately if you keep on. This is a joyful occasion. The blessing of Jesus will consecrate it. When they hitch the monster trucks to my four limbs—
Let’s talk about something else, then, since the subject so upsets you. Your wedding. End of April, is that what you’re saying? You don’t want to do it any sooner, do you, Tiffany? Not good for the country to be leaderless nine whole months. Fine, fine. I suppose a mourning period of some sort is to be expected. You’ll have a big tailgate picnic to celebrate your engagement, though, won’t you—nice and public? Promise? And the Reverend’s the best regent we could hope for. Absolutely Pence-like . . .
I know. But look, Tiffany, you’ll only have to wait eight more years to marry Gavin. Sperry’s first on my list for a reason. You’ll still be young. Thirty’s nothing. All the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years. Sperry will reinforce the pattern when he offers himself to ensure the success of his eighth crop. You could even marry Jackson when Sperry’s done and save Gavin for last—I know. Thirty-eight. Unimaginable. And certainly you’d be past prime childbearing age by then, so an heir would be hard to produce. Yes. That’s best. Second. Not third. But promise me: not first. Promise on the Bible.
Is it? Good. I didn’t know—I just assumed that was what you brought to read me. Well, wonderful! Let’s do it! As long as you care to stay—the ceremony’s not till noon. We can skip around some; give me a few other books and chapters, Jeremiah and so forth, but mainly I want the Oligarchs! Exactly what the doctor ordered. Whatever else anyone says about your grandfather, they can’t deny he knew how to write.
Now tuck that pillow behind my head—there. And pull the handle forward and the chair will lean back so I can rest while you read.
from “Letters to the Oligarchs”
One
And it came to pass that when, by the miraculous Hand of God, Our President Donald John was elected to the highest office in this or any other land, demons woke to oppose him in the souls and bodily temples of many of his rightful subjects. Fierce the prayings and watchful the vigils in his name, and long the arcs of correction he and his ministers initiated. Ofttimes such were of necessity but poorly coordinated. In addition and as follow-up to those beautiful orders covered by media, the establishment of Heartland ever occupied your servants. Thus to you, oh wealthy ones, authentic wielders of American Greatness, we now report all our actions faithfully undertaken in former secrecy.
To make the involved states’ governments of Kansas and Oklahoma immune to charges of religious discrimination was the first needfulness. Legislation took effect for ostensibly other causes while private firms purchased acreage and founded churches as attached and hired approved family heads per your brilliant specifications. Educational programs delegated to charter schools prepared the way. Covenants created according to received templates were circulated, with instructions for slight variations in spelling, grammar, and phrasing so as not to excite too much suspicion.
After the Fake Election we were all ready. So soon as the so-called “results” were released, Deeds of Secession were filed in every one of the 182 target counties, and a few in counties over the border in Missouri for good measure. Rather than force the mud people’s emigration, Heartland employed the model of advertising cheap-to-free housing and welfare services in designated areas. Subsequent improvements to these areas then doubled as excuses for interrupted communications and the installation of supposedly temporary fencing. Thus the reserves came about without overmuch struggle to suppress their inmates.
Heartland is a magnet of Godliness. From the four corners of the world come white men and women seeking refuge here, a sacred space supportive of their inherent superiority. Your trust in us is justified, as we have shown and will in all things continue to make manifest.
Five
Victory! Though disposal of our slaves is obviously an internal matter of concern to none outside Heartland’s borders, it has taken the inevitable breakdown of trade between those Godless principalities surrounding us to rid we good and blameless Christians of their interference. Argument was pointless, despite the tenderness and particularity directed at those captive runaways designated for execution. Last meals, baths, haircuts, and even, in one case, the opportunity to address to you a personal letter! None of this liberality counted in the heathens’ calculations of our system’s merit.
I thought never to be able to tell you of these things. And perhaps even yet I do not; perhaps these letters serve only as recor
ds for posterity, not as missives reaching you in your underground retreats, for postal services are unreliable these days and your address tantalizingly inexact. We have kept exact copies from the beginning and will with every one of our transcriptions—manually, when no other means presents itself—until otherwise ordered.
We burnt the arsonist alive. This appeared the most just and Testamentary course. Her attempted escape fortuitously coincided with Secession Day—or nearly enough that the execution served double duty as our offering in Jesus’s name. My sermon pointed out how by committing her crime she effectively volunteered, and the Liberty Cocktail pacified her to the point that if not for multiplicity of bonds joining her to the Scarecrow she would never have stood erect for the ceremony. Thus far the year’s yield has exceeded expectations, which proves our Savior is satisfied.
Sixteen
Four more years we can go on as we do now. Reveal to me in a timely manner how next to proceed to gather a worthy sacrifice. I know you won’t respond to this missive in written style, even if it ever is received. There has been no direct communication from you all this while, nor do we any longer expect it. But a sign as certain as that by which Our Lord selects the slave effigy destined to die that Secession Day? As clear as the telltale coin stamped with a clue to its identity which is always found among donations from tithing households? You might at least vouchsafe us such.
“At least”? Doubt is a human failing, but one which I must move on from after I acknowledge it. Your guidance will surely come.
A plague of skin cancers has descended on our outposts at New Jerusalem and nearby Canaan Ridge. Our Elders determined where to situate the blame: a so-called “Women’s Fitness Class.” Tight clothes and a mirror along one wall encouraged feminine vanity. Not to mention tribadic attractions between the students—some the innocent, unwitting victims of rampant Queens! Proper penance has been applied.
Twenty
Lights in the darkness of the world’s misery, shining examples of the heights human accomplishment can reach, you are my daily and nightly inspiration. O Fathers of our questing spirit, we beseech you to allow us to extend our Fellowship to those benighted in lands currently beyond this reign’s humble reach. And in years to come, we pray to show the span of your greatness to every nation on this your troublous Earth. Forever.
Yes, dear, I heard. Enter! Prompt, aren’t you? That’s good. Wouldn’t want to be late to my own funeral. That’s a joke. Go ahead and laugh.
And thank you, Tiffany. A nice verse to finish on.
Yes, I’d like that very much, my dear, if you wouldn’t mind. Forget my threats—your tears are understandable, touching even. Though you must learn to contain yourself. Today. Turn away if you want, shut your eyes when they drop the flag.
Yes, but if I know you’re in the stadium I’ll be . . . not braver, because there’s nothing to fear, is there? What’s the word I want? Dignified. I’ll look more dignified. I’m sure I will. I’ll think of you. That’s got to help.
Honestly, no. It’s too late for petitioning the Elders. In a way, it always has been. The effigies offered in my stead staved this off for seven years. But I lived in emulation of Christ’s life. I must die in emulation of his death.
Now you, guard—what’s your name again? Slattery? Irish, isn’t it? They’re white by me. What’s that you’re asking? Naked? I—would appreciate a loincloth, yes. My daughter, and there may be others ladies present.
What about the bindings? They’ll have to be cut before I’m lashed to the truck’s bumpers, won’t they, Slattery? So you may as well take care of those before escorting me to the stage. Ah. No, that’s right, my scourging could go awry if I were inadvertently to struggle. Though I’ll remind you that your prior experience is limited to effigies, and blacks are naturally more animalistic in their responses to pain.
Tiffany, wait outside. Just for a moment.
Slattery, my wrists? And these hobbles on my ankles—I really must insist. It’s going to make everything much easier—marching me, stripping me, everything. Fine. Call in as many more guards as you feel necessary. Though we don’t want to fall behind. The musicians are starting—I can hear “Grand Old Flag” through the door seams and we need to form up and join the procession. Bring them in, bring them in! Hurry! I won’t have it said I’m a coward.
Thank you. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Here. Yes, cutting would be quicker. And the shackles hobbling my feet? Slattery has the key. And if you’ll just unbutton my shirtsleeves I can slip—that’s it. Nice and cool. Now take my hand and shake—No, I suppose it won’t matter much longer how I treat you, but I want us to feel really bonded, connected together till—till the end. So. Shake. Set down the vinegar a moment. And tell me your names so I won’t forget them—hah. For the rest of my life, yes. But more importantly, they’ll be among the first I repeat in His ears afterwards. I promise. Indeed, in the same breath as the Reverend, the last man to touch me. You deserve it for your work. For your work and for your love. As hard and great as mine.
Wait. It’s easier for me to adjust that. All right. I’m ready. Open the door. Let’s roll.
About the Author
Nisi Shawl’s recent speculative short stories include “Slippernet” in the Slate Magazine’s Trump Story Project, and “Evens” in The Obama Inheritance, from Three Rooms Press. Her debut novel Everfair was a 2017 Nebula finalist, and her story collection Filter House co-won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2009. Her middle-grade fantasy Speculation will be published in 2019 by Lee and Low. She lives in vividly cerulean Seattle, and loves having health insurance.
Editor’s Note
Shawl was another one of the writers I knew I wanted a story from, because she is both extremely talented and absolutely unwilling to pull a political punch. Here she posits an American Heartland where white fundamentalists have created a society based on their own twisted version of American society.
It’s a piece of beautifully tangled pseudo-history spun from our own current political circumstances, down to the corrupted scripture of the Letters to the Oligarchs that Tiffany reads aloud to comfort the narrator as he waits to be pulled apart in a ritual re-enactment of kingly sacrifice that combines elements of Christ’s suffering with the spectacle of a monster truck rally and which will replenish the land. “Listen to the ripening sighs of the heavy-headed wheat,” he tells her, a line that lingers with me and which can be read in several ways.
Counting the Days
Kathy Schilbach
You seem angry, Mrs Cooper.”
“Too damn right I am.”
“No need to swear, Mrs Cooper. A-l-y-s Alys Cooper. Have I pronounced that correctly?”
I don’t bother with an answer. “There’s every need. Wouldn’t you bloody swear, in my position?”
I’m sitting on a trolley-cum-bed in a room somewhere in the hospital. The walls are shades of blue and grey. Calm-me-down colours. I don’t feel calm.
“Are you a doctor?” I ask. He smells of antiseptic.
“Yes, I am.”
One of these new doctors they’ve brought in to deal with the oldies. Now that I’m seventy-five, I’m not allowed to see my GP anymore.
They must be chosen for their blandness, I think. Bland to match the decor. Carrot tops, don’t apply. The skin of his face is pale and unblemished. His eyes with their transparent lashes and his beige-blond eyebrows remind me of my son when he was born. Even so, I can’t warm to him.
“So tell me what happened,” I say. “Why am I here?”
“You collapsed—fainted—at the charity shop where you work. They phoned for an ambulance. Your Geri-chip told us your age, so you were brought here, not elsewhere in the hospital.”
“What’s wrong with me? Apart from my age,” I add.
“We’ve only examined you. We haven’t run any extensive tests. There’s no point. But it would
seem you have an abnormal heart rhythm.”
“And if I’d collapsed one day before rather than one day after my seventy-fifth birthday, what would the treatment have been?” I’m bitter, so bitter. I want to rail against the unfairness of fate, the arbitrariness of this new law.
“A pacemaker. We’d have fitted you with a pacemaker.”
My heart gives an odd little thud. As simple as that. I can’t believe it. Fit me with a pacemaker and I’d be as right as rain. I’d have years ahead of me.
I stare at him. He doesn’t look away. “You know, -doctor,” I spit the word out, “if you’d asked me yesterday where on a scale of one to ten I placed the state of my health, I’d have said nine, nine and a half. I walk, I swim, I’m not overweight, I eat the right foods. I get aches and pains from time to time, yes. But that’s all.”
His expression doesn’t change. “I can’t prescribe any treatment or send you for further tests or to see a specialist. I can only prescribe pain-killers. Palliative care.”
“How do you reconcile all this with your Hippocratic oath?” I burst out. I want to cry but I won’t show weakness. “How do you square it with your conscience?”
“The law’s the law.” He’s not riled. Bland and unruffled to the last. “You have a hundred days, Mrs Cooper, to put your affairs in order, to say your goodbyes.” He closes his tablet. “I suggest you make the most of the time you have left.”
Counting the days. Ninety-nine days to go.
It’s Tuesday and I’m home again. My thoughts go back to my birthday party. Only two days ago but it seems like a lifetime. So much has changed since then.
My two children and their families came to spend the day with me.
“Can you feel it? Did it hurt when they put it in?”
“Tell us all about it, Gran. Why do they call it a Geri-chip?”
