Alternative Truths

by Bob Brown

  Moving among them as best he could, “Medic,” a local drug dealer, helped a few escape the bleak, miserable existence. “Here, Nadim, friendly one, swallow this powder,” he said, stepping between groaning outcasts nearby in fetal positions, recently blinded Jalil, the exalted one, and tender, now castrated Benito, the blessed one. Affable Nadim, who learned English reading Dickens, soon felt the Medic’s effect. Lying prostrate, he slipped into a state of vivid stupor.

  ~o0o~

  “What the dickens happened?” the people wailed sourly, desperate for lemonade. That was before the election.

  “Breaking News: History’s first ever elected write-in candidate is the next President of the United States.” Citizens turned out in record numbers to take unprecedented action of hope. The landslide victory garnered the winner 210,872,335 popular votes — over ninety percent of eligible voters — as well as a clean sweep of all 538 Electoral College ballots cast.

  “JST! He’s for Me!” pealed from every thirsty mouth for a sweet sip of happiness.

  “Just in, just in, just in time!” rang buoyant voices.

  At the inauguration, millions of smiley faces stenciled on the backs of yellow ponchos matched sentiments of draped and clad “Yellow Jackets,” the write-in President’s populous supporters. In post-election euphoria, these happy hornets consolidated into the “Pinwheel Party.” After distributing twirling golden vanes atop sticks of barber pole candy, the President began and ended his address to the effusive crowd succinctly in nine words, vowing “to do the greatest good for the greatest number.”

  Now when a typical politician attempts following that Utilitarian maxim, the greatest number is usually number one. But not so President JST, whose moral compass spun equitably and compassionately in all directions, respecting and embracing all peoples. After the swearing-in ceremony, the jubilant swarm made a beeline from Capitol Hill to the White House. Brandishing paintbrushes and pails in the morning sun, they soon coated the hive bright lemon yellow, garnishing the residency’s rooftops and gardens with red, white and blue pinwheels spinning gaily in favorable winds of change.

  Before the paint dried, the President’s first executive order commissioned the conversion of all armament factories into fruit processing plants. With the stroke of his pen, every military base and prison concurrently became juice distribution centers. On the hundredth day of office, he appeared in the House of Representatives chamber. Every esteemed Member in attendance held a spinning plaything in fervent salute. Propelling the gentle, fragrant breeze of his voice through the pinwheel of his creed, he announced that U.S. Treasury sales of JST Lemonade Bonds had balanced the budget. Rapturous roars of “Hear, hear!” energized liftoff of untethered, air born pinwheel flowers whirling and filling a chamber giddy with brotherly love. Needing no more than initials to evoke instant recognition, as applied to former Presidents FDR and JFK, ardent devotees so dubbed President JST.

  Within his first term of office, rivers ran clean as water whistles. Strangers, like pickles and ice cream, embraced in a groundswell of fellowship, pregnant with tolerance and understanding. A turning point in human history occurred as the pinstripes of the rich and polka dots of the poor buried the fashion hatchet. Generous hearts of gold melted, trickling down into poor hearts as all splashed merrily in a great, common pool of jubilation. Spirits lifted Up! Up! Up!

  “More Sweet News from the Oval Office,” national and international headlines trumpeted. “LEMONADE SALES RESOLVE USA’s $20 TRILLION DEBT!”

  Quick to follow as enlightened, humble servants of the people, Congress passed “Green Back” legislation. Impassioned volunteers formed singing brigades of strong “Greenbacks” happily engaged in public works in every county coast-to-coast. Couch potatoes actually switched off television sets to enlist. With shiny shovels and sacks of non-GMO seed, the contemporary Johnny Appleseeds dug up concrete and restored forests, farmlands, watersheds, and parks. Reconnected to Nature, juicy fruit and gentle fiber dramatically improved human health. Drug addiction and depression vanished like warm cookies fresh from the oven. Hanging his white lab coat on a peg, the Surgeon General announced he was gladly out of a job. And in glory, bald eagles, those majestic emblems of America, sprouted fabulous, raven-black pompadours while screeching melodiously from the mountaintops, “Love Me Tender.”

  In the second-term election, the Pinwheel Party spun a lopsided victory with effective campaign slogans, “Man Date, Mother Earth” and “Cup’s Half Full, Let’s Fill ’er Up.” Not surprising as America would have no one else. JST and First Lady ME, Mother Earth, facilitated another restoration. Walking arm-in-arm with American Indian chiefs and tribal elders from over five hundred nations, a yearlong traveling ceremony celebrated the return of pre-discovery homelands to original inhabitants. All hearts, both of generous, indigenous landlords and contrite, congenial renters, drummed with thundering justice as rainbows of peace arced across the fertile, green land.

  Within two years, his proactive “Feathering Nests” policy spread worldwide. Wars and famines, greed and conquest, environmental degradation and social injustice dissipated, then ceased, unlike most wonders. In short, world peace was achieved along with university parking. Abundant milk and honey flowed from green forests teeming with wildlife as goodwill and tolerance coursed within all two hundred countries on a planet of happy campers strumming ukuleles.

  Changed from January 20 to June 21 for seasonal comfort and amenity of all, President JST spent his last day in office outdoors in view of an adoring throng of well-wishers. Playing lacrosse with some Haudenosaunee friends on the White House lawn, a rosy-cheeked kindergartener peered eagerly through the wrought-iron fence. She held a white, cooing dove named Daisy tucked gently under one arm, along with a colorful pinwheel she made in school. On the other wrist a golden thread tethered a marbled blue and white balloon floating happily in the clear sky above her head festooned with bright red ribbons.

  “Mr. President, my teacher asked our class what your middle name starting with ‘S’ is?” piped up the curious child.

  “What names did your classmates guess?” the President asked, bending down as their smiling eyes met.

  “Wachiwi, Juanita and Omar guessed ‘Samuel’, for ‘Uncle Sam.’ But I think it’s for ‘Summer’. My birthday comes just in summer times. I’ll be six this July!” she beamed.

  “Well, you guessed it! Happy birthday soon,” he replied genially, waving goodbye.

  A sea of Yellow Jackets and Greenbacks extended from the fence to the horizon. Hearty, sustained cheers followed President Justin Summer Times as he skipped across the green lawn to his limousine awaiting departure. Patriotic pinwheels twirled mightily on the specially designed vehicle’s corner mounts, lifting him into the summer sky to cries of “Justin, Justin, Justin Times!”

  Dickens would have observed, “It was the best of times.”

  ~o0o~

  “You there! Identification! Be quick about it,” a National Guardsman barked, kicking unconscious Nadim in the ribs as he lay paralyzed on his frozen cardboard mat. Blinking awake groggily in pain, fading pinwheels whirled away from his mind. Nadim found himself handcuffed, then dragged into a long line of other detainees. He saw Jalil and Benito frog-trotting ahead in chains. Sirens wailed as deportation squads with tanks cleansed the slushy shelter of its inhabitants.

  The last thing he heard was “Off to Guantanamo with you, just in time for summer.”

  END

  MONKEY CAGE RULES

  Larry Hodges

  After taking the oath of office as President of the United States, I turned to the crowd, raised my arms, and shouted, “God and country!” The crowd cheered.

  “Freedom!” More cheers.

  “America is the greatest!” The cheers reached a crescendo.

  I lowered my arms and smiled, shaking my head. “You people are soooooo gullible.” I turned off my holographic mask, revealing a face humans would later describe as a three-eyed orangutan.

&
nbsp; Pandemonium.

  We’d worked centuries for this moment. Earthlings were a potential threat to the galaxy. They were, to borrow a term, bat-shit crazy. So I was sent to solve their problems. As president of the most powerful nation on earth, armed with dirty secrets and hard evidence implicating every member of the government—some true, some planted—I’d be able to do what these loveable losers could not: find a political philosophy that worked for them.

  “Before you ask,” I added, “I’m a native-born U.S. citizen. I grew my current body in a lab right here in the good ole USA.”

  I started interviewing for a new government that night. First up was the Ladybug of Liberalism. The tiny bug flew in through the newly open Oval Office window, a smile on its mandibles, and a Keynesian economics book and a copy of Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot tucked under a wing.

  Floating overhead was the Specter of Socialism, who had always hung around and haunted liberalism. “Go away!” I cried, shooing the dark spirit out the window.

  Soon we had a liberal government. Thinking about God was a felony, dogs and cats could marry, abortion till age five was legal, and every homeless person was issued Belgian endive and an iPad—but the government had real few money. I say “real few” because that’s an anagram for welfare. The government collapsed in financial insolvency.

  In through the window flew the Cardinal of Conservatism. I shooed away the pointy-hooded specters that haunted this particular beast as well. The little red bird, especially populous in the South, had a smile on its beak, and a bible and a copy of Atlas Shrugged under one wing, and a Colt .45 under the other. It gulped down the poor ladybug.

  The Lion of Libertarianism crawled through the window, stalking the cardinal. “Go away!” I cried, throwing a food stamp at it. It hissed and leaped back out the window.

  Soon we had a conservative government. Religion and big business took over, the rich got richer while the poor were sautéed on Grey Poupon, everyone was issued a Smith & Wesson, if you didn’t speak unaccented English or look American you were consigned to the Wal-Mart sweatshops, and we went bankrupt invading everyone, and then the unregulated banking system collapsed.

  I strangled the cardinal’s red neck. I thought of trying libertarianism next, but the lion had run away; it just wanted to be left alone.

  Neither philosophy had worked. What else was there?

  There was a whinny, and a white stallion leaped through the window. On its back was the smiling Mollusk of Moderation, waving a white cowboy hat, with a copy of Reflections of a Radical Moderate balanced on its shell. Finally, the best of both worlds!

  It didn’t last long. Since the great moderate middle in American politics is about the size of Rhode Island, everyone attacked the poor mollusk’s pearls of wisdom. It finally closed its shell and clammed up.

  I was still enjoying the clam chowder when there came a knock on the door. In flopped the Coelacanth of Communism. “You’re extinct!” I cried.

  “No I’m not!”

  “Go away,” I said, slamming the door on the hideous fish. I ignored the Mastiff of Monarchy and Doberman of Dictatorship barking in the hallway. I was running out of ideas. “There has to be a way for these intelligent beings to govern themselves!”

  “There’s your mistake right there,” said a voice. Floating in through the window was the ghost of H.L. Mencken—the Sage of Baltimore!

  “What do you mean?” I asked in awe.

  “You said intelligent beings. As I once wrote, Democracy is just a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”

  “What other choices are there?”

  “None,” said the Sage. “I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.”

  “But it’s not working.”

  “That’s because Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. As my colleague George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.’”

  “So how do I get us out of this monkey cage?”

  “You won’t. You have a different role to play. As another colleague Bertrand Russell wrote, ‘Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.’”

  I took a deep breath and blew him out the window. I needed solutions, not literary quotations.

  And then I realized our mistake. Shaw was right—humans deserve the government they deserve, even if it means quarantining them from the galaxy. And so I will give up and watch with jaded amusement as they choose their own government. Who will rule the monkey cage? Can anyone rule the monkey cage?

  END

  THE LAST RANGER (ANPS-1, CE 2053)

  Blaze Ward

  Dale looked over at the old man in the green jacket next to him and considered how the world had gotten here.

  Not just them, sitting here on horseback. Two men in a semi-blizzard.

  Everything.

  Martial law hadn’t been the first step. Nor the last.

  They said it started back in the middle somewhere, when hope was still an option. Before some idiot decided the best way to break the back of the Resistance was to use The Bomb.

  Even people in favor of nuking LA in those days had decided that was a bridge too far. Everything went to hell at that point. Flyover country became a foreign land.

  Still was.

  Everyone argued over who got to keep the name United States of America, but the two sides generally settled into Blue Shirts and Green Shirts as a way of telling people apart, at least in conversation.

  Stan still sat tall in the well-worn saddle after thirty-five years as a Park Ranger. Legend had it he was the last man authorized under the old United States Congress to wear the golden shield with the buffalo. When he was only a few years older than Dale was now.

  Back before.

  Before war, and apocalypse, and ruin. Before it was assumed that a sixteen-year-old like Dale would grow up and become a warrior.

  Stan was staring hard into his binoculars, intent on something in the distance occasionally obscured by the cold, blowing wind that whipped at the two men and caused their horses’ manes to fly out flat to the horizon.

  Only fools and Park Rangers had any business out in weather like this, but it was January, and they had patrol rounds to finish.

  Dale grabbed his Dewar flask from the left hand saddle bag and took a gulp of honeyed tea, still hot, hours since they’d broken camp. Stan remained still as an old rock outcropping, so Dale put the flask away and made sure no snow had gotten into his rifle holster. He double-checked that his outer gear was all buttoned up and dry.

  When they were out in the open field, a team like theirs had to carry almost everything they needed on the move, from food, to medical gear, to explosives for starting a controlled avalanche. It was all tightly packed in oversized saddle bags. Everything might be individually light, but there was still a lot of it, spread between the two horses.

  Just in case, he made sure that his horse, Centurion, was holding up.

  All good.

  Father’s lessons had been hammered home over Dale’s short lifetime. If he wanted to be a warrior when he grew up, a Park Ranger, here were all the things he was expected to master. And he had.

  At sixteen, Dale was already an Apprentice Guide, an 090, assigned to work with the Old Man of the Service himself.

  Royalty.

  Stan muttered something rude under his breath.

  Dale had learned stillness and silence from his father while hunting mountain goats in these Rockies. He waited for the man to share.

  “Trouble,” the quiet veteran finally said, handing Dale the binoculars.

  Dale took long moments to get the focus on the binoculars back down where he needed it. Stan’s eyes were going, but his nose for trouble was still unmatched in the Service.

  Movement. Gray and green against the mostly white and black background. Dale dialed the focus down tighter.r />
  Tanks waddling slowly through the snowbanks far below them, cutting a trail. Troop transports, similar tracked, armored beasts behind that. Articulated vehicles on treads as well. A convoy of them. Maybe a dozen, total.

  Most of that armor were antiques these days. Relics from the old United States Army, stored in some depot when the world fell apart and then rehabilitated into service today.

  Dale lowered the glasses and considered the terrain. Colorado and Wyoming were both on the Green side, but the eastern portions of both states were flat and open. Easy enough for Jayhawkers and Huskers, Kansas and Nebraska Guard Units, to sneak over the line. Especially if they came across the old Pawnee Prairie in the kind of blizzard that had been blowing the last few days.

  No roads. Lots of flat. Nothing to stop the wind or raiders.

  Slice the gap between Fort Collins and Cheyenne. Cut south of Virginia Dale and pass the old abandoned Benedictine Abbey. Sneak into the mountains before anybody knew they were there.

  What the hell did they want?

  He turned back to Stan, found the old man watching him like a hawk. Waiting.

  “So Red Feather Lakes Road is watched,” Dale began. “And Highway Fourteen and Thirty-Four are pretty heavily fortified. Why are they coming in this way?”

  “What’s there to hit?” Stan asked. “That’s enough there to do some damage, wherever they decide to land.”

  “I suppose you could cut off Eighty,” Dale replied. “Or maybe fortify the reservoir. Or even poison it. I didn’t see any air cover, but the clouds would block us anyway.”

  Dale stopped and turned his head the other direction. Mountains covered in snow, as far as the eye could see.

  “And I supposed helicopters or low-flying attack planes would give them away,” he continued, working out the logic aloud, like he was being graded. He probably was. “So either they want to set up a base deep in the hills, like a tick waiting for spring, or they are a blocking force sent to cut off reinforcements if someone is going to attack Fort Collins.”