Erya retrieved her backpack and headed into town, distracted by the comparisons her brain was making between candidate Stump and Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, and a previous Ynki president, Lyndon Johnson. Each of these eventually brutal and oppressive dictators had taken power on promises of moderation and restraint but had quickly turned autocratic, their fascist policies of military intervention overseas and at home needlessly staining the good Earth with blood. It was still relatively early in the day, and so after checking in at the Grigovian Traveler’s mission and dropping off her bag, she walked over to the buildings in which the Declaration of Independence was housed. There, she wept upon reading the list of reasons that had compelled the supporters of that now-marginalized text to fight for freedom. To her, each reason in that list was something the Ynki regime had been doing to its own and to foreign people since shortly after the ink was dry on its Constitution. ‘The Ynki has come full circle,’ she thought; ‘he is the tyrant he once aimed to oppose, a belligerent beast that violates the principles he once held high, no better than the worst of mankind’s worst oppressors.’ Out of apparent motherly concern, a middle-aged woman sidled close to her, offering her a tissue. “It’s terrible, isn’t it,” the woman said, her dark-brown skin glowing under the bright lights illuminating the Declaration, looking over at the text and releasing a deep sigh. “Let it out, darling. We’ve been fighting for so long we don’t know what peace even feels like, anymore.” Erya sniffled, wiped tears from her cheeks, and said thank you. The older woman nodded in response, walked confidently out into the gathering gloom of a rainy Pennsylvania afternoon, and disappeared into the passing crowds.
© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥