I Had a Dream (Jennifer Semple Siegel)



Oh-My-God!
I had the worst dream ever!
In my nightmare, he was elected president, my country suffering through nearly three years of his bullshit!
His ugly mug all over the news!
Every! Single! Day!
Twitter!
Racist, white nationalist, fascist, Nazi tweets!
Neo-Nazi mass murderers!
Tax cuts for the rich!
Kavanaugh!
Trade wars!
Tariffs!
Picking fights with China!
Rollbacks of EPA rules!
Climate change unchecked!
Befriending authoritarian leaders: Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping!
Chaos in the White House!
Chaos at the border!
Concentration camps!
The caging of children!
Oh!
Maybe it’s not a dream!
I grab my phone from the nightstand: yes, November 9, 2016. 5:33 a.m., not 2019, nearly three years shaved off the river of time.
I click the controller:
“…It was a close call, but Hillary Clinton, thankfully, pulled out a narrow electoral win of 275,” Rachel Maddow says with obvious relief.
“I can’t even imagine the ramifications of a Trump presidency,” Lawrence O’Donnell, says, visibly shaking. “We missed a bullet.”
“Well, I contend Trump would have pivoted to a more moderate stance,” Morning Joe Scarborough insists. “Besides, I’m confident the GOP would’ve reined him in.”
Snort!
“It’s fortunate we’ll never find out,” Brian Williams notes.
“What if Trump contests the election?” O’Donnell asks.
“No legal standing. Hillary has won the popular vote by more than 4,000,000 votes,” says the young pollster Steve Kornaki. “Thank goodness.”
“He’ll make a lot of noise, of course. He hasn’t conceded yet,” says Maddow.
“And he won’t concede…”
“It won’t matter. Failure to concede won’t change the outcome…”
The MSNBC panel gets into an extended discussion of what might happen if the loser doesn’t concede.
Click to CNN: the same electoral stats flash by as John King, anchor of Inside Politics, taps on CNN’s Magic Wall.
Relief!
To make certain, I even tune in to {gasp} Fox News.
The long faces tell me all I need to know.
Yay!
President Hillary Rodham Clinton! That has a nice ring!
I won’t mind rebooting my life back to 2016.
It’s an opportunity to do some things a bit differently.
I mean, I haven’t exactly led an exemplary life since November 9, 2016, having expressed some ugly behavior and comments on Facebook.
Sure, my behavior was born of desperation and despair, but still…
Now, I can be a better person, and, perhaps, some of those people I unfriended will still be friends, basing our disagreements on rational ideology.
I can love my family again.
Sure, the Trumpsters will squawk about our new President, but when they discover how wonderful she’ll be for our country, they’ll have to concede some points, maybe not all, of course, but enough that we can discuss our differences rationally.
Most importantly, we’ll never see that loser’s orange ugliness in the White House.
I hope all those scary supporters recede into their private dark enclaves and not rile up ordinary people who just care about the direction of our country.
For now, it can’t happen here.
Can it?
Can HE
Again?


_________________

500 words



Comments

Table of Contents: Flash Fiction

Table of Contents: Flash Non-Fiction

Guidelines for Submitting to Suddenlys.com

Privacy and Copyright Notices

Suddenlys.com Cloud

1201-1300 Words1 1301-1400 Words1 14 words1 1401-1500 Words1 15 words1 1500 Words+2 1580 words1 1969 race riots1 19th Century Literature1 20 words1 201-300 Words4 2016 Elections1 21 words1 216 words1 23 words1 263 words1 278 words1 296 words1 3 words1 301-400 Words1 35 words1 401-500 Words6 428 words1 451 456 words1 489 words1 49 words1 49'er1 50 Years Ago: Apollo 11 – First Men on the Moon. Where were You?1 500 words3 501-600 Words1 541 Words1 601-700 Words1 613 words1 701-800 Words4 703 Words2 772 words1 774 words1 801-900 Words2 857 words1 86 45 11 31 896 words1 9-111 901-1000 Words1 A Grave Digger in Search of a Body1 A Reporter Three Orioles and an Astronaut’s Family: The Grand Experiment1 A Story That Could be True1 Accidental writers1 Albert Einstein1 Allegory1 Alternate Universe1 Alternative Definitions1 Anonymous1 AOC1 Apollo 112 Apollo 81 Arizona1 Astronauts1 Baseball2 Birdsong1 Bramble Degan katherinevbt1 Broken Glass1 Cal Ripken Jr.1 Cal Ripken's last game1 Child1 Children1 Classic Flash Fiction1 Copyright Notice1 Creation1 Creativity1 Death and Dying2 Definitions1 Divorce1 Domain Names1 Donald J. Trump3 Donald Trump Mocking a Disabled Reporter1 Dreams1 Dystopia3 Dystopian fiction3 Dystopian non-fiction2 Earth1 Earthrise1 EEVBlog1 Essay2 Essay Poem1 family2 Fantasy2 Fat as a Political Statement1 Fat-Person Manifesto1 Feminist Literature1 Ferry 'Cross the Mersey1 Fiction23 Fiction submissions1 Flash Fiction22 Flash Fiction Project1 Flash Non-fiction7 Flogging the Dolphin1 Fold Me Up1 Found stories1 FOXinated1 Friedrich Nietzsche1 Gate Crashers1 gender2 gender identity1 Gerry and the Pacemakers1 Guidelines for Submitting to Suddenlys.com Project1 Hard-boiled Detective1 Horror1 Humor4 I Had a Dream1 I Hope This Is Just Fiction1 identity1 Idiocracy1 Jackie1 Jeffrey A. Brown1 Jennifer Semple Siegel24 Just Brown People1 Kate Chopin1 Letter1 Life Changes1 Manifesto1 Margaret Atwood1 Mass Shootings1 Massacres1 Mystic Mouse and Calamity Cat1 NASA2 Nico Tini: Private Eye1 Nicotini1 Nightmares1 Non-fiction7 Non-fiction submissions1 nonsensical1 Ocean Waves1 October 6 20011 On Resubmitting Her Creation1 Orioles1 Philosophy1 poem1 Politics2 Poyke1 Privacy and Copyright Notices1 Privacy Notice1 Prose poem1 Quid Pro Quo1 Revenge1 Robert S. Mueller III1 Scams1 September 11 2001: Eighteen Years Ago the World Changed Forever1 Short short story5 Short story4 Social Media Martyrs1 Spam1 Sports1 Stories That Could be Partially True1 Stories That Could Be True8 Stories We Wish Were True3 Stories We Wish Weren't True1 Story-poem3 Strangers1 Submissions1 Sudden Lie1 Sudden Lies1 Suddenlies1 Suddenly1 Suddenlys4 Suddenlys Project3 Sudenlie1 The Crux of the Matter1 The Mueller Report1 The Nocturnal Visitor1 The Pacemaker1 The Story of an Hour1 Thy Daily Dread1 Time1 Trump1 Twilight of the Clods1 Vote1 Vote it Out1 Voting1 Weight issues1 Wife1 Wilson P. Dizard1 Wordplay1 York Pennsylvania1 YT ONG1 Yuma1
Show more