November 9th, 2050. Trump Day again. Not that he lasted long himself, died of a heart attack in his third year. In his bed, they said, but I doubt that he was sleeping. People got all riled up after he was inaugurated, street fights, gun fights, police on black, white on Latino, country on city, straight on gay, men on women – though that riot was held in private, the Trump boys pumped up and strutting, I’m the Lord of the Manor. And while all that was going on the Republican House and the Republican Senate quietly shifted the goalposts. An electoral boundary here, a state attorney there, mysterious deaths in high places. But we were all so fixated on Trump that nobody noticed. When he died, his VP stepped in. What was his name? P-something.

My mind’s getting fuzzy, I used to be sharp as a tack. Still, not bad for ninety-two. I want to remember, there are so few of us left to remember the good years. O how we whinged and moaned back then, wanting everything to be right. We didn’t know what wrong looked like. Pence! That was it. Mike Pence. He stepped in, quiet as a suit. Helped to calm the worst of the riots, I’ll give him that, but the real damage was done.

Thirty-four years of Republican rule. They held the mid-term elections yesterday, all panoply and brouhaha, but I don’t vote. Others vote. They go through the charade, they still call our country a democracy, but the democrats tore themselves apart years ago, and the Fat Cats rule unopposed.

It’s illegal to call them that, but in the quiet of my mind, and with those I trust, few as we are, that’s what I call them. The Fat Cat Party. And we, the Others, we are the skinny feral mangy cats on the margins, fighting for scraps. I remember when the margins of life were spacious, when Others had choices. Now it’s live or die, and not much between. Why have I held on so long, when all I love are gone? Because I’m a tough old biddy, I suppose. Because people want to hear my stories. And because still the dawn is beautiful – more beautiful with all the clog in the air. Strange, the compensations.

I’d like to tell my story one more time. One last time, I’ll be going soon. The Others listen to me the way once I listened to fairytales. How it used to be. How it might be again. I know they don’t believe me, I doubt it myself. But maybe. I sow seeds, that’s my job. I’m a gardener of the mind. So here we are, children, it’s Trump Day again. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time…