I started writing this before the 2024 election. At the time I had some ideas of where to take this. Today I cleaned it up and added some background. For now it is a short story. More chapters can be added that will connect the dots. Otherwise let your imagination run wild trying to put all the pieces together. What the future holds I am working again tonight. For some reason, my special talents and abilities focus around redundant labor. After I recovered, it seemed like all I do is work. Tonight is common to so many other nights over the last year. My name is Davey. If not mistaken I am now about 15 years old. Time flies when you are having so much fun, not really. I am not necessarily muscular or that physically developed for my age. A puny wimp might be a fitting description to describe me. Well that is the way I feel most of the time. I am just a skinny kid that sure could use a few extra slices of pizza occasionally. I dont remember so much as things went bad. It happened so fast. Then my parents died or were killed. I still dont know for sure which. I really dont know if that was for real or a very bad dream. What I do know for certain is they are no longer around. I sure miss coming home from school and having mom there. Then later in the afternoon, dad would show up from work. We had a great time for a while. Then things started changing. Not so fast at first. I didnt realize anything had changed so much until we were on the run. I grew up in the city. There were a lot of friends that all hung out together. We did the usual things after school. I was the youngest of the guys in the neighborhood. I was not really part of the "group". Mainly I got to hang out with my older brothers. So fitting in with the athletic mindset of guys more than three years older than me was not very smart. Tho I was not so much into athletic sports, still joined in occasionally with football, soccer, and baseball. Basketball was usually in the spring or fall, but always late in the afternoon, a lot of time not playing until after sunset. Basketball also came in to play when the field was too muddy or too dry. There were deep wide cracks in the ground when it had not rained in some time. This made playing nearly impossible when running without falling and cranking an ankle. If you got tackled when your foot was in a crack, well too bad. You were going down. I did get cranked one time. Not a serious compound fracture, so I was told. The doctors x-ray clearly showed there were two cracks. All the inflammation was from pulled ligaments and hyper extended knee joint. Who said a knee doesnt bend both ways? To say it didnt hurt was like smiling right after taking a direct punch to the face. Of course it hurt. Even after the first six weeks of limping around in a cast, hurt almost as bad. When time to remove the cast, my leg was still very sensitive to any load or pressure exerted. Then taking more x-rays and closer examination, the doctors realized my leg had splintered, so repeating another another six weeks of dragging an anchor around everywhere. After this much time in a cast, there was rehab for another year. The bone did not grow back like it should have. I could still feel the occasional streaks of pain that might only be described as a bone getting splintered. You see, I already knew what that felt like. I was well versed in that painful feeling by then. My oldest brother would always make fun of this. When we had fried chicken for dinner, he would twist a leg bone right in front of my face until it splintered. Very well knowing it would really get to me. At eight years old, it did not take too much to get me welling. I had been beaten down long enough from my oldest brother to have very little will power or strength. I could not stand up for myself. He did everything he could get away with to get back at me after knocking his clock out of time. But he has been a prick most of his life. Even after the rehab more than a year later, I found myself limping on that leg. Not that it hurt so much all the time. But just fearing the onslaught of pain shooting up my leg when it hit. Doc said there might be chipped bone fragments in the joint. Just be careful and dont over exert myself, he always said. Then it should not hurt all that much when I moved it the wrong way. Unfortunately sometimes walking in a straight line would trigger that pain. I would be caught off guard when it happened and just collapse falling to the ground. Like my leg refused to work and went on strike. The heel of my right leg felt like someone hammered a long pointy nail right thu the ball and all the way up prying away the knee cap. I was screaming bloody murder when the incident first happened. We were playing football on the very dry field behind our house. I had intercepted the ball, which was one of the few things I was good at. Not running, blocking, or throwing the ball. But I could work around the bigger guys and do a high ball grab. They never saw me coming. After that one last great interception of my short lived career, I turned to run, and my leg fell right into one big crack in the ground. The dirt was that nasty black gumbo and the cracks could easily be six inches wide and run for a few feet. Landing in the rut was not so bad. It is when I got tackled that all hell broke loose. A true dogpile. The day was late and everyone was tired. It was more than hot and not much in the way of team playing was on the docket during the game. Almost a free for all. But when I went down, more than a few guys decided to make sure I stayed down. Most of the time I was the last to be picked for the teams. So whoever had last pic got stuck with me. I was mostly useless playing football. But my one saving grace was high balling and making an interception. It was rare to find an opportunity, so nobody really tried blocking me during the game. I was mostly a moving chicane, getting in the other teams way. And in the wrong place on my team too. But when I saw an opening, then could leap up after grabbing another player climbing up and grab the ball. This time I got terminated. When they finally pulled themselves off of me, the pain was so intense, I went completely psycho mad. I mean being the youngest of three brothers has some serious disadvantages, it also means you are beaten down most the time. I knew my place and did not cross that line or else. At least not very often. Sort of like dont talk back to your elders. They were my elders and if I was stupid enough to smart off or talk back to them, well consenquences were usually harsh. But that day, I let off some steam. A lot of steam. I mean as a blown head gasket. There had been a lot built up over the years. As I rose up off the ground, there was the impression of hard packed and cracked dirt on the side of my face. My shirt was torn off, and scratches from the dry parched weeds didnt even come in to play at that moment. My heart was racing like I had never felt it before. My face was beet red and I went full fist swinging at everyone that had piled up on top of me. One thing I had not yet grasped from being piled up on, the breath had been knocked out of me. So much pain coming from my leg and hiding it behind all that anger, attempting to catch my breath was not even a consideration. I was on a mission. My brothers looked on completely dispelled. They had never seen me go off like this. I had never seen me go off like this before either. I was jumping around not even realizing the pain from my leg was feeding the anger. My oldest brother came at me pointing his finger then started laughing at my new embossed appearance. I grabbed that finger pointed way too close to my face. It bent backwards until I heard the break. Before letting go on him, he got a closed fisted slap to the left side of his face. He went down for the count. The other guys immediately stepped way back. Some were standing in shock and others were laughing to no end at what I just did. This obviously was not helping the situation. They became the most direct target in my line of fire. I did not hold back anything. My dumb oldest brother should have stayed down on the ground. I totally caught him off guard. To say he was surprised was an obvious understatement. Not to loose face with the other guys his age, he came at me again. This time he as planning to tear me apart. I have seen that look in his eyes before. Any other time, I would have run for my life and stay out of sight for days, if necessary to keep among the living. Instead of retreating like is what he knew I would do, I screamed like a banshee Indian charging at him. I landed my fist right into his nose. It totally collapsed down flat against his face. I felt the cartilage give way like the gristle in a chicken when breaking it apart. His eyes crossed together and then rolled back in his head as he fell backwards. He was now out of the neighborhood football game. It was no time after this altercation, that I finally caught up to the condition of my leg. It may have been the heat, lack of water, over exertion, or just the release of so much anger all bottled up for how ever many years. Or even the fact I had still not taken a breath. I felt that pain shoot up my leg. It was so intense everything went black. I went dark and dont remember anything after hitting the ground convulsing in repeated failed attempts to even take a single breath. Not until my mom was loading me into the car and we were heading for the emergency room did I focus on my new surroundings. She kept asking what parts of me hurt. I did feel the pain. But at that time, it was mostly all over my body. Like one big bruise. I did not yet realize how twisted my leg was and now how swollen it was becoming. How did I not notice the black and dark blue colors around my lower leg fading to a translucent olive green farther away from the knee cap? My older brother, the one that didnt act so much like a jerk all the time was holding me down in the back seat. I did not remember us getting in the car other than like we were going somewhere for something. A foggy recap of him buckling me into the back seat. As the burning red feeling was now subsiding in my face, memory was coming back in play. Then the pain hit. Hard and all at once. I was then aware something was seriously amiss. My leg felt like fire. Not like sticking the tip of your finger in a flame. No, this was like you were tossed directly into the deep end of a big bonfire. I tensed up and went crazy straught with fear and pain. Fortunately the one thing keeping me from jumping out of the window trying to get away from all this pain was my brother holding me down. My one brother that treated me like a person. Well most of the time. So I was reliving part of my past life while out here in the back woods. Just looking down stirring up the pot of lard. Yea my special talents include using a big wooden spoon in a cauldron. I was staring into the wood fire on the ground. Feeling the intense heat radiating off and hitting me all over. Just like the pain did all of those years earlier. Another thought also went thru my head. Remembering back when I was a lot younger. Back when I first went to school. Not so much attending class, but it was Saturday nights at home. We had a very large projection style television. My dad was late on stepping up to the newest stuff. It was always too expensive to have that first new whatever before everyone else in the neighborhood did. He still preferred reel to reel tape recorders. Unfortunately it was not like cassettes. One thing you could not just go to the local music store and buy the latest hits. By the time DVD's were getting popular he still favored VHS tapes. With that monster projection television, we would rent some decent movie from Blockbusters and have movie night. Even tho the newer plasma televisions were becoming popular, they still had fairly small screens compared to the projection tv. While I was very young, still remembering those movie nights like it was last Saturday. All the kids would come over to watch. Looking back, I dont think it was the big screen that was such an attraction. Just that none of the other families wanted anything to do with a bunch of noisy kids to ruin their weekend. They had worked all week, and looking forward to some peace and quiet. No so long after this time, did those plasma tv's start to get more affordable. Then the LCD, and LED tv's were the hot ticket. After a few more years, the prices started dropping way down. So there went movie night. By this time, most of the neighbors had cable hooked up and watching just about anything they wanted. Then so much going streaming and watching on demand. Not to mention all of the cool weekly series that were not on network tv. So our Saturday nights went dark and hardly even the family spent much time together anymore. During these years, Donald Trump had been elected as President. From his announcement that he was running for president and continuing all the way thru his term, the news covered just about everything he did. Some years later I realized they were reporting on mostly things that were made up about him more than anything that was real. One neighbor had commented that Trump could not even take a dump without the media making accusations of wrong doing. What was he doing? Stealing toilet paper from the White House? From listening to the news on radio, I did not know what to think about him. Was he really that evil of a man? To do all those things they accused him of? Why would my parents vote for such a person? But during this time, life was good. As the next election was coming closer, is when the big scare hit the world. Covid-19. Naturally everything negative about this new deadly virus was blamed on the current president. But there was still some news reporting very conflicting stories about him. They were in support of him and what accomplishments he had done. I thought building the wall would be a smart idea. But why did so many reporters say just the opposite? What made perfect sense to me was totally wrong by so many important people and politicians. I did not understand what was going on out there in the real world. While I had no idea of what politics was about, all of the controversy I heard non stop gave me no reason wanting to understand any of it. I still had no idea of why there were two parties that are always accusing the other of illegal doings. Then no one was ever charged of any of the crimes or followed up with any official reprimands or accountability. It seemed like the next few years had been erased from my life. I cant recall anything positive happening. Actually I didnt recall anything of importance taking place. Everyone was staying home or wearing masks when in public. But no one was in public. They were only walking around distancing themselves from everyone else. Then finally this lost few yeas passed by until the next Presidential election. This time around there was no obvious voter fraud. The election was called by 12:34 AM by Fox News. Donald Trump had been reelected and won by what would be reported as a landslide. At the time I still had no understanding of who he was as President and why him winning was so important. As my parents watched the election coverage, they kept commenting about this election had gone so smoothly compared to all of the others going back to Bill Clinton. Then mentioning those falling chads when Al Gore just lost out to George W Bush. They were discussing how all of the network stations were pushing the narrative of just how close this election was going to be against Kamala Harris. But some news articles were implying how the Democrat party was in full meltdown leading up to the election. They knew she would not win and now furious for allowing her to become the nominee. The news kept going back to that failed debate Joe Biden had with Trump and why he was ousted as the nominee. But in reality my parents were sure he was behind the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. He had power and knew the right people. Or more realistically the people that controlled him were determined to get him reelected. Or more specifically they did not want one Donald Trump to become President again. Joe Biden could not keep his mouth shut. He made a statement just one week before Trumps rally in Butler Pennsylvania. He made it clear that Trump would be in serious trouble and not able to run as the Republican candidate. This he almost guaranteed. Then even worse, a few days before the attempt of his life, stating "time to put Trump in a bullseye". But from election day on, everything changed for the worse. Even tho that "Hope and Change" Obama had lied to the American people, this time it was going to be real. Real hope for this country and real change in how the government was run. Back to what had been working for the last two centuries. Cleaning out the swamp. But not even a month after the election is when all hell broke loose. Trump had been securing his new cabinet. The country as a whole was looking forward to closing the borders, ridding the country of all those criminal and violent aliens. The murders, rapes, theft, assaults, gang violence, drug and human trafficking was all going to come to an end. Start with worst problems this country is facing and hit it head on. Then what became known as patient zero had exited a plane in Cleveland Ohio. He had recently departed Tanzania in Africa. He ended up in St John Medical Centers Emergency Department with "flu like symptoms". What little I understood about politics when things changed so drastically, I do remember dealing with all of the Covid-19 pandemic or whatever it really was. I remember school was out for most of a year. We had nothing to do and could not go anywhere. Then I kept hearing about the government was forcing required immunizations before anyone could return. Fortunately that was never passed into law in most states. I never got the shot, but do remember so many families that did, would not allow their kids to associate with any of the others that had not been stabbed. Some of my friends, well mostly my older brothers friends had three and four shots already. But they were supposed to now be immune, so why was it such a problem hanging out with them? For those three tense years I was mostly in the company of just the family. Actually I had spent a majority of this time with my dog. When the original virus finally faded away to a lesser strain, then things started to go back to normal. But still a lot of tension between those that had been vaccinated and those "pure bloods" as my mom would refer to us as. But when a new strain of some virus was detected in Ohio, nobody cared to listen. It spread like wildfire across the country. What failed practices that were enacted during Covid, this time the people were having no part of it. The media immediately went to accusing the Trump Administration of over reach. The President was attempting to implement Martial Law. To cease future elections. They were claiming he had made it clear he was going to be the first American King. Something else I fond odd is the opposing party, that I still did not grasp how all that worked, was talking down all of the CDC recommendations. Stating how badly Trump failed the country during Covid and now using this new pandemic as a way for him to put an end to the Constitution. That we would no longer be a free Democracy. While it has only been a few years since the country dissolved into chaos, I do remember having to read the Constitution in sixth grade. That is the last year we had public school classes. I actually had to stand in front of the class and read aloud. While the Teacher was not so interested in what I was reading, she did correct me for every mispronounced word, and improper punctuation. At this time I sort of understood what democracy was. We voted for things in school. Not that it made any difference which way we did vote. It was more of going thru the process to have a full grasp of how it worked. Except it did not work at school. But I do distinctly remember than neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution mentioned the word "democracy" anywhere in either of those two documents. So I still did not grasp how all this voting stuff actually worked if nothing really changed. Except when Donald Trump was elected. Then everything changed. It was just soon as the next day after election results were official did I notice just how some people were completely different than the day before. Most of my family and close family friends seemed to be relieved and not so concerned about the things happening. But the other people I did not know well or at all, seemed to show signs of either complete hatred or total meltdown. When going to the store, there was no more common conversations. You now had two obvious smaller groups talking amongst themselves. While I did start to see a lot of MAGA hats before the election, now there were none. I thought that was odd. Then one day at school a kid was wearing one. The teacher went off her rocker when he entered homeroom. Up until that day, we were allowed to wear baseball caps. This was the only type approved in class. The kid was sent to the principals office and I later found out he had been suspended for wearing that cap. The next day over announcements, we were notified that no longer was headwear allowed to be worn on school grounds. There was one exception mentioned as to being Muslim and having a religious exemption. Up until this day, I had never seen any girl wearing something like a hijab in school. So not understanding what this was all about. It seems so long ago, but really only a few years now thinking back. Standing out here at night stirring the lard. Wondering if my parents suffered any when they... My stomach tightened up and a tear started trickling down my cheek. My eyes always watered up like this when allergies were working me over.
Thank you. Good start to a world of changes. I remember the soldiers coming back from WW 2 and in 1947 getting electric power. In a lot of the world life has changed and at the start of the day the average person doesn't have any clue that it has. Cuba under Castro for example..
