LAST WEEK: WHEN THE NUCLEAR REVOLUTION BEGAN
by J. P. Spacecraft
The year is 2020, and the air is thicker than it was two or three years ago. In my lap, on my iPad Air 5, the TRUMP-DEAU! COALITION’s live podcast blasts. “I ask upon all people, everywhere, to listen.” Pentarch Sophie Gregoire voice blasts into my groin, all regal. “Whether you speak Spanish, French or English. Listen, hither.”
Pentarch Donald nods, pouting agreeably. “All people must come together. Everywhere. They must, and will. To help fight this menace. Which is so bad.”
Pentarch Justin, shifting his weight from one sandaled foot to another, exclaims: “Whether you’re LGBTIQEZGF+ or straight, whether you’re black or white,” he stops to cough at the end. “Or native.”
“Whether you like Minecraft or not,” Pentarch Barron says meekly, rolling his eyes twice inside his skull, unintentionally – as he sometimes does. “We, the People, must lose just a little bit – whether that’s bandwidth, a few hours’ sleep each night, or diamond gems – to keep our efforts at war successful.”
I’m surprised at how fluently he speaks now. But there’s many resources at his disposal: being one of the four most powerful statesmen and all. The entirety of North America has been confederated into a tetrarchy, Canada’s Trudeaus, the wife and the cuckold; America’s Trumps, the father and the son. Almost all Central America had been annexed too, its governments ousted after conquest, and made into puppet states that fuelled the hungry beast, the Great Northern.
“To our allies in Britain and France,” Sophie flicks her soft hair back.
“In the Oceanic… Our occupation of In-do-nee-jah does well, with the help of allied Os-stralia,” Donald chimes, lips curling.
“Os-stra-li-a,” Barron mutters the staccato syllables of his father, too loud, without meaning to.
“And Japan," Justin jumps in quickly. "Whose borders now swell with enemy forces.” I notice him adjusting his sleeve as he speaks. The sleeves of the same lilac-lavender robes they all sport.
When the camera cuts to Barron, I see him all reddened, forgotten his lines again. It’s like a Christmas bauble, his face. The golden wreath that sits on his blood-swelling head gives the impression that he should be on a tree come December. And to think, I almost thought he'd gotten better at his lines. With a tsk-tsk, I turn off my iPad Air 5 and walk into the kitchen, a sleeping hovel for around ten Bostonian factory workers. Heading to the sink, I salute the resistance poster on the wall, which I do habitually. As I pour myself a glass of tepid, dirty water, I admire the poster. Its colour scheme is fantastic; red, white, black. In its centre sits Partisan Bernie Sanders, a smoking “Pecheneg” machine gun over his blanketed lap. He’s smiling ardently from his wheelchair and the smoke rises almost to his lips. Underneath him, and his all-terrain wheels, bold black letters loom: RESIST, FIGHT, ARISE; NOT OUR PENTRARCHY.
