Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

by Clay McLeod Chapman

CNN is nestled next to Fax, one channel down. Their chyron flashes BREAKING NEWS, but isn’t news always breaking nowadays? Isn’t the news all broken by now? Smashed to bits?

His wife got her news from Facebook, of all places. That wasn’t news, that was simply an algorithmic force-feeding of bullshit masking itself as info.

He’d clicked over a few times before, but never for long. Tiny doses of diatribe. Just listen to these guys. It was a bit rich, even for his blood. Pissed-off pigs wallowing in their own shitty discourse. Asher felt like he needed a bath if he stayed on the channel for more than a few minutes. The absolute oiliness of their banter. Unapologetic xenophobia. Blond-haired bigotry getting passed off as news. Who did Fax think they were they kidding with this crap?

Asher was met with the network-English accent of an Aryan anchorwoman. Her hair was frosted into a bulletproof bouffant. Her spray tan took on a leathery texture under the spotlights, no thanks to the motion smoothing on his new plasma screen TV. She had this whole Real Housewives of the GOP vibe going on. Her male co-anchor was no better—a poreless Ken doll with irradiated teeth, blindingly white. His hair was a shining Plasticine black, the spotlights bouncing off his stiff helmet.

Asher had been watching for a full ten minutes and he still had yet to hear any actual news. All these two seemed interested in chatting about was the degraded state of the country.

She had to find herself again. Reclaim herself. Salvage her inner goddess. Where better to look for spiritual guidance than on Instagram?

Life has presented its own apocalyptic Choose Your Own Adventure for Fragile Democrats, and if you don’t start making better choices, dare we say conservative choices, you’re going to flip to the next page and realize your narrative has come to an abrupt end before it even starts.

“You think this happened overnight? You think this country just went bad now?” This father pulls down his bandana. He’s chewing through his anger, ready to spit it out. “Now you’re paying attention. Where the hell have you been the last ten years? Fifty years?” “I didn’t mean—” “This ain’t new. It’s just new to you. Rest of us have been out here dealing with this shit for decades now. Centuries. It’s only because life got all bad for you white folks that you’re opening up your eyes to it all, but the rest of us have been faced with this shit since the day we were born…”