Election year 2016: A Short Story

Trhough The Perspective of a Political Novice

We were all crowded in a large lobby, looking up at a black platform; even the backdrop of the platform was cloaked in black fringe.

I remembered when there were red, blue, or purple curtains to counter the bleak color of the stage, but many politicians did or said nothing to protest it in the recent years following the elections, so the change had remained during their subsequent speeches and political appearances.

After a few moments contemplating this change, the presidential nominees finally pushed back the dark curtain and slowly moved over the stage to their designated places.

 At that moment, I noticed a strange group of men seated near them, a great view of the festivities afforded to them from their high positions.

It was strange because it seemed to be a balcony they were sitting in, unlike all of us- the voters on the ground floor.

They had on fine suits, big bellies adorned each, and hints of gold were on their fingers, necks, and arms.

I looked back at the crowd behind me-my fellow voters-and saw extreme differences that greatly troubled me.

 We all looked meager and unkempt; maybe not too impoverished, but a people that obviously weathered the storm of the recession that had gone on for years now.

One of the men in the suits caught me spying, and a look of disgust and derision showed on his entire face (not one feature was spared from some ugly contortion or angry red color).

He whispered to a man near him, someone who had the appearance of a personal assistant or servant, and in a few minutes one of the presidential nominees had begun speaking something akin to a warning.

His voice loomed over the room with a quiet intelligence:
“I wish for everyone’s eyes to be on me, please. We are about to begin.”

The black man glanced back, which is what the nominee was, and looked over at the man I noticed whispering to his servant.

The fat cat nodded and he went on speaking.

Although he had a calm intelligence in his voice, his nervous eyes roamed over the crowd and he cleared his throat 3 or 4 times before he said anything remotely conversational.

“I, uh, I will open the argument up.”
“Our issues are caused by…none other than ourselves.”

The crowd gasped.

The fat cat didn’t seem happy at all.

“Wait, I mean that we need to work harder together to achieve our goals,” he said, incessantly rearranging his tie.

“A man near me whispered, “I’ve been working hard. Three jobs to be exact.”

Something very strange happened after that.
The man began writhing in pain.

I kneeled down close to his convulsing body, panicked, but still managing to survey his body for any marks or bruises but only found one bright red mark that originated on his arm.

It was like some electric prod had been sticking him in that exact spot.

A terrible realization immediately dawned on me that snapped all the odd occurrences into place.

I looked around my environment again, anew with wide eyes. There were cameras behind us, three rows of them actually; at first thought cameras ran by newscasters, but instead a discreet surveillance on the crowd...with bright silver prods hiding underneath them.

Quickly, I put my head down; instinctively feeling this was what was wanted from me all along. I felt I was starting to play a game to stay alive.

When the man got up, rubbing his sore arm, he said to me in his regular voice. “What the fuck was that?”

I shushed him quickly, pleading and warning with my eyes to see the bigger picture of what was going on. At first he didn’t understand, so I just pointed towards the stage and simply told him to watch the nominees and calm down. “Enjoy the show.”

The black nominee, who looked vaguely familiar, began speaking again.

“It’s our faults, the people because we don’t trust in the system like we used to.

Public trust in our congress has drastically gone down. We can’t do anything if you don’t trust us with anything."

I shook my head in disagreement, and in that instant was swept up by an army of people.

My legs and arms were shackled, my neck also harshly clamped with a metal neck brace.

I tried futilely to wrestle against the many tight, heavy arms that were painfully grabbing me; I even felt feet repeatedly and forcefully kick at my legs to make me lose balance and topple over. They couldn’t though; my knees were securely bent and my shoes planted firmly to the ground.

The next thing I remember was being lifted into the air, my back laying uncomfortably on numerous glass shields.

The last my frenzied eyes and brain saw and processed was a bunch of people staring back on me incredulously.

The nominee gave me a cold, superior look from behind them, and  the fat cats smugly grinned nearby in a balcony above all else.

The people were truly brainwashed into thinking they had control.

Blackness swallowed me up shortly after.

Fin.