FICTION
According to Plan
Magic doesn’t happen overnight
The Dictator was voted in. There was no inauguration, no ceremony, or transfer of power. After all the blood was shed and the soldiers and media went away, there was nothing left to see. And years later, there is even less to see.
I was triggered by something a neighbor said, but it took hours for the memory to surface enough for me to catch it.
“It’s like they were all planted here to take over.”
It was a movie, at first, that came to mind, about a group of thieves who used magic, sleight of hand, and a lot of really good planning to pull off the heist, the robbery, or the ‘gotcha’ moment. The magic was in putting the card in the tree decades before executing the trick.
We’d been sitting around the fire in the winter hut built during the second winter after it happened. It. I don’t even want to talk about it here, in these notes. So much has happened since and it’s worse than when it began.
“It’s like they were all planted here to take over.” My neighbor Vicky was pondering how we got to where we are now. “It was like no matter what, they were going to make this happen. Take over our country and turn us into them.” She had leaned forward to put her face closer to the fire and closed her eyes. “I…
