Alternative Truths

by Bob Brown

  She sagged to the ground, and pulled her mother’s quilt over her head to hide her weeping.

  When the sun rose beyond the black bulk of the Wall, an automobile came coasting down the hill, past the playground, past the small houses. It stopped when it reached the lane, where survivors and workers now huddled in the cold, staring at the wreck of the residences. Livvy got to her feet, and turned with the others to watch the Councilman step out of his automobile and stand, hands on hips, surveying the disaster.

  It was Pansy’s papa. He looked much as he had the day before, irritated and impatient.

  One of the work bosses went up to him, and the two men spoke a few words. Pansy’s father gestured up and down the Wall, and pointed to the section that had collapsed.

  Someone said, “At least there’ll be some repair work.”

  Someone else said, “Think the Council has any idea why it fell down?”

  “New tunnel came through,” someone whispered behind his hand. The whisper was repeated through the crowd.

  They fell silent as the Councilman approached them. His lips were pinched. “You people will have to clear out while we get this situation resolved.”

  Livvy felt numb with disbelief. Clear out? The relics? She glanced around, but it seemed no one was going to speak. It wasn’t right, and they all knew it. She clutched at her quilt, and stepped forward. “Sir?”

  He eyed her without recognition. “What is it?” he snapped.

  She felt vulnerable, exposed in her night clothes, but she couldn’t retreat. “Sir, we—the residents—” She couldn’t help emphasizing the word. “We have no place to go.”

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Go up to the church. They’ll have cots.”

  “Some of these folks can’t climb the hill to the church, sir. They’re gonna need help.”

  He blew out an exasperated breath. “Lady, that’s not my problem. My job is to keep this Wall in good repair. To close up the tunnels. To keep everyone safe.”

  “Didn’t keep Porter safe,” Livvy muttered, but only to herself. The Councilman was already on the way back to his automobile, his neck stiff with annoyance. In moments he was gone, his auto spinning easily up the steep street.

  The repair work began immediately, with the boss shouting orders and men scurrying here and there. Some people from the church arrived to start shepherding the relics up the hill. A few, who would never be able to make the climb, sat right down in the dirt of the lane to wait for whatever would come.

  Livvy could make it to the church, but she had no intention of going before they brought Porter out of the wreck. Two workers had already started pounding away at the rubble, rolling stones away when they could, breaking up others, tossing them onto a pile in the lane. Shards of Porter’s few possessions appeared, a saucepan smashed flat, a broom handle in splinters, fragments of a water pitcher. Everything went onto the mound. Most of it would go back into the Wall.

  When one of the workers suddenly straightened, calling for the other man to join him, Livvy crossed the lane to see what they had found. The first one caught sight of her. “You should stop there, ma’am. You don’t want to see this.”

  His kindness made her eyes sting. “You found him,” she said.

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Yes. His name was Porter.”

  “I’m real sorry, ma’am.”

  “Can you tell—” She pressed her fingers to her trembling lips. It was hard to wrench the words from her throat. “Young man, are—are you quite sure he’s dead?”

  “Yeah, no doubt about it. If it helps—pretty sure it would have happened fast.”

  Livvy shuddered at what it must have been like for poor Porter, the noise, the cracking and crumbling, the full weight of the pitiless Wall crushing out his life. Tears burned her cheeks, and when she put up a hand to brush them away, she remembered she was still in her nightgown, with only her quilt to cover her.

  “Ma’am?”

  She pulled herself together enough to meet the young man’s sympathetic gaze. He said, “Listen, you can’t stand here like that. How’s about my wife brings you some clothes? Helps you up to the church?”

  She could have accepted his offer. She could have accepted the clothes, gone to the church, slept on a cot and listened to sermons.

  She glared at the Wall, suddenly furious with the way it had ruled her life. The young man went on talking, but she didn’t hear him. She didn’t see anything but the behemoth of stone and steel and wood, the relics of civilization. She wanted to pound it with her fists, shout it down, smash it with her own stubborn spirit.

  Then she saw it. The opening. The mouth of a tunnel gaping behind the wreckage of Porter’s shack. It was littered with scree and the flotsam that jammed the interior of the Wall. It was little more than a crawlspace, dirty and dark and narrow.

  But there was light on the other side. It wasn’t much, a window glimpsed at a distance, but it shone with light. Sunshine. It called to Livvy’s heart.

  She started toward the opening. The young worker seized her hand. “Lady, you can’t go in there! It’s not safe!”

  “Why?” she said, not looking at him, focusing on the tunnel and its promise of light at the other end.

  “It could fall in at any moment,” he said.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Can’t you just wait—my wife—?”

  She pulled her hand free, gently, and glanced into his kind face. He was as dark as she was, but young—so young. A wife. Maybe a family. His future before him. If he had a future, that is, working on the endless Wall, living in its cruel shadow.

  “It’s good of you to worry about an old woman,” she told him. “But I think I’m gonna take my chances.” She started off again, picking her way over the broken bits of Porter’s life. “I really want some sunshine,” she muttered, not even pretending to talk to anyone but herself. “I’m so tired of living in the shade.”

  The going was rough. Her old shoes slipped on jagged stones, and broke through rotted bits of wood. She was still in her night clothes. She hadn’t brushed her teeth or combed her hair, but she was on her way.

  When she wriggled her way into the opening, the dank smell of old dirt and cold stones met her nostrils. In places she had to suck in her stomach to sidle through. The Wall groaned and cracked around her, threatening to stop her once and for all. She pressed on.

  The light ahead grew brighter. Hands were picking at that little window, widening it, pulling away bits of the Wall. Her heart thudded at the thought of the people there, maybe smugglers, possibly the adversaries she had been warned about since her infancy.

  “No turning back now, old woman,” she grunted as she squeezed around a chunk of ancient link fencing. “Don’t you chicken out now.”

  Above her the Wall grumbled and shifted, trying to hold her in its clutches like some great dragon guarding its lair, coveting its relics, loath to let even one escape.

  A shaft of unimpeded sunlight broke into the tunnel on the far side, and with it a gust of fresh air. Heads joined the hands she had seen, silhouettes against the brilliance. Enemies? Perhaps.

  But the real monster was the Wall, and though it began to shake, and rain detritus down on her head, she would not give in. She pushed forward, scraping her knees and shoulders, losing one shoe, kicking off the other to maintain her balance. She was sure she was bleeding in places, but it didn’t matter. One way or another, Olivia Sutton was going to be free.

  Did she imagine it, or did the breeze from the other side smell of oranges?

  END

  AS PROPHESIED OF OLD

  Susan Murrie Macdonald

  Fleet Street was having a field day. The president of the United States was coming to the United Kingdom for the first time since his election, and editors and reporters merrily threw all pretense of journalistic neutrality into the dustbin as they vied in coming up with ever more creative epithets for him. None used his name or title. Most referred to his addic
tion to Twitter, the size of his hands, the poor dye job done by the White House hair stylist, and his much-debated sanity.

  Buckingham Palace had already announced that the queen would not be meeting with him. The hundreds of thousands of people who had signed petitions that he not be granted a royal audience cheered, attempting to take credit for what they called a well-deserved royal snub. Buckingham Palace, discreetly not mentioning the petitions, said that Her Majesty was ill and confined to her bed. Palace officials assured Her Majesty’s loving subjects that the queen’s illness was not severe, but her doctor wished to take precautions at her age. The Prince of Wales, whose schedule was normally meticulously arranged months in advance, suddenly had to meet with Scottish nationalists in Glasgow. His Royal Highness would therefore be unable to meet with the president, although he had met all of his predecessors since he was in short pants, from Eisenhower on up.

  ~o0o~

  The MP from Puddlesmere-under-the-Fens stood. “I have a question for the Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. Is Her Majesty’s Government aware that the president of the United States, who is coming to this country, denies the reality of climate change?”

  The Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs frowned. Normally for Question Time the members of the House of Commons just gave the number of a question that had been submitted days ago. The MP from Puddlesmere-under-the-Fens played for the cameras. “Her Majesty’s Government is aware of the president’s opinion, but regrettably unable to change it. Such an action is beyond the purview of Her Majesty’s Government.”

  Next to her, the Lady Chancellor, who was also the Secretary of State for Justice, joked quietly. “Rather like the law of gravity. We can’t arrest people for not believing in it, but it exists, whether they believe in it or not.”

  Those who were close enough to hear the Lady Chancellor chuckled.

  The MP from St. Oswin’s-on-Avon rose to ask his question. “Question number three.”

  Before the appropriate Cabinet minister could stand to reply, the MP from St. Oswin’s-on-Avon followed the example of his distinguished colleague from Puddlesmere-under-the-Fens. “Is Her Majesty’s Government aware that the president of our long-time ally, the United States of America, has made many derogatory comments about women, including Her Late Highness the Princess of Wales, and if so, what does Her Majesty’s Government intend to do about it?”

  The Secretary of State for Education, who was also the Minister for Women and Equalities, answered his question with a question. “What, precisely, does the honorable gentleman expect Her Majesty’s Government to do? We are hosting the annual G7 conference. The United States is,” she hesitated for a moment, as that felt ungrammatical. Oughtn’t it be ‘the United States are’ for proper subject/verb agreement? “—our long-time ally, and a member of G7. We cannot prohibit the leader of a G7 nation from attending the conference.”

  “There are a great many petitions suggesting that he be barred from entering Great Britain,” the MP from St. Oswin’s-on-Avon reminded her.

  “Yes, Her Majesty’s Government is aware of the many petitions, both on paper and on-line, to label him as an unwelcome visitor and request he not be permitted entry into the nation.” The Minister for Women and Equalities took a deep breath. “The Channel Islands did a separate petition just to make it clear he will not be welcome there, either.”

  A few parliamentarians laughed at that.

  One female MP called out, “Huzzah for the Channel Islands!”

  “Perhaps the honorable gentleman from St. Oswin’s-on-Avon recollects that this very body debated whether or not to bar the President from our shores two years ago, and we voted at that time that he did not constitute a danger to queen or country,” the Minister for Women and Equalities said.

  “At the time, he was voted a buffoon rather than a danger,” the Secretary of State for the Home Department added.

  Several MPs began chattering among themselves. That bit of video had gone viral on Facebook and Twitter over the past week or two.

  A brown-skinned MP with a Pakistani name stood up. In a Manchester accent, he protested, “We were wrong! The man incites disorder and hatred. His actions against Muslims have encouraged terrorists and deepened the chasms between—”

  The Speaker of the House rose from his chair. “Ladies, gentlemen! This is the House of Commons, not a schoolyard. We will have order.”

  ~o0o~

  Mild tremors in Somerset, too small to be felt by any but the most delicate seismographs, rippled in a broad circle.

  ~o0o~

  “This is Penelope Penfold, BBC News,” a young blonde spoke into her microphone. “As you can see, a considerable crowd has gathered to protest the visit of the American president.”

  The camera panned behind her, showing a crowd of people carrying signs. There were women in hand-knit pink hats, turbaned Sikhs, teenagers in the universal uniform of t-shirts and blue jeans, Muslims in fezzes and traditional clothing, and Muslims in three piece suits and bowler hats.

  One sign showed a picture of a cartoon lion in a Beefeater’s uniform, carrying a halberd, with the words: “Grab this!”

  “No bigots in Britain!”

  “London is for lovers, not liars.”

  “Not being paid a shilling to protest.”

  “Keep Great Britain GREAT by keeping out the hate!”

  “However,” Miss Penfold continued, “not all the protesters are here to try to halt the president’s visit. Some people are eagerly anticipating the opportunity to welcome the president of the United States to the U. K.” She walked over to a middle-aged man wearing a Manchester United sweatshirt. “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me why you want the president to come?”

  “We don’t want him to come. We’d much prefer he stayed in the States,” the man explained. “But we believe freedom of speech is for everyone, even bigots.”

  The camera panned to show the signs held by the people behind him.

  “The British Empire is not afraid of a misspelled tweet.”

  “Freedom of speech applies even to idiots.”

  “It’s not that we welcome him. It’s just that we’re not afraid of him, and we refuse to lower ourselves to his level,” he concluded.

  ~o0o~

  Despite the protests, despite the petitions, Air Force One landed at Heathrow on schedule. As soon as the plane touched down, an earthquake at Glastonbury Tor split the ground.

  The president exited the plane, followed by his mousy First Lady. He waved to the crowd as he descended the aluminum stairs. His wife, as usual, kept her head bowed down. The Regimental Band of the Royal Welsh began playing “The Star Spangled Banner,” drowning out both the jeers of the protesters and the cheers of those greeting him. The jeers far outnumbered the cheers.

  ~o0o~

  Even as the American president set foot on English soil, a man stood from the ground and with no wasted confusion, dusted himself off and marched down the hill. Bronze lorica hamata armor covered his white tunic; Roman greaves covered his linen trousers. A simple gold diadem, devoid of gems or engravings, rested upon his auburn hair. He sniffed once, then turned his head to the right and left, sniffing again. He ignored the tourists reaching for their cameras and cell phones as he marched down to the River Brue.

  “I needs must go to London,” he announced. “I fain would not go unarmed.”

  An alabaster boat rose from the water. Six ghostly oarsmen, some clad like the man, some in boiled leather armor, and some in woolen tunics, manned the boat. Arthur smiled when he saw the sword that lay upon the prow.

  The world watched as the videos from Japanese tourists and students from the Somerset College of Arts and Technology exploded across Facebook and YouTube. The light was perfect as images captured the man as he stepped into the boat and picked up Excalibur. He examined the blade closely before raising it high. “To London! We must defend our beloved England from foreign invasion once more.” As prophes
ied of old

  END

  about_the_change.wav

  Joel Ewy

  . . . ecording. Recording. OK.

  It all started with the Feminazis and all the other Libtards. Everybody all used to agree on the truth. And then they started telling us Columbus was a mass-murderer. God’s A-OK with fags, all sex is rape, all men are pigs, all whites are racists. They started the change, I’m telling you. They tried to change reality first. Then things took a different turn. I guess the conservatives were just more effective at it, that’s all. Because the Feminazis and Libtards are all gone now. They’re all just stories and memories.

  Now, I will say that I never noticed the change until some time after the election. After the Media War. After the Executive Truth Order. I don’t know when, exactly. But things just started changing. The protests died down. You didn’t see so much bitching on Facebook anymore. I figured they just gave up, you know.

  But it wasn’t just that people were shutting up. The very same liberal queefs who used to whine and cry about some criminal the cops had to put down finally started talking sense. There was the New York Times retraction of their stories on KremlinGate. Then the NPR apology for questioning the US occupation of the Mexican oil fields. The entire staff offered to resign. I remember The Donald called it “great”. He said now we could all start working together to put America on top again.

  I remember one time I was watching Fox News when this liberal that always whines about the Donald suddenly got a weird look in his eye and said, “You may be right about that.” He said the pipeline probably wouldn’t burst, and if it did it would still be a small price to pay for the energy we all need.

  I remember the regular guys looked at him like he’d lost his script or something. When they came back from a commercial he did say a few things about how we should make sure we protect wildlife and stuff, but it was like something had shifted.

  That show isn’t even on these days. I guess there isn’t much point to it now. I remember on one of the last episodes they had some college professor pretending to argue against open carry on campus, but he clearly didn’t believe what he was saying. I changed the channel.