THE TERRIFIC LEADER
Harry Turtledove
Kim woke up shivering. She lay under four blankets, but her teeth chattered like castanets. It had to be ten below outside. It wasn’t a whole lot warmer here in the house. There wasn’t much to burn in the fireplace, or in any fireplace in the village. The promised coal shipment hadn’t come. They’d long since cut down every tree within a day’s walk except for a few plums and pears that still bore. Those might go soon. If you froze now, who cared whether you had fruit later?
Just on the off chance, she flicked the switch on the lamp by the bed. The room stayed gloomy. The power was still out. It would probably come on for a couple of hours in the afternoon. She hoped it would. The Terrific Leader was scheduled to speak today, and she wanted to hear it. If anything could make you forget your troubles, one of his, well, terrific speeches would turn the trick.
Meanwhile, gloom. The sun rose late and set early at this season, of course. And the clouds that were bringing the latest blizzard muffled its glow all the more thoroughly. You had to make do, the best you could. Self-reliance—that was the thing.
Sighing, Kim got out of bed. She’d left on all her clothes except her boots when she went to sleep. Now she got into them. With the three pairs of socks under them, they might keep her feet from freezing when she went out to forage.
She walked into the kitchen. Her mother was making tea and warming her hands at a tiny fire in a brazier. “Good morning, Mother dear,” Kim said. “Are you fixing enough for two cups?”
“I suppose so,” her mother said grudgingly, as if she’d hoped Kim would sleep longer so she could drink it all herself. Then she unbent enough to add, “And there’s still some pickled cabbage for breakfast.”
“Oh, good!” Kim hurried over to the jar. They’d lived by themselves these past three years, since the police took Kim’s father out of the fields and drove away with him. Not a word had come back since. She hoped he was a labor camp, and that they hadn’t simply executed him. Either way, being related to an enemy of the state only made everything more difficult.
The scent of garlic and peppers filled her nose when she opened the jar. Pickled cabbage wasn’t very filling, but it was—a little—better than nothing.
On the wall above the jar was one of the three portraits of the Terrific Leader in the house. As she ate, she studied his face. He was so wise, so handsome! His piercing gaze peered far into the future. This was the greatest, strongest, freest country in the world. It wasn’t perfect yet, but it was on the way. The Terrific Leader saw the way forward. You could tell just by looking.
“Here’s your tea,” her mother said, breaking her train of thought.
“Thank you very much, Mother dear.” Kim drank fast, before it got cold. Sure enough, the cup wasn’t quite full. And the tea was weak. Like anyone else, her mother sensibly used tea leaves more than once. You never knew when you’d be able to lay your hands on more.
“I hope you have good luck,” her mother said.
“Oh, so do I!” Kim replied. “We could use some good luck for a chance. We’ve had too much of the alternative kind.”
“We’re doing fine,” her mother said stoutly. In the house where an unreliable had lived, the authorities were likely to have planted spy ears. They might keep working even without power for anything else. “We’re doing fine, and our wonderful country and the Terrific Leader, heaven’s blessings upon him, are also doing fine. Better than fine!”
“Of course, Mother dear. I’ll see you later.” Kim went outside.
In spite of her quilted coat and the two sweaters under it, the icy wind tore at her. Fat flakes of snow flew almost horizontally. And another blizzard was supposed to be on the way after this one. Kim pulled down the coat’s hood and wrapped a muffler around the lower part of her face so only her eyes showed. The other people out and about were similarly swaddled. You recognized them not by what they looked like but by what they wore.
Even walking took work. There was a foot of snow on the ground, and drifts got two or three times that deep. Because of that, Kim nearly missed the lump in the snow in front of the Parks’ house. Yes, that was a body, no doubt their eldest son; he’d been sick and getting sicker for weeks. No medicines, the nearest doctor miles away and unwilling to come for such an insignificant person…It was a sad story, but an old one. They wouldn’t be able to plant the Park boy in the village graveyard till the ground thawed, not without dynamite, they wouldn’t. Well, he wouldn’t go off as long as the weather stayed cold.
Kim gasped. Here came Old Man Lee’s dog, the meanest one she knew. He was a big brute, and did better in the snow than she did. She had a couple of stones in her pocket in case the dog or some hungry man gave her trouble.
But the beast ignored her. A moment later, she saw why: he proudly carried a rabbit in his toothy jaws. Jealousy sharp and sour as vinegar filled Kim. Old Man Lee and his nasty shrew of a wife would eat well today. Kim could hardly remember the last time she’d tasted meat. Even the guts and the head the Lees would give the dog would be so good stewed with cabbage or grain.
Grain…
Of themselves, her feet were taking her to the harvest ground. You never could tell. Maybe some of what had spilled last fall was still there under the snow. Even forlorn hopes were better than none.
Another young woman was already searching the ground. She looked up warily, then relaxed and said, “Hello, Kim.”
“Hello, Kim,” Kim answered. She smiled, though the muffler hid it. Sharing a name was no large amusement, but sometimes small ones would do. She added, “Heaven’s blessings on the Terrific Leader!”
“Heaven’s blessings on the Terrific Leader!” the other Kim echoed.
They worked separately. Had they joined forces, they would have needed to share evenly. Each hoped for better than that.
Kim dug with mittened fingers till she reached the hard ground. She came across some mushrooms that had sprung up in the last thaw and then frozen when the weather turned bad again. They weren’t much, but better than nothing. Into her left coat pocket—the one without the rocks—they went. Then, to her delight, she really did come upon some spilled grain. It joined the mushrooms in that pocket.
She got up and walked away. As soon as the swirling snow hid her from the other Kim, she hurried to a hedgerow to check traps she’d set the day before. The wind would soon blot out her tracks. She almost whooped for joy when she found a big, fat rat noosed in a snare, hanged like a leftish deviationist. Rat wasn’t as good as rabbit, but it was ever so much better than nothing. After resetting traps that were sprung but hadn’t caught anything (or that had been robbed before she got to them), she happily headed for home. Tonight there’d be…not a feast, but food.
Her mother exclaimed in delight when Kim showed her what she’d brought home. A little past two, the power came on. Lights flickered to dim, low-voltage life. What electric tools they had would work for a while.
And the Terrific Leader was going to speak! With her mother and the rest of the village, she gathered in the square to hear his inspiring words. The communal televisor, like authorized radios, got only government-mandated channels so no one could be exposed to outsiders’ wicked lies.
There he was! He was an old, old man now, though—of course!—still strong and vigorous. Everybody knew one of his sons, or perhaps his son-in-law, would eventually succeed him, and then a grandson, and so on. But he still ruled, as he had since long before Kim was born; even thinking such thoughts was risky.
He wore his trademark red cap, with his slogan—AMERICA IS GREAT AGAIN!—on the front in big letters. “I have a message for all of you,” he rasped. “The crime and violence that today afflict our nation will end soon. I mean very soon. Safety will be restored. Everything will be terrific, the way it’s always been.
“Our plan keeps putting America first. The powerful no longer beat upon people who cannot defend themselves. I have restored law and order. Our border wall has s
topped illegal immigration, stopped gangs and drugs, and done lots of other totally terrific stuff, too. I respect the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. It trumps anything else there is. I mean anything else. Keep at it. America first like I said, America last, America always!”
“America first!” the village chorused as the televisor went off. Kim’s eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t help it. She loved the Terrific Leader.
TWO EXPLICIT AND THREE OBLIQUE APOLOGIES TO MY OLDEST DAUGHTER ONE MONTH BEFORE HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY
Heather Lindsley
October 4, 2020
Dear Jen,
Did you know that when I first left home to go to college, your grandmother sent me a case of powdered milk? Bear in mind that in the early 90s sending someone a case of powdered milk involved going to a store and then standing in line at a post office. You couldn’t impulse-click a case of powdered milk. Can you impulse-click a case of powdered milk? Hang on.
You can, though it’s not so much a case as a small box. Use it to make cream of potato soup or something. Do not—I repeat, do not—reconstitute it and pour it on cereal and expect it to taste like milk.
When the powdered milk arrived I had the good manners to call my mother and say thank you. But I didn’t have the insight to also say, “I know your oldest child has moved half a continent away and you want that to be good for her and you want to be helpful but you’re not sure how.” I probably said, “You know they have milk in Boston, right?”
I think I’ll call your grandmother tonight.
You’ll have already found the box of stationery and postage stamps I sent along with this letter. And oh, I guess the powdered milk will have arrived before you get this. You’ll have to tell me which is more helpful.
I hope you’re settling in at school okay. It looks like it, based on what I see in my feed. I suspect, even hope, there are posts I don’t see. I’d like to think you have a sophisticated privacy model that keeps your data away from marketers as well as your mother.
This morning I got an unnecessary reminder that your birthday is in a month. The algorithm included a list of presents you’d like. I know it’s pretty reliable but let me know what you really want, okay? Apart from a birthday that doesn’t miss eligibility to vote in a presidential election by two hours.
I wish I could get you a time machine. I would use it for so, so many things, but right now I’d probably start with late October 2002. I’d try jumping jacks, pineapple, raspberry leaf tea, Pitocin, a C-section if it came to it, though I do get the impression that I’m more upset about this than you are. Anyway, I’m sorry you can’t vote next month. I hope the country gives you a better present than they did when you turned fourteen.
Oh, before I forget: I know you think you escaped tech support (ha ha ha there is no escape), but do you know how I can get access to season two of Lilith’s Brood without having to sign up for a viewing tracker? I’d ask Sarah, but she’d just play dumb—she doesn’t want me to know just how tech-savvy she really is. I know the episodes will trickle down eventually, but that season one finale is still on my mind. And don’t tell me to just sign up for a tracker and stop worrying about it because they anonymize the data they collect. They creep me out. It’s like they’re watching me back. Okay, fine, it’s not like that…it is that. And it’s creepy.
I remember the first time an ad for a burger chain included the location of the nearest one in unobtrusive text at the bottom of the screen while your father and I were streaming a show. We knew it wouldn’t be long before our names got pulled into the ad, too. It wasn’t a matter of when it would become technologically possible, because it already was. It was when it became socially possible, when it would get a positive reaction. You never seemed to mind those ads when they started appearing, so eerily tailored to you, but they still bother me.
I guess it’s all about what you’re used to.
Do you remember when your father opted into fitness data sharing with the insurance company? It saved us a fortune on premiums. Then he lost the device and they threatened to raise the rates unless he got a new one. So he did, but now he’s lost it again. This time they’re offering to pay for the implanted one. Your dad is actually considering it. He says he likes the data but not the device. And he thinks since he exercises so much it should be fine. Of course your sister jumped in and told him that sounds like people who justify militarized police by saying if you’re not a criminal you don’t have anything to worry about. He said she was overreacting. So Sarah said he should tell that to all the people who…well, you know what Sarah thinks. I’m sorry—you’ve finally achieved some peace and quiet by going off to college and here I am relaying the latest shouting match.
Have you and Sarah spoken since you left? I see a bit of interaction in your feeds, but not much. Not that either of you are inclined to chat in public. I just hope you two are talking.
Sarah’s been angry for a long time, and I don’t know what to do because there really is so much to be angry about. Something happened at school yesterday. She wouldn’t tell me what it was, but she was upset enough to say things I think she wished she hadn’t, about how if we can’t get our data back, we should fill it up with enough false detail to make it useless, worthless. She stopped and went to her room when I looked too interested. Maybe she was just ranting. I kind of hope she wasn’t.
How did we end up accepting all this? How did we get so disconnected from the actual mechanisms of power that choosing toothpaste at random feels like a viable act of rebellion?
I never made a big deal about it, but I was surprised when the school only took you on the condition that you majored in Business Administration. They said the data showed that was your best chance of success. You could have gone to your second choice and majored in whatever you wanted, but you told us you were struggling to decide between business and sociology anyway. So off you went to your first choice. You seem happy. You’re only a month in, but I already imagine you’ll be recruited into a job with one of the Big Three consulting firms before graduation, because the data will say you’ll do well. And you would do well, I know you would, but not because the data says so.
After you chose your school I noticed you played your violin less often, and by the time you left home you’d stopped altogether. I half expected you to leave it at home and was relieved when you took it with you. Are you playing at all now? I know you were always frustrated when your performance fell short of your perfectionism. But you were good, and as long as you were playing, you were getting better.
I don’t know what I’m asking for here. Do I want you to be less satisfied? More discontented now so you’ll be less discontented later? Do I want you to be angry, like your sister? Why would a parent wish that on their child?
I miss you, sweetheart.
Please keep playing the violin. Please choose random toothpaste. Please call your sister.
And don’t be tempted to drink the powdered milk.
Love always,
Mom
THE LEVELLERS
Deji Bryce Olukotun
A thin stream of maple sap poured from the severed pipe, forming a dark hole in the snow. Next to the puddle Sam could see hoofprints where white-tailed deer had lapped at the liquid. This was the starving season, when the deer could lose twenty pounds as the barren woods denied them any sustenance, forcing them out onto people’s lawns. The Lenape had once survived on sugar maples, too, enduring the long tail of winter until spring, when the forest would burst with promise in the Sourlands. That was two hundred years ago.
Sam dialed the second image that popped up on her “Favorites.”
“Hey Sam,” Thomas answered.
“Looks like Leighton cut through one of my lines again.”
Thomas paused on the other end of the line. “You sure?”
“It’s near where he did it the last time.”
“Damn it,” Thomas said. He could be heard calling after his son. “I don’t know wher
e he’s run off to.”
“I’ve probably lost forty gallons today.”
“We’ll pay for it.”
“Don’t pay for it, Thomas. Get him to stop.”
“I’ll talk to him. You want me to come down there to help you?”
Sam was about to tell Thomas to forget it, accustomed to doing everything by herself to her own exacting requirements, but then she remembered the hill and how she’d have to carry boiling water through the snowmelt, which was vexing, excruciating work. And her own daughter hadn’t returned yet from her nursing shift at the hospital and frowned upon her maple operation anyway, considering syrup to be a luxury. By then she might have lost two hundred gallons of sap.
“You mean that, Thomas? You’ll come down here?”
“Sure,” Thomas said. “Game’s finished. Eagles blew it.”
“Alright. But don’t come down here and start talking football to me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Thomas laughed.
Sam slowly followed the rest of the lines that crisscrossed the sugar maple grove, inspecting the T- and Y-joints to make sure the sap was flowing properly from the taps. It didn’t look like Thomas’ kid had cut any other lines but she wanted to be sure. The exertion of trudging through the sodden snow—which was too soggy for snowshoes—made her rest to catch her breath from time to time. Altogether, the Cumulus Maple Farm contained about five hundred maple trees, twenty percent red maple—what purists called swamp maple—with the other eighty percent sugar maples. Some of the trees in the sugar bush stood proud with healthily branching limbs, while others were sickly from being deluged from water running off a neighboring property—a McMansion that had altered the natural drainage of the hillside. Sick trees didn’t bother Sam, though, because she tapped the trees all the same. She’d long since learned that if the trees were going to die, then they were going to die, and taking their sap wouldn’t accelerate that process.
Done with her inspection, she climbed laboriously back to the top of the hill, adjusting her halter as she walked. She whipped out a pocket mirror to check for stubble around her jaw and tucked it into her pocket before Thomas arrived in a long-bed Toyota Tacoma, a truck that had made Thomas proud two years back when he bought it, and nervous now that the Levellers had denounced all gasoline-powered vehicles. Sam felt a thrill when Thomas stepped out of the cab in his Gore-Tex boots and pharmacy-bought aviator glasses. He was a thin, wiry man with light brown eyes and a cleft chin who weighed the same as he did when they had graduated from high school together.
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