Alternative Truths Read online

  The bird laughed. “Yes, Little Barron, young prince. I will teach you to sing. And perhaps in your song, people will find hope.”

  ~o0o~

  Many courtiers were fired, but Conway Goldenhair, Preice Reinbus, and Bannon the White survived the purge. Trumpress Melania’s position was once again as secure as ever it was.

  Three months later, the nightingale spread her wings and flew back to the central forest. Not for long, though. She returned to sing Little Barron to sleep almost every night, and on most nights, he sang along with her.

  Over the next few years, the boy grew up. If he was silent, it was no longer from fear, but from thoughtful observation. When he spoke, his voice was soft, but powerful. The Trumperor soon realized that his youngest son possessed wisdom far beyond his years, and made the boy one of his main advisers. Little Barron was thrust deep into court intrigue, but he navigated it wisely and well with the help of the nightingale. The young prince was amazed by what a small bird can learn listening through an open window, and he learned to use the knowledge well.

  Little Barron learned to read his father’s moods, and he was able to blunt the Trumperor’s sharpest impulses. Other courtiers grew jealous, but Little Barron charmed them with his sweet songs. Over time, the court grew to trust him and the people to love him.

  Many years later, when the Trumperor died, the older princes squabbled over their father’s holdings. Little Barron negotiated a truce between them, asking only for enough that he and his mother could live comfortably until the end of their days. The princes obliged and considered themselves lucky to be rid of the beautiful, golden-haired Little Barron (no longer so little), for he had grown into a charismatic young man.

  When he came of age, Little Barron followed in his father’s footsteps and convinced the many kingdoms to elect him as their ruler. Where his father had appealed to anger and rage, Little Barron appealed to compassion and love. He promised to care for all the frightened, the poor, and the unloved. The nightingale had told him stories of their suffering, and he had sworn long ago to do what he could for them. He kept his promise and became one of the most beloved emperors to ever grace the royal White House.

  And of course, he made sure that everyone that wanted to learn, learned how to sing.

  END

  PRESIDENT TRUMP, GETTYSBURG, NOVEMBER 19, 1863

  Jim Wright

  Forty-seven years ago, our fathers, who were great people by the way, great people, like my father, who I learned a lot from, I have to say I’m very proud of him, proud, and fathers, who did a tremendous job of founding this great country, which is just incredible. But I have to say we’re in trouble, trouble, Folks, because the Founding Fathers made deals that were, they weren’t good, they were great people don’t get me wrong, but, bad deals, Folks, bad deals which are catastrophic in terms of what is happening. People are saying we have made incredible progress, incredible progress, Folks, on this continent, which as you know is the best continent. That’s what people tell me, I don’t know, but the liberty, people are conceiving in liberty, liberty babies, they come here and conceive the babies in the liberty and they’re bad people, some of them, some of them are good people too, the best, just tremendous people, and babies, which are dedicated to the proposition, Folks, the proposition that all men are created, some people believe that, equal, and they have tremendous equality, just really good equality, optimism, which to some people used to mean “oh that’s not good” but they’re now saying is “Oh, that’s good for jobs.” Very different, Folks.

  Now we are engaged in a great Civil War. Yes, a very great war. Everywhere I go people are telling me it’s great, but the press won’t tell you that, the failing New York Times won’t tell you how great this Civil War is because, so dishonest. They have no respect for the Great American People who are so great, everywhere I go, the press, so dishonest. It’s terrible. The level of dishonesty is out of control. We have to talk to find out what’s going on, because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty, it’s crazy, Folks. We are here on the great battlefield, it’s great, really great, in that war, which is great. So tragic. People say that. And the jobs. Which they gave the lives for, to make America Great Again. Which is fitting, Folks. Which the press won’t tell you about, not all the time, and some of the media is fantastic, I have to say, they’re honest and fantastic, but fitting. And proper. So we have to do this. Some of the things I’m doing probably aren’t popular but they’re necessary for security and for other reasons.

  But in a larger sense, the greatest sense, which America is known for, we cannot consecrate, we cannot, Folks, because ISIS—which is a mess I inherited—we cannot consecrate this hallowed ground, which so many men gave their lives for, bravely living men, so brave, and the dead, who struggled, Folks, they struggled, which is why we have to rebuild our military. Which is great. I love our military, tremendous respect, we have the greatest people, but it’s so bad, Folks. It’s depleted, it’s depleted. And the equipment, which I used. I used it. We have to rebuild it. Had great support in the Senate. They say Trump had the highest electoral win ever. I don’t know. That’s what they say. And I think one of the reasons I’m standing here instead of other people is that frankly, I talked about we have to have a strong military. We can never forget what they did here, Folks, so great. Very dedicated. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work. The unfinished work, which is why I have ordered the construction of a Great Wall, which we have to start. We have to finish it, Folks, and mark my words the Confederates will pay for it. They’ll pay for it. To the last full measure. I’m going to put that in the deal, it’ll be a great deal, Folks, I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes. I wasn’t supposed to get 222. They said there’s no way to get 222, 230’s impossible. 270 which you need, that was laughable. We got 306 because people came out and voted like they’ve never seen before so I guess it was the biggest win since maybe James Buchanan. So we highly resolve, Folks, that these dead, which are great, the best dead, which didn’t die in vain, that this nation, under God who gave birth to Freedom, God gave birth, Folks, to Freedom, so that government of the people, which has not been in contact with the Russians, who I’ve never spoken to, I have no business in Russia, and I said that very forcefully but most of the papers won’t tell you that, but the people, the government people, of the people, which is why I’ve put the hiring freeze in place because too many people were being hired by the government. Crazy. It was just crazy, Folks, people, by the people and for the people, the worst people but some of them were good maybe, I don’t know, that’s what they tell me. We have great people. Who will not perish, Folks, they will not perish from the earth.

  END

  RELICS: A FABLE

  Louise Marley

  The banging of a sledge hammer woke Livvy from the heavy sleep of early morning. She opened her dry eyes gingerly, lifting the lids a tiny bit at a time, blinking to stir up some moisture. Gray dawn showed through the thin curtain of her single window. It was too early for birdsong. Not too early for the sledge hammers. Never too early for sledge hammers.

  Livvy pulled her mother’s handmade quilt over her head, and indulged in a few moments’ longing for the old days, when Butch had been alive and they lived in a real house. It wasn’t much of a house, being in the shade of the Wall, but it was far enough away so the racket of building and repairs didn’t reach them. She longed for one night of uninterrupted sleep, but she knew better than to dwell on the past.

  Some of the other relics, relegated to the shacks as Livvy now was, were deaf enough to sleep through the noise. Livvy’s hearing was intact, though other parts of her weren’t, and she slept uneasily since Butch died. She kept her single door locked, but it was only plywood. It wouldn’t do a thing to stop the gangs if they came in search of food or blankets. There were guards here and there, of course, but they were meant for the Wall, not for protecting people who couldn’t
work anymore.

  Livvy pushed back the quilt. “Get yourself up now, Olivia Sutton,” she said aloud. Butch used to tease her about talking to herself, and her reply that she was talking to the cat, made him laugh. She wished Butch was still here to tease her. The cat was gone, too.

  She smoothed her bed, and drew back the curtain gingerly, so the threadbare fabric wouldn’t tear again. Her window faced the dirt lane separating the Wall and the dilapidated row of shacks from the houses of the village. The shacks were flimsy squares built from boards and metal pieces left over from construction of the Wall. Each was a single room with a toilet and a woodstove, built like a lean-to, attached to the massive bulk of the Wall itself. They were differentiated mostly by the colors and textures of whatever had been used to build them.

  The shacks had been thrown together for Wall workers a long time ago. When the workers moved on to other sections, the Council pressed the shacks into use for people like Livvy, people who couldn’t work anymore. It pleased the Council to call them “the Residences,” but everyone else called them the shacks.

  Sometimes, when the Wall shifted or settled, a shack would shatter, and tumble to pieces. If the inhabitants were lucky, they escaped with a few bruises. If they weren’t lucky, they died.

  Of course, the relics were close to death anyway, so no one cared much. Livvy suspected most of the relics didn’t care much, either.

  She used the toilet, changed into the shapeless dress she wore most days, and walked the five steps to the woodstove. She had a few grains of coffee left, brought to her by one of the church ladies, and a pitcher of water she had carried in yesterday. She could make one cup of coffee, probably her last. Coffee didn’t grow on this side of the Wall. Coffee needed sunlight, and the Wall cast a long, deep shadow.

  Soon there would be no coffee left except for the people who lived above the shade line, people with coins to pay the smugglers. It was illegal to buy from them, of course, but when it came to the people in the big houses, the law turned a blind eye. Even if Olivia Sutton had coins, she wouldn’t dare buy from a smuggler.

  Livvy heard that on the other side they had oranges, too. She loved oranges, the look of them, the weight of one in your hand, the wonderful scent that broke free as you peeled away the skin. Apples grew at the top of the hill, and she and the other relics were allowed to pick up the ones that fell to the ground, but Livvy longed for oranges. There had been a few in her girlhood, and later, in her working life, as an occasional bonus. Sometimes she craved their tart sweetness so much her belly ached in response.

  She took care brewing the precious cup of coffee. When it was ready, she divided it in two. Porter, next door, had run out the day before. With both cups in her hands, she crossed the patch of dirt and gravel to his shack.

  He hobbled out to meet her, leaning on a long, knobbled stick, moving as if every step caused him pain. “You look nice today, Mrs. Sutton,” he panted.

  She chuckled, and handed him the half cup of coffee. “You’re an old sweet talker, Porter,” she said. “I can guess how I look.”

  A rickety bench ran along the side of his shack, built from more Wall remnants. Livvy held Porter’s arm as he struggled to settle onto it. It was cold in the shade of the Wall, and Livvy’s skin prickled with goosebumps. The Wall grew higher every year, and every year its shade devoured more of the village. People complained their vegetables wouldn’t grow, and their fruit trees were dying. Still the Wall rose higher. The complainers achieved nothing but warnings from the Council.

  Livvy took a sip of coffee, and closed her eyes at the rich bitterness. “I’m going to miss this,” she said.

  “Kind of you to share,” he said.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Don’t mention it.”

  Porter seemed to be fading before her eyes. His scalp showed through the few remaining white strands on his head. His eyes were clouded with cataracts, his hands bent and twisted by arthritis. There was a time, her mother had claimed, when there were remedies for arthritis, and cataracts could be taken out. Such things had disappeared before Livvy was born.

  Her life, like her mother’s, like Porter’s, like Butch’s, had been lived in the shadow of the Wall. Butch had died on it, putting a foot wrong when he was laying stones at the top, falling to an ugly death on the piled boulders at the foot. There was supposed to be a pension for his widow, but it never materialized.

  Livvy had often tried to persuade Butch to find another line of work. He only shrugged. “What else can I do?” he said, every time. “They won’t have me on the Council.” He had laughed at the old joke, the way he laughed at everything. Livvy hadn’t found it funny.

  Now she shivered a little, and Porter said, “Let me get my blanket for you.” He moved his stick, and tried to get to his feet.

  “No, no,” she said, as he fell back on the bench with a breathless groan. “I’m perfectly fine, Porter. Let’s you and me enjoy this last bit of coffee, and then I’ll see if I can’t walk up the hill. Get some sunshine. Maybe see if there are some apples left.”

  “Wish I could escort you,” he said. “These old legs won’t hardly carry me no more.”

  “I’m real sorry about that, Porter.”

  His shrug reminded her, painfully, of Butch’s. “Doesn’t matter now,” Porter said.

  “Of course it matters!”

  “Nah. Once a man can’t work, that’s pretty much it.”

  “A woman, too.”

  “Yeah, that’s right, Mrs. Sutton. That’s right. A woman, too.”

  The hill was steep and long, a single, mostly-paved road leading up to the big houses of the Council members. The shade didn’t reach those houses. They rose proudly into the sunshine, their gardens full of flowers, their trees flourishing. Livvy had worked in one of those houses for years, cleaning and taking care of children, sometimes cooking. The housekeeper always called her Mrs. Sutton, and she let her take leftovers home to Butch. Sometimes she slipped packets of coffee and sugar into her apron pockets as little treats. Livvy’s favorite days were spent minding the Councilman’s children, taking them to the playground or reading to them.

  When she couldn’t get down on her knees anymore to scrub floors, the Councilman fired her. It was better than falling from the top of the Wall to break her neck, but not much. It was the end of good things in her life. She didn’t bother asking if she could still come to read to the children. Truth was, if that Councilman met her on the street, he wouldn’t know her, and he sure wouldn’t care whether she wanted to see the little ones. The only good thing was that without a job, she could lend a hand to Porter, who had no one to see him through to his end.

  Porter had never married. Livvy had never had a child who lived more than a few months. They made good neighbors.

  He drained his cup, closing his eyes as she had done to savor the last drops. “That was good. Thanks.”

  She took his cup in her cold fingers, and rose. “You’re welcome. You have something for breakfast?”

  “Yeah. I have an egg.”

  She raised her brows. “Who brought you an egg?”

  “Woman from the church.”

  “That was nice of her.”

  “Had to listen to her sermon, though.”

  Livvy chuckled, and the two cups clinked together. “Pretty bad, was it?”

  “Yeah. Seems I ain’t saved, at least not the right way. That really bothers her. Still let me have the egg, though.”

  “Do you want me to come over and cook it for you?”

  “Naw, I can do it. You go try to get some sun.”

  ~o0o~

  Livvy’s knees ached with the cold, but she managed, painfully, to climb the hill to the old school playground. She settled herself onto one of the children’s swings that hung, empty and abandoned, from a rusting steel frame. The sun rose high enough above the Wall that the playground was bright by midday. She put her face up into the sunshine and waited for her aching joints to thaw in its warmth.
<
br />   The school had closed decades before. There weren’t many children about anymore, so the park was usually empty. She used to love pushing children on the swing, or waiting for them at the bottom of the slide. When she heard the mothers snap with impatience, she wanted to hush them, tell them how fortunate they were to have living children.

  She never did it. As Butch said, better to keep your head down and mind your own business. You never knew if the Council was going to take after you. You could lose everything.

  She lost everything anyway. First Butch, then her job, then her little house with its trio of tiny graves that never saw the sun.

  Oh, and the cat disappeared. Thinking of the silly cat made her eyes sting.

  Livvy muttered, “You gotta stop that, Olivia Sutton. Cat would be long dead by now.” She blinked, and shaded her eyes against the glitter of sunlight.

  From the playground, she could see miles of the Wall. She was curious to know how much higher it had grown in her lifetime. Butch used to say it was growing three inches a year. That seemed like too much to Livvy, but Butch was usually right about such things. She also had no idea how long it actually was. There had been a boy, when she was young, who swore he’d walked along it for two solid weeks and never reached the end.

  Livvy had never been out of the village. She didn’t dare leave, for fear the Council wouldn’t allow her back in.

  She pushed with her feet, and the swing rocked gently, forward and back. The Wall loomed below her, many yards thick at the bottom, growing narrower and narrower until it was only a foot or so across at the top. Butch said it used to be steel from top to bottom, one flat plane, but since there was no more steel—those factories had fallen to ruin long ago—now it was an ugly mountain of rocks and dirt and who knew what-all, patched together with cement.

  It was protection, the Council said. To keep the people safe. Nobody could recall for sure what they were being protected from, but there were lots of rumors. Thieves. Murderers. Rape gangs. Kidnappers.