Changing and Sameing

MERCIFULLY, in an alternative universe, the great pandemic of two thousand and twenty had come to an end.  The various corporate sponsored vaccines had finally arrived and been priced according to market forces, billions had been vaccinated, many standing in line for ours, well worth the wait. Even the anti-vaxxxers had finally capitulated to scientific reality, casting off the evil spell of Jenny McCarthy. Trump followers had at long last acceded to common sense, and were wearing masks en mass and social distancing, putting a bit of a damper on their proclivity for loud mouthed close quartering, but saving many of their lives. MAGAT rallies were no longer relevant nor necessary. We thanked Mr. Trump on his way out, for his impeccable honesty, kindness, courtesy, and nobility of soul in treating with his opponents. From heaven, the losers and suckers who had died fighting for their country wished him a happy retirement, free from the agony of bone spur pain. My local senior center reopened, and when I walked in I saw the same old crowd of far right wing evangelical Trump supporters, looking strangely chastened. Their hero dethroned, they seemed a bit down. How could they possibly carry on with the government full of godless, baby killing, Robin Hooding Democrats, who were already preparing to raise taxes on the wealthy and to render unto Caesar and give unto the poor? How long until the liberal maniacs cooked up some cockeyed socialist scheme to steal money from the paychecks of hard working Americans, put it in a trust fund, and pay it out later to the retired elderly for their societal security? I smiled as I thought about my mother, born in nineteen twenty, and who believed in 1935 that she would never get all her money back, then ended up getting it all back and much more, since she lived to ninety three. My parents and grandparents did not vote for that damned socialist Roosevelt. My mother said, when I asked her, that no and hell no she didn't vote for that damned radical socialist. I decided to wait for all the right wing Trump supporting evangelical seniors to renounce their social security check as pure socialism, and thus unacceptable. there, in the corner, alone as always, sat the old Pentecostal reprobate, stony silent as he studied the same tiny piece of irregularly shaped cardboard for hours, as if it were important to him. He thinks that all Democrats automatically go to hell, and that he has a one way ticket to heaven. His own evil and barbaric system of belief are beyond his comprehension. He refrains from speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is nothing but blathering noise and nonsense, not so very different from the noise and blathering nonsense the reprobate Trump fed him and his evangelical comrades for four years, until the sane American majority finally put a merciful end to the lunacy.