Microstory 358: Safety from Political Corruption or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Escape to a Constructed Reality

Click here for a list of every step.
Freedom from War

My personal political ideas are so radical that I’ve never really gotten into studying how politics work in the real world. I approach the fictional worlds in my stories as a naïve child; with few preconceived notions. Don’t get me wrong, I do tons of research for my work, and it’s actually my favorite part (I more often than not dread the typing part, whoops). But I also like to reimagine the world from an outsider’s perspective, because if another planet wanted to create a judicial system, they wouldn’t check in with Earthan humans first. I tell you this as a disclaimer so that you’ll understand where I’m coming from when I tell you that voting for Donald Trump is unlikely to be any less than the second or third worst mistake of your life. It on its own probably wouldn’t be the worst, because Trump-voters have something fundamentally wrong with their brains. He’s not as dumb as his twitter feed makes him seem. In fact, he and his campaign team are geniuses. We hear so much about the “black vote” and the “female vote” and the “hispanic vote” but Trump has finally figured out that idiots outnumber the rest of us by a ratio of at least 3:1. He’s low on money, and the polls aren’t looking great for him, but the scare is not yet over. Even if he doesn’t win, he’s a giant mirror for the state of our country. That Trump has made it this far is an omen to how close Uncle Sam is to shooting a firecracker in his own face. I speak so much of him because he’s not a politician, yet he could be the greatest we’ve ever seen. Politicians lie, cheat, and steal. They put people in danger, they do favors for each other, and their motives rarely align with the greater good or the moral high ground. Sounds like Trump to me. He’s corporate incarnate, so I’m not worried about him and policy, because little would change there. I’m worried about him being in possession of reapers and nuclear codes. He’s why I live in an alternate reality.

Right to Privacy

Siftens Landing Part IV

Click here for the first installment of this series.

Click here for the second installment of this series.
Click here for the third installment of this series.

Allison Siften’s younger brother, Junior would turn out to be the cause of the explosion. While all six of the parents went out to search for Moe, he and Libby Lander were asked to keep the two youngest children from the new family company. They had a lot in common with Sandra and Johnny Kapka. They liked playing video games, they hated conformists, and they couldn’t care less that their families were in this weird unspoken feud. While Libby and Johnny played against each other in a racing game, Sandra watched with an air of superiority, and Junior sat restlessly. He wanted to do something interesting. He wanted to do something fun. He wanted to do something dangerous. “I have some firecrackers,” he announced.

The other three stood up from the couch immediately. “Let’s go!” Johnny said excitedly.

They spent the rest of the day shooting off fireworks clear on the other side of the forest, so they wouldn’t get caught. They had found another thing in common; a love for destruction. They were quickly unsatisfied with the firecrackers themselves, and started rigging them to blow up other things. A computer monitor here, a bottle of cola there. They tried to use a pile of dead grass as shrapnel, but it wasn’t as glorious as they had hoped. Once they had depleted their supplies, Junior said, “We could always get the Ferocity Sunstrikers.”

“What are Ferocity Sunstrikers?” Sandra asked.
“They’re the biggest firecrackers ever created by human man,” Libby explained. “And they aren’t his. They belong to my dad.”“They’re basically legal bombs,” Junior continued. They went back down to the houses to retrieve the legendary fireworks from the Landers’ garage. The box got caught on some rope that someone had put in front of it. Junior tugged and pulled, trying to get it out. He was always so impatient and thoughtless. After one last try, he fell to his back. The box opened, spilling the Ferocity Sunstrikers. One of them started rolling down the garage and out to the driveway. They tried to catch it, but it was too fast. Junior had no idea how, but the Sunstriker activated and shot across the lawn. They watched as it flew right into his own garage, and exploded, sending a massive plume of fire up through the house, and out of the roof. Click here for the final installment...