What If?
The creative venture inspired by spoken word artist/ poet Sarah Kay
The Minister of Great Divides has just stepped into his office. He has been hard at work for six months, driving the momentum that will reinstate the Fair News Act, a mandate requiring licensed media outlets to broadcast news mirroring a variety of opinions. It is not an easy law to resurrect but the Minister takes great pride knowing the current congressional tally indicates a favorable outcome. The initiative will pass this month.
As he leans back from the desk surrounded by a stack of paperwork, he notices his computer is slow, a result of loading spreadsheets from the top CEOs in all fifty states, the mandatory 80 hours completed within in nursing homes, lifting patients, emptying bedpans, keeping the elderly infirmed happy and soothed. An urgent call on his phone blinks red on the answering machine, mirroring the anger from many constituents concerned about the Jail to Ministry swap, a program that will commute inmates sentences upon the voluntary participation of sharing life stories, past troubles, present trials, and future dreams in a group therapy format. Privacy laws alerted to him by benevolent faith leaders have caused him to cautiously extend the project launch date. A small hiccup, or back step to be solved by consulting humanitarian lawyers and scheduling public meetings to assure citizens that every person’s dignity and voice (incarcerated or not) will be heard and attended to.
Amidst the pile of unending work, a small note of appreciation shines from the glimmer of sparkles attached on a thank you card. The mayor, exuberant after the accomplishments of New Year’s Eve provides a printed list of a whirlwind weekend. Multiple carnivals set up in 90 cities nationwide; tables manned by volunteers piled high with brochures offering free therapy, available sanctuary centers for the displaced, employment opportunities offering full benefits, excellent low-cost child care centers, and affordable housing that are really- affordable; coffee, donuts, and hot chocolate supplied in bulk passed out to warm cold hands.
The commissioner remembers the night fondly, taking time off to walk Washington’s streets, hearing echoing rhythmic beats from the stage hosting La Banda Guatemala, whose performance style consisted of a blend of salsa syncopations mixed with pop, the wooden keyed marimba supplying a light buoyancy. Front stage, a dance troop was festooned with bright head scarves, swaying skirts, and shiny boots. Below, the audience, a mass mimicking the choreographed steps. Of particular pride was the ambiance of safety. Dark suited men and women patrolled at a respectful distance. Guns locked in precinct offices, their delight came from the smiles of passing families with children whose small hands reached up for gold star stickers to adorn tiny puff jackets for the weeks to come.
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The new cabinet position of the Minister of Great Divides created by POTUS 49 was initially met with skepticism, begrudged by Democrats and Republicans alike. After an exhausting four years of near totalitarian rule, some thought the idea too advanced. Aspirational, but really could anything be accomplished? We have courts to repair, diplomatic relations worldwide to rebuild, a military hierarchy to restructure. All this takes time and money, so why waste governmental dollars on the vagueness of ideals? (yes, a slight reference to DOGE here)
But then the story comes out. The appointment to the cabinet position of a progressive judge who staunchly defends the equal rights marriage act and believes in affirming healthcare for all genders. Research reveals this perfectly liberal candidate to be a widower raising a drug addicted daughter. A frail teenage who has cost him more than one retrieval trip from the slammer, the opioid’s desperate cravings breaking the logic and self control of his previous dependable daughter, has landed him into bankruptcy court twice. Oh, how he has been through a lot with this one!
Thankfully the narrative does not end there. By some fortuitous happenstance, the young adult met the Mormon Bishop’s boy through a youth group camping trip, sponsored by the East County church ward. He is the oldest son in a family of five, socially anxious with a diagnosis of Asperger’s. She, well, the circumstances are above. To everyone’s amazement, despite obvious ideological differences, the families are both pleased with the blossoming relationship. The young man has gained confidence tutoring math to classmates in need, the girl’s sobriety date reaching one year this month, celebrated with a dinner party at the Giant Fish Cafe.
“Then again,” the townspeople chat via electronic messages, “Who would be better? Mormons don’t even drink caffeine.” Ah for the gossip, not the highest form of civilized conversation, but sometimes a saving distraction from other great hardships. For it had been little more than six months since the decade of harsh national fluctuation that brought yearly blizzards capable of shutting down child care centers, hospitals and healthcare, the coldness bringing back preventable respiratory diseases that left children wheelchair bound and coughing for years. Family and individual displacement reached its highest numbers ever, with the target being the largest growing contributing population in the nation. Last year, having reached the alphabet letter D in blizzard naming, social scientists dubbed the final 12 months of the fear mongering regime “The Storm of Great Discord”. An apt title as whole seasons had gone by with neighbors unable to talk to neighbors, friends not understanding the basic traits of care, people reaching out but failing to touch each other’s soul. Even today with the Minister hard at work to repair doubt, distrust, and loneliness in communication, until true spring arrived, many wonder, what was there to dream towards?
Yet without fail, each weekday evening at 5pm the Giant Fish Cafe restaurant owners Dan and Sheryl Connolly sit swaddled in blankets cushioning two outdoor wooden Adirondack chairs. With steaming cups of coffee by their side, a chorus of crickets and frogs chirping from the nearby Potomac river, the two watch the flash of beacon lights turn on from the dock. Lights guiding boats to shore. Above the bank ridge, a winding highway delivers a slow trail of cars sliding down the curvature of an arched bridge, the road forking with signs leading to East or West county. Commuters making their way home from a long day’s work grumble as they wait impatiently at the timed red light that shifts each into the routed lane towards their homeward directions.
Unlike the disgruntled drivers, the restaurant owners are grateful for the light, both for safety and recently out of human interest. Oftentimes they will be rewarded for their diligent stake out, when a white and blue government vehicle marked with the sticker “Dpt of GD” drives up slowly to its red lighted take off position just beyond their small parking lot. As the vehicle rolls to a stop, leaning forward the couple can just make out the girl’s arm resting on the edge of the window. If the traffic is not too packed, a rapid hand wave follows a begrudged smile from this hapless celebrity going to visit East County, her rosy face framed within the driver’s doorframe.
To the busy-bodies “reclining” in their Adirondacks, the smoothness of skin clear as new after two years of raw pin-pricked ravaging brings hope. And just as quickly, a slew of FB and text messages typed from the hands warmed by twin “I married him” and “I married her” coffee mugs ignite up and down the river, devoured by starved compassionately bent minds beginning to thaw after a cruel winter. This young couple’s love story, not exactly newsworthy, nor meriting the skills of professional reporting, yet worth sharing and passing on.
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Added note: If you liked this narrative, you really need to watch my inspiration behind this “attempt”. Spoken word artist Sarah Kay’s take on loneliness, referencing the true creation of a Japan’s Minister cabinet position to solve climbing suicide rates. Sarah’s creative vision shines through with her literary genius touch.