Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Juno opens the lid to what looks like hamburger steak in congealed gravy. Texas may run out of a lot of things, but cows isn’t one of them. “Yes. I’m running. It’s done.”
I almost drop my plate. “Jesus. Just like that? What about primaries or whatever? How do you—”
“The two-party system is busted, so I don’t have to primary. It’s a tight timeframe, but the states will put me on the ballot. Like Fatima said, we already submitted the appropriate paperwork months ago. I only need a winning platform.” That’s Juno, decisive to a fault and already in action.
It still stings, though, not to be consulted about something this huge. “Do you think maybe we should talk about it first?” I serve myself then open the bread chafing dish with my breath held. It’s empty. As usual.
“The buttered rolls are a thing of the past,” Juno says almost sympathetically. “Time to let go.”
“Never.” I clang the lid back into place.
We sit down at the table with our plates as Vince grumbles about the ‘sad state of these potatoes’ behind us. The servings are small, and plenty of things aren’t available anymore, but I know we’re lucky to have what we do, lack of rolls notwithstanding.
Juno unbuttons her gray suit jacket and shrugs out of it. “We can talk about it, but I’ve already made the best decision for all of us.” Her words are measured with an iron ruler.
“It’s the right move.” Vince thumps into a chair a spot down from me. “Texas is holding it together better than a lot of states, thanks directly to your sister’s leadership. She can leverage that to Washington.”
“But why go?” I cut a piece of my hamburger steak. “Why not hold the fort here? I thought that was your plan. At least, until you sprung on me today that you’re running for president.”
“This may be the last national election for a long, long time.” Juno sips her water, her light brown eyes on me. She doesn’t say “the last election ever” but she might as well have. “We’ve lost so many lives—I don’t know the most recent estimate—”
“One hundred and ten million in the US alone was the CDC’s last number a few months ago.” I swallow hard at the sheer magnitude. Entire communities wiped out. The plague doesn’t discriminate. It’s destroyed human life on a scale that has plenty of scientists believing we’re in the midst of a mass extinction. A tiny voice inside me says maybe we are. Maybe this is the planet course correcting itself. Maybe humans have abused it too much for too long, and this virus is its response. I’m not the first person to think it, and I’m certainly not the most eloquent at expressing it, but this level of death feels almost like judgment.
“Growing by the minute.” Fatima picks at a stack of what looks like boiled beets and carrots.
“President Gray is a lame duck president,” Juno says as she cuts her steak into neat squares and begins systematically devouring it. “He’s reacted too slowly to stop the spread of the virus. His restrictions on Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston are extremely disliked from every quarter. And then there’s New York.” She doesn’t have to say more than that. Everyone knows what happened in New York. The outbreak spread there in much the same way as everywhere else. But when it first hit, a massive Nor’easter hit, too. Work and school were canceled, and people were stuck inside with their families while the storm buried the city in snow and ice.
This was back when there were still dozens of news sources with talking heads, opinions dressed as fact, conspiracy theories, and general distrust of science and academics from several areas of society. One newscast would warn of the spread of the virus and show images of victims covered with pustules, another would debate whether these images were actually Chinese propaganda, while yet another would say the entire thing was a hoax created by the Deep State. While all those people talked and sowed distrust or complacency, the virus silently spread. That’s what viruses do—they replicate themselves, invading cell after cell and using up their energy stores with never-ending hunger.
When the storm let up, the Big Apple had become a tomb for entire families. The hospitals were overwhelmed in the first day of the blizzard. By the second, President Gray ordered the entire island quarantined. The death toll only increased when healthy residents were forced to shelter in place surrounded by the infected and the dead. Piles of bodies lined the streets.
A photograph of rats feasting on a corpse won the Pulitzer Prize.
“Just because people don’t like him doesn’t mean you can unseat him easily. What’s that thing about changing a horse mid-rodeo-or-something-or-other?”
“Midstream,” Vince interjects.
“Yeah, that.” I say around the piece of hamburger steak that’s survived at least 30 chews and is still holding together.