Fever Dreams in the Time of Pandemic and Insurrection
Four years of Trump, a global pandemic, and the sight of the US Capital assaulted by Americans can cause troubling night visions
The Dinner
It is the Spring of 2020. You dream that you are invited to join Donald Trump for dinner at the White House. You are picked up by masked men in dark suits who identify themselves as The Special Guard. At the White House, you are strip-searched and administered an instant Covid-19 test. You are then escorted to the second-floor private dining room.
Trump greets you with the comment that he’s “heard great things about you”. Throughout the evening, he calls you Lenny. Your name is Larry. You enjoy a dinner of Big Macs together, washed down with Diet Coke served in cans. The conversation is sparkling, chock full of scintillating bon mots, and a surprising display of humility & self-effacement by Trump ("I didn't even know I was Number One on Facebook."). You laugh at what you believe are the appropriate moments and nod your head in agreement at statements that make no sense to you. You let him know that you were a big fan of the New Jersey Generals.
After dinner entertainment is a screening of "Triumph of the Will". During the movie, Melania slips you a note with two words scribbled on it- "helf me".
At that moment, you have the cathartic realization that your bubble, the small world in which you have heretofore lived, resides inside a much larger bubble. You feel very unsettled.
As parting pleasantries are exchanged, Trump remarks that he knows you will do a great job at CBS. You do not correct him by telling him you are the new White House correspondent for CBC, the Canadian broadcaster.
As you are escorted from the White House by The Special Guard, you promise yourself you will look into taking extension courses at Liberty University.
You wake in the morning in your bed, fully clothed. The events of the previous night are hazy and you are uncertain if they were real. You reach into your pants pocket and find a crumpled piece of paper. There are two words scribbled on it:
“Helf me.”
Silverado
I dream of scenes from one of my favorite Westerns. The scenes, as they often do in dreams, are familiar and strange at the same time. I’m in the saloon where the bartender is Dr. Anthony Fauci, not Linda Hunt’s character, Stella.
“Keep your distance, six feet,” Fauci says, “especially from the Sheriff”.
Suddenly, I find myself on a dusty street, face-to-face with the corrupt Sheriff Cobb. I am startled to see that the sheriff is not Brian Dennehy but Mitch McConnell. He pulls his pistol, but I fumble trying to draw mine. I wake before a shot is fired.
I never die in my dreams.
No Laughing Matter
After January 6, you dreamed you attended a meeting of Capital and Metropolitan DC police leaders a few days prior to the 6th. They were preparing for the expected crowds coming to hear Trump speak and you’d been called in as a consultant. You listened as they reviewed their standard procedures for crowd control- the number of officers to be deployed, barricade placement, and other details of dealing with mostly-peaceful protests.
“You have this wrong,” you tell them when you get to speak. “These people are coming here to cause trouble, not to march around holding signs and chanting slogans. There will certainly be violence.”
There’s murmur in the room as several people begin speaking at once. You hear the words, "tear gas, riot gear, rubber bullets”. More than one person asks about requesting the National Guard. Eventually you are asked what you think should be done.
“A harsh response is exactly what they want to provoke,” you tell them. “You know- ‘oppressive government’ and all that BS- it’s their drug. Think outside the box.”
The room gets quiet.
“Deploy agricultural drones,” you continue, “the type used for spraying crops.”
“To do what,” someone asks, “spray the crowd with CS gas?”
“No, not tear gas. Nitrous oxide. A swarm of drones spraying the crowd with nitrous would be uniquely more effective than tear gas.”
“Laughing gas? That’s absurd.”
Even in your dream, their condescension is palpable but you remain calm.
“Nitrous oxide is a mild sedative that takes effect quickly. It slows down a person’s reaction time and usually makes them giggly. Problem is it wears off in a few minutes so you would need to spray in a continuous pattern.”
Suddenly it’s the 6th and you’re watching the televised images of the would-be insurrectionists assaulting the Capital. You see no gas-spraying drones hovering over the crowd.
You wake feeling unsettled, as if something was taken from you.
(Parts of this piece were originally posted at 1hundredsixty8.com in April, 2020)
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