The Caucus Race

She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it. The weather outside was perfect, as always, until the yearly day of rain splashed down noisily and thirstily, reminding everyone that although the sun held reign 364 days of the year, there was still enough moisture for one good day of rain a year. The candidates had all ended up wet, so naturally a caucus race was held to dry everyone off. She was a badger, and everyone knew that a badger had never yet been elected as a candidate, but most people figured that was just because a badger wasn’t a bird, and only the birds really participated in caucus races. The other animals watched and shouted loudly at their favorites, jeered at their rivals, and even every once in a while would alongside their picks, but there was the one year that the turtle got stepped on and withdrew into his shell for the year. Everyone admired the brave turtle for trying, but all thought him rather stupid for having the audacity to try. The caucus races were drawing to a close and she wasn’t even yet running. She wasn’t even shouting along with the other candidates—she was just there, a passive observer to a whole flock of magnificent birds running in a circle on the beach. She knew that she would have to wait a whole other lifetime just to get her shot. As for as the badger could tell, it was a lose-lose situation, but there was a vague, morbid curiosity that made the badger want to try and run in the caucuses.

The party caucuses finished, and, as expected, all the animals had run around in a circle, chasing after each other’s tails, sniping here, sniping there, shouting into a great din of confusion so that it was extremely hard to tell what was going on. If the tracks hadn’t been grooved out in to the sand after years of caucus races, one could imagine that even the participants wouldn’t really know where to go. Of course, everyone ended up dry in the end, as they always do and since that is the purpose of a caucus race.  It ended in her defeat, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit that it was a defeat because she hadn’t really participated, but she couldn’t help feeling that she had missed something vital, that her chance to make known the views of badgers everywhere (although she’d only met very few other badgers, and her interactions with them where cursory). It seemed unfair that only the birds (and of course, the hapless turtle) seemed allowed to participate, but then again, she wasn’t sure if it really meant anything because the birds, after drying off, would return to their humdrum lives in the trees again for another year, until the day of rain came.

However, the island had to operate according to some system of government, and so the animals decided that a yearly caucus race was the best way to show to the other islands that they were civilized, organized and peace loving. Things just seemed to run better. It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.

-James Juchau