Kill the Governor

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.  Particularly in March, when the first tendrils of spring were poking their way through her cranium.  She knew that it would probably still snow a couple of times before summer began in earnest, but she was willing to pretend it was already summer.  In fact, she decided to dress like it was summer, so that maybe by sheer force of will the snow demons would decide to leave Provo for whiter pastures. 

As she sat in the back of the class, she plastered on the carefully prepared smile, adjusted the corners and turned her mind on autopilot.  The teacher was letting the students vote, but she knew what the outcome was going to be from the beginning.

She let her mind drift.  After class she was approached, as usual, by Spencer.  Today his neckline was plunging like the Dow Jones.  She idly wondered which attachment he used on his clippers.  It looked like a 3.  She could make a pillow out of all of his clippings.  Chest hair of the finest quality, to the highest bidder.  She snapped back when he started looking through his bag.  What was the last thing he’d said?  She searched her short-term memory.  Oh yes.  Something about the game of gravity-ball he was playing in after class.  Championship game. 

She agreed to come, and he left her alone.  As she skidded down rape hill on her beat up 2025 Schwinn Equalizer, she passed some of his teammates going the other way.  She stripped off the smile and replaced it with her mysterious look.  They liked that one.

She got home and threw her bag on the floor.  It was about a year and a half ago that she’d broken up with James.  For three or four months she’d been skimming the surface reality, checking in for ecclesiastical endorsements and midterms and checking out again for everything else.  Then one day she felt her sandaled feet collide with the ground and when she looked around, half her friends were married and the other half were bitter.  She lived with the bitter half now, in a 1940’s bungalow south of campus.  There were five registered sex offenders in the neighborhood.

She stepped into the steam jet and tried to remember where the gravity-ball field was.  Oh yeah, the basement of the Uchtdorf building.  She downed some pop-tarts really quick and headed over, smile at the ready. 

She had tried to be on time, really, but she didn’t walk in until halftime.  Spencer didn’t seem too disappointed.  He came over and gave her a sweaty hug.  Her face was in his armpit for a lifetime. 

“We’re up!  20-15!”

The whistle blew, and they were back out.  Spencer knocked someone into the glass (anything for that T-shirt).  All of a sudden she became aware of someone sitting next to her.  He was a slight fellow, maybe 5’8”, with too much hair.  His beard was probably a under honor code length, but he genuinely looked like he was trying, just didn’t quite have the genetic material to grow a really thick one.  He looked like her neighbor growing up, a little kid named Chris.  Chris was half-asian and his parents wouldn’t let him watch any movie above a G rating.  You know the type.  Home-schooled.  Anyway, this guy wasn’t Asian, but he definitely had the same home-school spit-polish demeanor.

He was reading a book.  That was odd enough, but she knew the HBLL still had a lot of books in storage, and she had heard you could check them out if you said you were an artist or something.  They’d done it for FHE once, but she’d quickly lost interest in FHE when it became apparent that James wasn’t going to do the decent thing and stop coming.

She asked him what it was. 

“Oh, it’s a Czech novel.  About communism.  It’s really good.”

“Do you have to read that for class?”

“No, just interested.”

“I see.  Here to watch some gravity-ball?” 

“Yeah, well, my cousin Spencer told me to come, he’s that one guy over…”

She cut him off.  “Yeah, I know Spence, he’s in my cyberpsych class.  Read me some of that book.”

He started to read. 

In that moment there was a special announcement over the uplink.  Apparently the territorial governor was going to be making an appearance at afternoon prayers.  Her pulse quickened.  Without realizing it, she was gripping the boy’s wrist.  The governor’s picture was flashing on her uplink. 

Suddenly, she noticed where her hand was.  His face was bright red.  She looked him square in the face.  “I don’t know you, but you have to come with me.   It’s time.”

She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

- David C.