DANIEL McCLOUD

Date: September 11, 2021.
Location: Somewhere near Nowhere.
Journal Entry: 9112001

It’s been 20 years since the attack that changed the world as we know it. At 8:46 am, the first tower was hit. At 10:28 am, it was down, and so began the war on terror. Things changed forever that day. On that day, some realized that they were no longer safe in America. While ironically, a vast segment of the population, who never felt safe, became even more afraid.

For a brief instance, America came together to fight a common enemy. My mind races as it tends to do, and I ask myself, what if racism was a common enemy. Would we all come together to stop it? Would we scour the ends of the earth to eradicate it? I guess not. Yesterday, I argued with optimism. Today, pessimism and doubt are my friends.

I’m not feeling it today. It’s hard to process what is going in in the world. The world is no longer as I know it. It’s the year 2021, two and a half years after the virus hit. By September 11, 2021, It has wiped out over 618 000 people in the U.S. and 4.3 million worldwide. And just when we thought we had a chance of beating it, the Variants came along. First, it was the Delta variant. Then people begin to whisper about the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma variants. As wildfires continued to rage in California and the Red Tide once again threatened the Florida coastline, the poverty level in the States continued to rise, with 1 in 4 people living below the poverty line. The world has quickly turned into a dystopian nightmare, headed soon towards the apocalypse.

As Prince once sang, the musician, not the Royal, in the timeless hit, Purple Rain, “you say you want a leader, but you can’t seem to make up your mind, I think you better call me and let me guide you through the purple rain.” It’s raining hard now. Where are the leaders? Everyone is selflessly thinking of themselves and those that would vote for them. We need a leader, but the divisions are too broad; none will come. We are too divided. It’s neighbor against neighbor, now.

I have to pull myself together. It can’t be this bad, can it? Are we better than this? Maybe not. It seems that since the election of the first African American president in November 2008, the world as we know it has changed. We have moved from The Audacity of Hope to The Sum of all Fears, and Morgan Freeman is not coming to save us.

And while the wildfires rage in the west and the hurricanes lash the south, the tornadoes pummel the Midwest, and the tropical storms batter the east, a new threat rears its head in Texas as those who protest the wearing of masks and vaccines pass legislation that infringes upon the rights of women.

Have to keep moving. We have to be out of here by August 31, the War on Terrorism started after 9/11, and after 20 years, we finally get to leave Afghanistan. Now there’s another war on America, this time from within. Political agendas have ripped the country apart, and not since the Civil War has the world been so divided. The summer of 2020 was anything but the summer of love. As protests erupted worldwide, some felt that a race war was inevitable—Brother against brother, conflicts, and rumors of wars. Look to the light.

So many people are incarcerated. The industrial prison complex, a billion-dollar business built on the backs of the poor and disenfranchised, is thriving. Wait, where have I heard that before? Yes, it was 1619 on the shores of Virginia. Then it was cotton and rice, now its license plates. But that has all but been forgotten. History was rewritten to punish the innocent and to protect the guilty. I guess we can blame Critical Race Theory. I would argue that CRT seeks to shed light on America’s true history, but what’s the point. I don’t want to get into a fight at the next school board meeting.

I have to keep moving. It’s been days since I’ve slept and even longer since I’ve wanted to. As the poet Nasir Jones once wrote, “sleep is the cousin of death.” Too much dying lately, no reason to live. Is there hope for the young? And what kind of world will it be? I don’t know. Most days, I don’t care.

Is this science fiction? No, unfortunately, we have entered the realm of speculative fiction. Our problems are with humans rather than the technology that is created. Anyway, my time has ended, and this is my final entry. Until we next meet. This is The Present signing off. The Future is here now. Let them figure it out.