With the current state of affairs, I find it necessary to make plain that this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

It seemed impossible, but it was over. He was dead, and it was like the entire planet rejoiced!

But the collective sigh of relief and unburdening was drawn up short as a realization set in; the fight was not over. And someone was being hunted. There had already been many wolves with discarded sheep clothing, dreaming of the chance to take his place. Now their maws glistened in the camera light, the wet sheen of saliva as they craved the blood of the one who excised the head of the snake.

The scene was delirious with the fervor of sycophants rallying around their “savior”, the wielder of the sharpie, the man who gave them unspoken permission to be their most terrible selves at the low low price of everything they need to survive. The noise was an amalgamation of severely incoherent shouting, chanting, whistles, and even fireworks; God knows how those were brought in through security! All of it audibly towering over the speech that was taking place in the center of the venue. You could not hear a word from the intended “center of attention”. No one could hear themselves speak much less the shot, or the shouts from security. A well timed twitch of a finger, an inconspicuous reverse pickpocket and removal of gloves; and just like that he melted into the sea of humanity as it changed from unhinged celebration to an angry and terrified mob.

There had been an angry mob outside even before the decapitation of corruption. The economy was in chaos, shelves were nearly bare in many places, industry was shuttering its doors as it became increasingly expensive to operate within the country, and millions of hard working citizens were losing their jobs. It felt like if you weren’t already in the throws of catastrophe, you were one mildly catastrophic event away from losing everything! A vehicle repair, an unpaid sick day, house maintenance… any number of normally mundane things would be enough to set a family or individual on the path to homelessness.

By the time word of the events hit main stream media, it had already hit social media like a tsunami and armed red hats started to fill the streets, hungry for revolution, retribution, and the thrill of the hunt. They didn’t realize they would be hunting one of their own.

Jeb was white and “red hat” passing, from a family who had immigrated generations ago like so many other citizens of this country. His family however, were slightly darker complected and had not lost their ancestorial speech patterns to the whitewashing of linguistic, this made them targets but he was somehow ignored when the roundup came. He was left, angry and alone, with a deep need for vengeance. Jeb was not his real name, no one knows his real name.

Jeb escaped the scene, the same as he had infiltrated it, by blending in. He had a knack for flying below the radar socially and visually. He did not stand out and was able to mask the anxiety over what he had done enough that it seemed no different than the panic that everyone else in attendance was experiencing. This was enough to grant him anonymity among the crowd before the following incident.

As security pivoted to address the chaos inside, the chaos outside took this as a cue to breach the doors. It was ugly and uncivilized, destructive and undemocratic, people were angry but also ignorant of what had just transpired within. Jeb seized this distraction as an opportunity to make his escape! With security completely occupied with the clash of groups, he took his leave of the scene, ducking out through a newly opened door and somehow successfully fighting against the flow of people.

He had parked his truck far enough away to be out of the view of security cameras, he made his way to it, unlocking it with the memorized key code entered on the number pad. It wasn’t a new truck by any means, it was rusted in all the usual places and had mismatched color hood and reconstructed grill as the result of a head on collision with a drunk driver. Thankfully the other driver hadn’t been going fast enough to do any frame damage but the whole engine compartment was brand new as a result. It looked like a beater, but it purred to life when he turned the key. He took only a moment to steady his nerves, any more than that would draw unwanted attention.

Jeb drove without knowing where he was going. He couldn’t go home, there was nothing left for him there since his family had been ejected from the country to who knows where. So he drove. He drove avoiding cities where chaos was certainly erupting. He drove until he lost the light and was nearly out of fuel. He intended to refuel under the partial cover of darkness, but the station was closed for the night so he had no choice but to wait for the morning. He selected a spot that would catch the first rays of sun, and settled in for the night.

When Jeb awoke, he was at home in his bed. In his confusion he stumbled out of bed and into the rest of house to be met with the shocked gaze of his family who were huddled around the television. His compounded confusion fell to the side as the realization of what was on the screen dawned on him. The president was pronounced dead that morning after passing in his sleep.

It was all a dream! But how? It seemed so real! The weeks of loss, the culmination of anger, all of it, reset… with one exception.

That man was dead, and it was like the entire planet rejoiced!

His demise wasn’t something captured by the public and cameras, there were no witnesses. But there had been a struggle, the dance that all but the luckiest of us does with death. The first staff members to find him saw the man, unmasked and void of symbolism. What they found was a feeble creature, tangled in his bed sheets and covered in his own excrement. He had not gone quietly in his sleep, and had this information not been muzzled from the press, the public would have rejoiced further at the news of his suffering.

But the collective sigh of relief and unburdening was drawn up short as a realization set in; The fight was not over. There were many wolves with discarded sheep clothing, waiting in line to take his place… Nay, salivating to take his place.

The fight to dismantle tyranny had only just begun.