The Bloody Doors Off

Couple of years ago, I wrote a Facebook post (semi-) jokingly comparing the United States to Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.

A friend (rightly) called me on it, and I rescinded with an apology.

In April, I posted it again. This time in all seriousness.

Because America (my opinion only; I’m not attaching anyone else to this) is on the precipice. Mass shootings are expanding exponentially. There have been 5 mass shootings in Texas in the last 30 days. I shit you not.

• States are restricting abortions as early as six weeks, when most women wouldn’t know they were pregnant.
• Transphobia is sweeping the nation. A State Senator is taking Montana Republicans to court. She’s fighting to be reinstated after they voted to silence and then expel her from the chamber, simply because she is trans.
• There’s a serious push to put the 10 Commandments in school classrooms. (Oh Texas, you never disappoint.)
• Several state Governors (and the fucking Democratic Mayor of New York!) are trying to make migrants disappear.
• Ron DeSantis wants his cake and eat it too. They’ve proposed (passed?) a law that allows him to remain Governor of Florida while he (maybe) runs for President.
• They’re banning books, and defunding libraries.
• We are waiting for the jury to rule in the civil rape trial on the former (and hopes to be future!) President of the United States.
• And so much more.

I’m not defending why I said. I own it.

Because I’m seriously afraid it could happen.

I am not saying it will.

The Twitter chants of returning to a “Christian Nation” (when that is the opposite of what the Founding Fathers wanted).

And that’s the point.

Like in The Handmaid’s Tale, the “new” founders overrode the Constitution and set up their own autocracy.

Tell me there aren’t at least a handful of State and Congressional Republicans who’d love to create that utopia.

Fuck. I really went off-topic.

Sorry.

I said, “Welcome to Gilead” with a linked post.

And I said it because I have more than a few friends south of the Canadian border that I care a fuck ton about. CIS, LGTBQIA2S+. Male. Female. Non-Binary.

Some I met as far back at the original AmberCon, back in the Plan C days. Others through online RPGs.

One of whom became one of my best friends. We flirted with a long-distance relationship for a few months back in 2006-2007. She broke it off; we eventually found our way back to being friends again. And I treasure that friendship.

Treasured.

She unfriended me on social media.

Hasn’t answered my text.

Because she was hurt by my words.

That I can’t take back, because — and I’m not a conspiracy nut — I see warning signs.

I can’t ask if she sees the same.

I’d love to debate her over this. My mind can be changed if the argument is that strong.

I don’t think that will happen.

I don’t think she will even read this.

And that’s her right.

But if she did.

I’d say.

I’m sorry this broke our friendship.

And I’d do anything. Move mountains, capture clouds, anything. To rebuild our friendship.

But I can’t take that back.

Because I’d be lying.

p.s. When we first met online (in the late 1990s) in what was my first online RPG (and oh the stories I have) we were acquaintances. I can’t say for sure we were actual friends. And then I dated (and subsequently broke off) a long-distance relationship with the game owner (who lived in Florida). I quit that game and started my own. And the ex-girlfriend (is it normal to stay online and ignore the person who flew a few thousand miles to visit) slagged me to everyone she knew. So to my friend, I was an asshole.

Until I approached her game (or she approached me? I can’t remember) and we hashed it out. That’s when we really became friends.

Until now.