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| George W. Bush cartoon with international justice symbol by Galehr |
I happened to have spent my entire primary and post-secondary education in America during Bush W's regime. My freshman year in High School started with 9/11, and by 2007, I fled to Cairo, Egypt, having had just quite enough of American life under Bush W. In the course of those seven fateful years, I lost a lot of hope in all political righteousness, voting and demonstration included. Our world will never be the same.
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Departing from the downtown train, a friend blanks off in
another direction, holding her pistol and handing one to my wife. She’s gone to
shoot two of my childhood friends. “I’ll only kill one,” she says. All the while,
I feel a similar fate between my wife and I.
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| One of Four Freedoms Murals by Norman Rockwell |
Entering an emptied church in a historic neighborhood, I kneel down on unfinished concrete flooring, bare
as my back as I lift my shirt. My wife then raises her pistol and commences to
shoot me straight through above my stomach, below my lungs, a perfect shot,
just so much that I’ll survive while experiencing the bitter pain of the act
and my coursing blood. As we exit the building room, outside on the street
corner, our friend rushes over, hiding her pistol in a bag.
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| La Chapelle de La Madeleine à Malestroit by Alexandre Bloch |
At my feet, I see a
broken skull. I can see the smile of my childhood friend eerily emanating from
the skinless mouth. Supposedly, the other under our friend’s thumb, my other
childhood friend, got away like me, shot clean through the back.
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I love the old-school Jules Feiffer-esque caricature of W - it brings me, who experienced these events from a different temporary temporal perspective, back to when I was in primary school gazing at leaders with bemusement, respect and confusion. Similarly, the odd placement of the Rockwell painting here, which could stand in as eerie symbol of the type of indoctrination that filled my childhood, catapults me further back to a world of strange verities and standards that are forever lost -- along with the hidden manipulations that linger beyond a veil.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, your account of Bush's America (btw I want more!) recalls my own poem, Crown Transit, written the day Obama won.