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America Votes: Apocalypse Now or Later?
Issue 24.2: Electoween 2008
Posted: October 30, 2008

Election 2032: In which intrepid itinerant Benway Wharfinger reports his Chronicle of a Most Vacuous Contest

In the Future, “Dan Brown” Is Inscribed on Butler

Armin Rosen

Sarah Levin

November 2032. Bored with my life as a methane farmer in the Great Home Counties landfill—profitable though it may be, since our lack of oil and diverse other calamities hath left these noxious fumes as our only source of electricity—I decided to pursue my dream of becoming a journalist. So I alighted from these shores, as my local outlet needed someone to cover the upcoming American elections, the general chaos of these post-’08 years (plummeting literacie to the lowest of depths) leaving me their only correspondent.

With the Internet—which atrophied forthright after the Great Deflation of ‘08—now the domain of naught but the hardest core of pornographie, and affordable for none but the very riche, I was forced to sojourn across the continent. As planes have not flown for many years, being both unaffordable and land-bound from lack of fuel, this entailed a hazardous journie aboard a small sailing skiff to a mysterious, barbarous country known only through stories and “bookes.” So after much lonesome voyaging, during which I was deprived of every pleasure (except for masturbation. Durrr!) my boat happened upon an izlande roughly thirteen mile by two.

Never have I witnessed a scene so depressing as this. There was a bounty of roads, yet no beastcarriages were driving upon them. Defeated souls roamed the onceproud avenues, pummeled by years of dereliction and neglect. Posters of a political bent peeled from the sides of buildings: BLOOMBERG FOR MAYOR IN 2023! read one. VOTE FOR CHANGE!, read another, below it saying: WE’LL GIVE YOU A WHOLE PENNY IF YOU VOTE FOR BRISTOL PALIN IN 2028. FOOD FOR A WEEK!

A stranger amongst them, I approached one of the people despondently staggering through the streets, and asked where I might find someone to comment on this latest electoral contest. He spake: “Man, what the fuck are you talkin’ about? Election? The hell?”

“Y’know, it was a lot easier to follow politics back when the Times was a daily,” quod a more helpful bystander. “And even if they did publish more than like, once a month, fifty cents an issue is exorbitant. I mean, I’ve got a family to feed.” I asked where I could find those knowledgeable of political affairs. “Go uptown,” one said. “Onesixteen street. You could even take the subway. It’s started coming once or twice a day now, ever since the Emergency Guverment Siezure of What Little Electricy We Have Left Act of ‘31.”

After much patience, I found myself at what looked to have been a “Universitie.” Though it was the middle of the day, there was no-one about—a large conveyance labeled “CAVA” sat dormant in the middle of the walk, which was overgrown with every sort of weede-ly under-brush. Fearing the vermin scampering ‘twixt long-ago discarded issues of the New York Review of Books, I ran into the nearest edifice, a monolith called “But.”

“There aren’t very many of us left,” a resident collegiate informed me. “After the Great Deflation, no one could afford to go here. Like if you have to save up for the Nickle Menu at the local Government Fast Food Concern, education is just not your top priority. Only people making four digits a year can afford to send their kids here.”

So how many students were there, I inquired. “Just thirty-five, at the moment. And twenty-four of them are econ-polysci.”

The campus sat ghostly and empty, yet still I asked my newfound companion for a tour. He took me to a vacant spot atop a multitude of Steps. “This is where the administration building used to be, before we sold all the granite to Harvard to help pay Jeffrey Sach’s salary.” He pointed to a dismal red-bricked edifice opposite us. “That’s where we kept students during the Great Flu of ‘19, and during the Cigarette Tax riots of ‘23. Too many bad memories. No one goes in there anymore, although rumor has it it’s filled with vagrants and retired Comp Lit and Society professors.”

I allowed myself to be led to a high promontory overlooking a vast waterie expanse. “That’s where our other campus used to be,” he said, motioning over the sea-like inlet that divided the opposite hills. “At least it was there until the Great Category 2 Hurricane of ‘29. I dive down there sometimes, to salvage stuff out of the candy machines.” How, I asked, could such confections be preserved under-water? “You’ll have to see for yourself. I’m late for my Lit Hum seminar on The Da Vinci Code.”

Taking his dare, I plunged into the stagnant deep, and found below it a collection of crystal towers reaching stubbornly for daylight. My breath failing me, I flailed towards this latterday City of Atlantis. Feeling the toxic waters pushing against my lungs, I thought my life finished—when suddenly I was pulled into dry-nesse. “Oh no,” I heard a voice say. “It’s another one of those assholes here to steal our candy-bars.” Sputtering to life, I asked wherto I had been taken.

“We,” quod he, “are the survivors of Hurricane Yolanda.” He explained: “We were having an editorial meeting when the waters began rising. We had to push a lotta Chem PhDs out of the way to get to the campus’ only watertight room. Poor guys. Whatever. At least we’re still alive.”

I was overjoyed at finding fellow practitioners of the journalistic craft. Who, I asked, were these people that had rescued me? “We are the editors of The Federalist Paper,” replied he. “And for the past three years, we have dutifully published once every three weeks.” He passed me an issue, upon which was headlined: MANHATTANVILLE STILL UNDERWATER, JAKE STILL AN ASSHOLE.

Why, I asked, had they not swum to the surface? “You been up there?” one replied. “It’s a mess there, Jackson! That presidential campaign must be a joke.”

I seized on this, realizing that in this most unlikely locale, I had found that information that I sought on these shores. Who did they support, I queried? “Who cares,” said one. “Things have really gone down the crapper since we elected whoever it was we elected in 2008.”

“Yeah, well,” one of them chimed in: “at least my parents voted for Bob Barr.”