A Day Like Today

Fiction Piece #6

It was a warm day, a gorgeous day. On a day like today, on the first warm day of spring, we would have been outside.

We would have ditched our classes and gone out to the field with cheap bottles of wine and small portable speakers.

We would have brought bread and cheese, and maybe strawberries – strawberries, if they were still in season.

We would have tossed a frisbee and kicked a ball. We would have drank wine and smoked whatever we had on us. We would have laughed and listened to music and smiled until late into the evening, until the sun finally set and the evening finally grew cold and we finally packed up our picnics and headed back for home.

That’s what we would have done on a day like today.

But that was so many years ago.

That was back when the world made sense, not to us, but it made sense to some people.

At least, that’s how it seemed.

That was back when the schools were run by teachers and the teachers taught the truth and the truth was something people talked about with a capital T.

But that was then, and this is now.

Now there are no more fields left for playing – only protesting.

There are no more speakers left for song – only shouting.

Somewhere along the way, while we were all out playing and singing and dancing and smoking, somewhere along the way, sometime a long time ago, we lost the war.

We lost a war we didn’t even know we were fighting.

We lost a war for our own minds.

We, the generation of Americans who had so much decadent joy surrounding us, we, who floated on the river of our ancestors’ tireless labor, we never knew how good we had it.

We never knew what we had, and now it’s gone.

All those days of sunshine, all those days of light, all those days of weightlessness – if only we had cherished them then.

We floated on the river of our ancestors’ labor, never fathoming that something dark was swimming just beneath the surface, imperceptible to anyone who had been born above water.

It’s funny, isn’t it?

How the secrets of the deep are completely imperceptible to those who are born above it?

There were signs, to be sure. Signs that anyone could have seen if he spent the time looking.

But who wanted to look in the depths when there was so much joy on the surface?

That was then, before the thing below the surface reared its head, capsized our boat, and sent us all careening into the icy depths of the river.

All those friends, all the people I used to sun bathe with on the first day of spring, they’re all scattered now – to where, I do not know.

I cannot help but smile as I think of those days of sunshine, even though now their memory is filled with pain. I still smile because at least they lived, at least they were there, however briefly, at least they live on, if even only in my memory.

You see, those days, those days before our enemies took over our schools and brainwashed our children, those days were nice.

We took nice days for granted then.

I guess we thought our days would always be nice, I guess we thought they would come every spring, like clockwork.

And they still do – the days themselves are still nice.

Like today. Today is a nice day.

It’s the people who’ve changed, not the days.

It’s the people who no longer dance and play, who have turned our pleasure fields into marching grounds, who have turned our sing-along choruses into scream-at-all chants.

The sun can be so cruel.

How can he shine today the same way he did back then?

Back before Qatar conquered our universities.

So much has changed.

On a day like today, we would have raised a glass to toast our friends and families.

But today, today I raise my glass, not to friends, not to family, but to Qatar.

I raise my glass to toast them on their success, they set out to capture and conquer our universities, and I raise my glass to toast their unbelievable success.

We took our freedom for granted, and they came and snatched it right out from under us, and now they get to reap the rewards of their decades worth of hard work.

To the victor belong the spoils – and they have been victorious in the war for American minds.

On a day like today, when the sun shines this beautifully, these are the things I find myself thinking.

I find myself thinking about these things a lot these days.

~

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai