Dawn Crandell

Excerpt from “The Story So Far”

By the first decade of the twenty-first century the gap between the rich and the poor in this country is the largest it's ever been and government programs that support the population are being cut across the board. Illiteracy is rampant and our borders are growing more treacherous to cross. At the beginning of the year 2113, it all comes to a head. The United States border is officially closed, and the President elect that is sworn in is from this ultra conservative faction bent on total control. Masterfully they expand their targeting of this country’s activists, artists and intellectuals. Leftists around the country are inexplicably disappearing, being arrested, or committed to long term mental health facilities. People of color are being routinely rounded up by police for nonexistent infractions, put in holding cells overnight and given mysterious injections to supposedly fight against infectious diseases. When released days later, they have no memory of the experience and what’s worse, no memory at all. Suddenly large masses of the population are left wandering the streets with no idea that just blocks away, their homes and lives sit vacant. As the weeks pass these people succumb to untold terrors in the night, or are “saved” by seemingly nice white people who offer jobs and protection in their own homes. Within a month immigrants and American born people of color alike, are utterly disempowered. Those that survive have no knowledge that a cataclysmic shift has occurred.
Except for a small group of artists and activists…