chapotraphouse

Future retellings of the 2024 election will be sure to include this historic burn, this rallying cry that steered public opinion for the months to come, it was the first thing on everyone's tongue when the topic of the election came up in conversation; t-shirts with the burn sold out everywhere, hit list songs about the burn was everywhere, every viral meme for the rest of the year incorporated the burn in some way; it was all like some wild dream to us - we lived in both awe and fear of the burn - reveled in it not by choice but from the sheer force of society. To not partake in the burn was sacrilege, and the burn would soon consume those who shunned it. The following winter was abominably and unexplainably harsh. Roads snowed over, pipes cracked and even the harbors froze over. Nothing and no one could enter or leave the country. In the darkness, we first ate the unburned, then each other. Roving from town to town in repugnant wicker sleds drawn by damned beasts too disfigured to identify as any animal ever living or dead, drilling into abandoned gas stations to suck out anything flammable enough to cook our next meal over, our eyes of steel seeing nothing but fire around us. As spring came, where once stood a great empire now lay only ruin. There could be no hope of rebuilding, and what little pockets of civilization remained could do nothing but look on as the new powers came in and took over, fighting their wars over the new old frontier of America.

Or it will be forgotten in a week when they try a new burn, I don't know.