Aghast

Aghast

A ghost

August 2016.  I had just moved to Memphis to begin the new job.  Another two-year gig at a small liberal arts college to implement a digital arts curriculum.  I was in between two desperate traumas of contemporary masculinity -- a prostate cancer diagnosis and the upcoming 2016 presidential election.  

My idea of the future changed immediately.  When the cancer bomb drops and death feels imminent, it’s the future that ghosts.  The present and past still feel real, but it becomes clear that you are at the end of a trajectory, not in the middle.  

I was aghast that we would elect such an overt racist, misogynist, liar.  During the campaign I had been worried that he would pretend, hide or trick us.  His daily horror show convinced me that he could not win. I was wrong. His election revealed a damning truth about America.