Read Online THUGLIT Issue Two by Justin Porter, Buster Willoughby, Katherine Tomlinson, Mike MacLean, Patrick J. Lambe, Mark E. Fitch, Nik Korpon, Jen Conley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Justin Porter, Buster Willoughby, Katherine Tomlinson, Mike MacLean, Patrick J. Lambe, Mark E. Fitch, Nik Korpon, Jen Conley
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be another target in town, someone to be ostracized, laughed at and lonely. He might make it another year before he slit his wrists, especially after this whole incident.
“You wanted to go to the city?”
“Gilbert was supposed to bring me there.”
“But he didn’t?”
“He kept saying that he would…”
“Do you know anyone there?”
“I have a friend from here. He moved a long time ago. I miss him and he misses me.”
We emerged from the woods on the other side of the mountain, the gleaming white water tower high above us.
He couldn’t go back. Not to this place. Not to those people. He was lost, but not completely.
“Alright,” I said. “It’ll be a long drive, but I’ll get you there.”
Participatory Democracy
b y Katherine Tomlinson
Nora had been working on the Congressman’s campaign for eighteen months. His neighborhood office was within walking distance of her apartment and going there every day gave her something to do with her unemployed hours; injected purpose into her otherwise aimless life.
She liked working at the small political outpost. The people there were smart and funny and talked about things besides who was favored to win Dancing with the Stars . No one was paid, so there was always free coffee and a seemingly endless supply of muffins and cookies and bananas.
Bananas were very filling and rich with potassium. Nora had read that potassium helped regulate stress, so she made sure she always ate a banana at some point during the day.
Nora had voted for the Congressman when he first ran for office on a law and order platform that challenged bad parents and bad teachers to mend their ways lest they produce a generation of bad kids. Two years later, there’d been talk of a Senate run, but instead, the party had anointed a young black guy with three adopted children and a wife who’d lost a leg working for Doctors Without Borders.
The kids were really cute and you couldn’t tell the wife had an artificial leg. It had been made for her by the same people who’d made Heather Mills’ prosthetic limb. People in the party said the Senator was headed for big things; that he might go “all the way.”
If the Congressman was bitter, he didn’t share his disappointment with the public. He was popular in his district, and he made the correct and crucial connections inside the Beltway, building a reputation as a guy the Party could count on to carry the banner.
He re-branded himself as a fiscal conservative and eventually landed a seat on the House Budget Committee. His constituents approved of his evolving priorities and he’d served four consecutive terms. It was widely assumed he'd have no problems holding on to his seat in the current election.
Nora liked the Congressman because he seemed to “get it.” His district had been hard-hit by the recession, and when he was re-elected in 2011, his campaign had been all about job creation and getting people back to work.
That was a message Nora wanted to hear.
Nora had lost her job in March of 2011 and things had been going downhill ever since. She quickly flattened the financial cushion she had saved. She hadn’t asked for alimony in her divorce settlement because she'd made decent money as a paralegal and wanted out of the marriage as fast as possible.
It soon beca me apparent that her ex-husband’s insurance plan was much better than the coverage at the law firm where she worked though, and after a breast cancer scare that involved multiple tests, she was left with a large pile of medical debt that was getting larger by the month.
Fortunately, it had been a false alarm, and the lump just a cystic mass.
That was the only good news she got that year.
Nora lived on her unemployment benefits and updated her resume.
She moved into a smaller apartment and haunted online job listings.
She clipped coupons and went to every job fair the neighborhood had to offer.
She threw herself into social media, hoping to
“You wanted to go to the city?”
“Gilbert was supposed to bring me there.”
“But he didn’t?”
“He kept saying that he would…”
“Do you know anyone there?”
“I have a friend from here. He moved a long time ago. I miss him and he misses me.”
We emerged from the woods on the other side of the mountain, the gleaming white water tower high above us.
He couldn’t go back. Not to this place. Not to those people. He was lost, but not completely.
“Alright,” I said. “It’ll be a long drive, but I’ll get you there.”
Participatory Democracy
b y Katherine Tomlinson
Nora had been working on the Congressman’s campaign for eighteen months. His neighborhood office was within walking distance of her apartment and going there every day gave her something to do with her unemployed hours; injected purpose into her otherwise aimless life.
She liked working at the small political outpost. The people there were smart and funny and talked about things besides who was favored to win Dancing with the Stars . No one was paid, so there was always free coffee and a seemingly endless supply of muffins and cookies and bananas.
Bananas were very filling and rich with potassium. Nora had read that potassium helped regulate stress, so she made sure she always ate a banana at some point during the day.
Nora had voted for the Congressman when he first ran for office on a law and order platform that challenged bad parents and bad teachers to mend their ways lest they produce a generation of bad kids. Two years later, there’d been talk of a Senate run, but instead, the party had anointed a young black guy with three adopted children and a wife who’d lost a leg working for Doctors Without Borders.
The kids were really cute and you couldn’t tell the wife had an artificial leg. It had been made for her by the same people who’d made Heather Mills’ prosthetic limb. People in the party said the Senator was headed for big things; that he might go “all the way.”
If the Congressman was bitter, he didn’t share his disappointment with the public. He was popular in his district, and he made the correct and crucial connections inside the Beltway, building a reputation as a guy the Party could count on to carry the banner.
He re-branded himself as a fiscal conservative and eventually landed a seat on the House Budget Committee. His constituents approved of his evolving priorities and he’d served four consecutive terms. It was widely assumed he'd have no problems holding on to his seat in the current election.
Nora liked the Congressman because he seemed to “get it.” His district had been hard-hit by the recession, and when he was re-elected in 2011, his campaign had been all about job creation and getting people back to work.
That was a message Nora wanted to hear.
Nora had lost her job in March of 2011 and things had been going downhill ever since. She quickly flattened the financial cushion she had saved. She hadn’t asked for alimony in her divorce settlement because she'd made decent money as a paralegal and wanted out of the marriage as fast as possible.
It soon beca me apparent that her ex-husband’s insurance plan was much better than the coverage at the law firm where she worked though, and after a breast cancer scare that involved multiple tests, she was left with a large pile of medical debt that was getting larger by the month.
Fortunately, it had been a false alarm, and the lump just a cystic mass.
That was the only good news she got that year.
Nora lived on her unemployment benefits and updated her resume.
She moved into a smaller apartment and haunted online job listings.
She clipped coupons and went to every job fair the neighborhood had to offer.
She threw herself into social media, hoping to
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