Okay, like the Nakba here. You know, now that I’m thinking about my dreams, it seems obvious to me, my fear of cycles and repetition.
When I walked into the classroom, a random man was sitting at Janine’s desk: dark blond hair, wisps of gray around the ears. He was typing on a silver MacBook, drinking from a WAMU radio mug. Everyone looked confused by him ignoring us.
I sat down. “Uh… hi.”
He looked up. “Hi!” Then returned to his laptop.
Who was this?
I froze when Nia fluttered in wearing a miniskirt and sat beside me. I hadn’t seen her since the threesome, still felt sore about it.
Leaning into me, mint-gum breath, she whispered, “Where’s Janine?” I said I didn’t know.
The man was suddenly at the chalkboard like he’d teleported himself there. He wrote, “Get your politics out of my art!” And “All art is political.” Was he purposely trying to confuse us?
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Professor Ford is out today,” he said.
Pink pixie cut raised her hand. “Where is she?”
“She’s sick.”
I looked at Nia, but Nia looked surprised. Not to be ageist, but when you said someone in their seventies was sick, it made people worry. I was afraid her absence had something to do with what she’d said last class, but wouldn’t she have sent us an email if something had happened? Maybe she was sick.
“When’s she gonna be back?” Alex asked. “We only have one class left.”
The man whose name we still didn’t know said, “I’m not sure. I’m sorry. I’m just an adjunct stepping in for today. I’m Matthew, by the way.” He nodded at the board before exhaling, stressed. “What do you guys think these statements mean?”
Alex looked at his phone. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Nia said.
“They just canceled the commencement speaker.”
“Who was speaking at commencement?” Pink pixie cut asked.
“I don’t know. I know it was a woman, but now it’s some corporate spokesperson.”
I googled the spokesperson’s name. “Oh great, an accused rapist.”
“Hey, guys, let’s get back on track.” Matthew bent over to look at the paper on his desk. “What about”—he paused, seeming confused—“A genre. holiday. romance? Oh”—he tapped the paper—“a genre holiday romance meant to entertain. Is that political?” He added, “I’m guessing no, right?”
“But why can’t a book just be fun?”Nia said.
Alex nodded gravely. “Joy is a radical act.”
I joked, even though I agreed fun could be an end in and of itself, “Yes, let’s all go jump in a bouncy house.”
“What?” he said.
I hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
Matthew turned to me. “Did you want to add something?”
Despair cast its long shadow over me. I hated talking about art as a political force. People always reached for the empathy argument when defending literature’s political merit. But why should I have to make up fake people for someone to care about real ones? There were real people dying, losing their homes, being detained, being bombed. Most of our stories wouldn’t even make it into the world, let alone change it. Words could mean everything or nothing. Weren’t we not calling what was being done to Gazans genocide because those with the power to name things refused? Weren’t they calling everything DEI? What the fuck even was DEI? No one knew: It was just a term they decided would mean something.
“Culture War” was a misnomer. It was a war of stories, a tale of two Americas. A story didn’t have to be true, it just had to be good. Just ask the tens of millions of people who’d chosen the story in which I’m a character without a speaking role, a character who gets killed off before the third act.
