Page 29 - Demo

road out the wide windows to my left. It felt slightly better to immerse myself with the comings and goings of the townsfolk. Our property occupied the exact point at which the village ended, but the town line was still a few miles away. The speed limit changed on our property too, jumping from 30 to 55 at the crest of a hill. I found it amusing when a car hit that crest at 65-70, only to decelerate desperately upon seeing the sign. The darting lights would approach at a breakneck pace, yet by the time I could make out the outline of the vehicle itself against the shadowy North Country backdrop, it would crawl out of my scope of vision, as if fatigued. This distracted me until one vehicle I tracked closely with my eyes shaped itself into a pickup truck with two confederate flags streaming from its vertical exhaust. Coincidentally, the truck hurtled past my window view with an audible roar. All gas, no brakes. I thought of something my mom had said earlier that day in response to some pop-up about “Tech Bros for Trump:”
“That’s right, ‘move fast and break things.’ Just try not to break democracy in the process, shouldn’t be too hard.”
I jolted myself out of the chair. Don’t spiral, it’s not worth it. Nothing you can do. I needed a new distraction. The burbling of Dad doing the dishes caught my ear, and I collected my glass, silverware, and dishes, bringing them into the kitchen. Typically, Dad’s participation in this task would entail his wearing headphones, listening to the Mets game or one in a seemingly endless series of audio books. That night there were no headphones. A laser-focused intensity had possessed him to pack up the leftovers into Tupperware, fully load the dishwasher, change and take out the trash bag and the