Sometimes fiction is the only way to explain ideas, beliefs, hope, and fears. 

The Wildings

By: Teri Adams

 

The Wildings are out tonight. Close, by the sound of it. The distant whoops and the faint unmistakable crash of breaking glass are all too familiar. I check the Wilding App and see that there have been fifteen 999 Wilding calls placed in a three block radius in just the past hour. It’s early for the Wildings. They usually don’t come out until after ten at night, and it’s only twenty minutes past dusk, which means we’re in for a long night. I try to remember if I triple locked the garage. Was that yesterday or did I do it when I came in earlier today? I had had my hands filled with grocery bags. Did I set them down so I could reach the locks?  Damn it, I don’t remember, which means I have to go check.  I slip on my shoes, grab a can of wasp spray (it shoots a long way), open the back door, and stand on the stoop still as a statue for a second and listen. Yes, they sound closer, but not too close. I have enough time to get to the garage and check.

            I don’t carry a flashlight because that would be like shining a beacon telling them, “Here! Come and get me!” No, I slip out into the darkness and walk to the garage amidst the shadows, keeping close to the edge of the house.  The garage is only about forty yards but it feels like a mile out here in the inky blackness.  I trip over something and almost fall. I reach down and feel a small bike. I can just make out the silhouette. That kid next door. I’ve told him a hundred times about leaving his bike out. I grab the handlebars and roll the bike with me toward the garage. I’ll lock it inside so the Wildings can’t get it. That kid’s mom already works two jobs. She can’t afford a new bike if something happens to this one.

            I hear a sudden high pitched yelp and then a crunch of boots on gravel behind me. I duck down quickly just as a lone Wilding runs past, close enough so that I can smell the sweat and hear the quick inhalations from its exertions, a white shirt flashing in the night. Looks to be a small one, maybe eight-years-old. They’re getting younger since all the public schools closed down and went online. There’s little oversight for attendance, and all classes except Patriotism and Procreation, God and Country, Welding, Construction, Custodianship, and Basic Mathematics level 3, and Basic Reading level 4 were cut as soon as the Department of Education folded. Now if a parent has the money, usually old inherited money, they can take advantage of the specialized private academies that cater to the future doctors, CEOs, lawyers, professors, researchers, and scientists. The elite of the elite.

I stay ducked down a heartbeat longer and hear the Wilding as it runs away whooping loudly, Always with the whoops. This one must have gotten separated from the herd. I squat in the dirt barely breathing, my knees aching. I’ve dropped the can of wasp spray and can’t find it in the dark. I hear a car door slam off in the distance and then a screech. I hear sirens. Two of the sirens sound far off but one is nearby. In the space between the scream of the sirens there is an eerie silence, and in that silence I hear the close whisper of owl wings and a small creature (a cat maybe?) rustling as it darts from yard to fence. I look up and stare into the large front window of the house next door. The bike kid’s house. The mother steps to the window, peers out into the night, and then pulls the thick drapes closed. The lights in the house wink out and cast it into darkness so that it blends in with the night. The mom is hunkering down. Have there been more alerts? I reach into my shirt pocket for my phone to check the app but then realize that my phone must have dropped out of my pocket when I knelt to pick up the bike. 

            I stand up and my old football injury knee pops with a loud crack! I barely breathe. I see nothing but hear everything: far off sirens, distant screams, fireworks exploding (or gunfire?) and glass shattering.

            I glance towards the garage. I can see the garage’s shadowy silhouette just a few steps away. I grip the bike’s handlebars and make a dash for the garage door pulling the bike with me. I run my hand over the locks. All three bolted tight. I locked them and then forgot. Too much on my mind lately. Trying to remember my meds every morning; trying to censor myself at work so I don’t inadvertently commit crime speech; trying to budget my meager pay so I can buy fresh food and not that preservative, chemical flooded shit the government markets as NutriMass; trying not to breathe in the air thick with thick pollution now that the EPA is defunct; trying not to appear threatening to the cops in my dark male skin; trying not to encounter any lone Wildings in the day, although they are much less dangerous separated from their herds; trying to survive one more day in a world that seems bound and determined to crush not only me, but everyone.

            I still have the bike in my hands. It’s too much trouble and too time consuming to fumble with the locks on the garage door in the dark, so I decide to take the bike back to the house and lock it in my hall closet. I inch alongside the garage and then dash out into the open expanse between the garage and the house. The bike makes a metallic, squeaky sound as I roll it along and I wince at the sound that seems to echo above the other sounds of mayhem. A blinding light flashes on me and a voice commands, “Drop the bike, get on your knees, and put your hands up!” 

            I drop the bike like an unwanted blind date. My knee cracks and a sharp knife of pain slices through it as I comply. A cop walks up dressed in his blue uniform, his badge shining, the bullet proof vest making him seem larger and more imposing than he is, his dull black gun pointed at me.  I know to stay silent. The cop asks if I’m stealing the bike. It’s not really a question since his tone implies that I’m guilty no matter what I say. I am deferential and quiet. I tell him softly, “No sir, the bike belongs to my neighbor and I was locking it up so it wouldn’t be stolen by the Wildings.” I enunciate each syllable perfectly.

            He tells his partner to go check with the neighbor. The cop continues to aim the gun at me as the other cop goes to the mother’s tiny cement porch, climbs the three steps, and pounds on the door. The sound reverberates. She must be scared out of her mind right now, much as I am.  I glance up and a light goes on in the house. The door opens slowly. The cop says something to the mother. I can’t make out his words only the, “Waa waa waa waa” that sounds comically like the adults in the old Charlie Brown cartoons, and I stifle a nervous giggle. The cop on the porch gestures towards me. The mother says something back. The cop walks away and heads back to the gun pointing cop. The mother stands in silhouette in the door. The kid pops his head from behind his mother’s hip. His eyes are like tiny teacup saucers. The cop tells the one holding the gun on me that the mother has backed up my story and identified me as her neighbor. The cop holsters his gun and picks up the bike. He starts to roll the bike toward the mother’s house then looks over his shoulder at me, almost as an afterthought and shouts, “Go in the house and stay there! There’s Wildings out tonight.” I stand up slowly and try to walk at a normal pace while my heart hammers a staccato beat in my throat. My mouth has been parched of all moisture and my tongue feels like a dry slab lying against my teeth.

            I finally make it to the porch and I unlock and open the front door. It is only then that I look back. The police car is leaving and the mother next door is closing her front door. Her house lights go out again. I slip inside the house and close the door and double bolt lock it. Then I slide to the floor like a going-flat helium balloon left over from a birthday party. I hear the whoop and screams of the Wildings. They’ve gotten closer so I know the cops are really gone. I hear windows shattering like tinkling crystal down the street and the joyous screams of the Wildings as they cheer.  I stand up and turn off the lights in the living room and walk over to the window to make sure the drapes are pulled tight. I curl up on the couch and smell my fear rising off the drying sweat on my body. I sleep fitfully as the Wildings go about their nightly rampage.

            In the morning I see that one of the garage windows, a small one high up under the eaves, is broken. My dented trashcan is two doors down the street and my mailbox needs replacing again, but there’s no permanent damage and I count myself lucky. I find my phone miraculously unharmed in the damp dew spotted grass. The mother comes out of her house leading her kid by his tiny hand. She spies me and waves a timid wave before walking off quickly down the street. I go inside and get ready for work.

 The Baboon King

 

Whether in clouds high overlooking a city

of busy intent

or

a cottage vast draped against the blue of ocean’s swell

of excess

or

a white palace sprinkled with the visages 

of old,

he stumbles and trips, rights himself, and insists he never lost his footing.

 

His tribe grins widely and they raise their fists and eyes

towards promised greatness as they cheer on

the Baboon King.

All the while the bumbling Simian whittles at their resurrected fervor

until it is parsed down into a sharpened thorn

that pieces the skin.

A single drop of red blood eats like battery acid

at the stars of our Fathers.

 

Strutting like a hairy jungle king 

whose fur is rotting,

he bangs his chest and echoes confusion into the darkness.

The rising storms and winds

scatter the shedding truths.

The Baboon King’s faithful ones twist their

brains and duck their heads under trembling feathers of gold,

and the hairy one struts as he feeds the fire and it glows with destruction.

He preens and dances and paws

at the waving stripes and the golden grains burning

and he colors the purple mountains black as death.

The Baboon King feeds nothing to his faithful

until they are a pile of starving shaking bones,

ghosts of what once was

and will never be again.

 

Somewhere in the city a baby cries,

a man dies, a woman weeps,

and dreams are turned to nightmares.

The high rise molders into unremembrance

The cottage vast slips into the rising seas

 and the palace crumbles to bitter stones.

And we forget and we forget and we forget…

 

 

Teri Adams

December 2017

revised June 2025

Deliver Me From Sci Fi Dystopian Being Made a Reality

 The dystopian future is no longer a world of science fiction. It is on U.S shores. It has burrowed into our laws and our government and our psyche. I think back to 2016, and the following events happening in the United States would have been unthinkable:

*A nine week pregnant brain-dead woman being kept alive on life support for MONTHS against her family’s wishes so she can give birth to a fetus that will probably not even live (Adriana Smith).

*A woman snatched off the street in broad daylight by masked men because she wrote a piece critical of U.S support of Israel against Gaza (Rümeysa Öztürk). 

*An Australia woman, married to an U.S Army serviceman, who traveled to Hawaii to see her husband, then at the airport was taken to a holding room, where her bags and phones were searched, and asked a slew of questions about her work as a former police officer, whether her tattoos were gang-related, and about her marriage to an American. She was then denied entry to the U.S. and deported back to Australia the next day. (Nicolle Saroukos). 

*238 Venezuelan migrants were flown from the U.S to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. Our government deported 238 individuals, including U.S. legal residents and even some who entered the U.S. legally, to El Salvador, by accusing them of gang ties. They are currently being held in a max security prison with no contact with their families or legal representatives. No due process, per the U.S Constitution was ensured before they were arrested and flown out of the USA, zip tied on chartered flights. (Names of those sent to El Salvador are available at:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-records-show-about-migrants-sent-to-salvadoran-prison-60-minutes-transcript/ ).

*Mass firings of federal employees from various departments, creating a void in services and global soft politics. Departments such as the National Parks Service, The IRS, The Social Security Administration, The Veteran’s Administration, USAid, The CDC, The National Health Service, and The Department of Education, among others have been affected. 132,000 to 280,000+ federal workers have either been fired, taken buyouts, or are slated for termination in the near future.

*The separation of as many as 1,000 openly identifying transgender service members from the United States military, both active duty and reserve, and giving others thirty days to self-identify under a new directive. These include trans military personnel who are near retirement and have served their nation honorably and unselfishly.

 

*The dismantlement of environmental laws and the firings of over 400 climate scientists and researchers who oversaw the congressional mandated National Climate Assessment. The assessment is used to draft environmental rules, legislation and infrastructure project planning to protect the U.S from the consequences of climate change.

I could go on and on because the sheer madness that has taken place in a mere four and a half months, with more to come, is mind blowing. 

All of these events are happening now in May, 2025.

The monster behind these far-right and isolationist initiatives has been Project 2025, a pet project of the Heritage Foundation. The ACLU calls the Project 2025 a “new hierarchy of rights that would elevate religion and property over basic human rights.” The Heritage Foundation was founded in 1973 and gained a foothold and burgeoning influence in federal government policy with the strengthening of the far-right evangelical movement under President Reagan. This movement was directly responsible for the termination of women’s reproductive rights in 2022. Rights that had been guaranteed by the Supreme Court’s Roe V Wade decision in1973. Rights I took for granted during my reproductive years; rights that I mourn the loss of for my daughter, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters.

And who did the Heritage Foundation pour money into electing in 2024? That’s right, Trump and every other far-right candidate on the state and national level. When SCOTUS ruled in favor of Citizens United in 2010, it reversed a hundred-year-old restriction on campaign finance and it allowed corporations and mega donors to spend unlimited money on elections and empowered super Pacs, the likes of the Heritage Foundation. Mega donors, billionaires (including Musk. Theil, and Bezos), and corporations elected Trump. The American people did not. So, it is any wonder that the far-right with its conservative Christian Nationalism is opposed to LGBTQ rights, women’s reproductive rights, diversity and inclusion, due process, federal oversight, workers’ unions and protections, immigration reform (because then who would be the proverbial bad guy?), minority civil rights, non- profit public education, protection of public lands, anti-immigration reform, and anti-gun reform. And it uses fear mongering and "othering" as a control mechanism. The Heritage Foundation's mission statement is: “Heritage’s mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

Promote polices to do what? Elevate white nationalism to the determent of every minority group and every religion that is not far-right Christian based?

Does “free enterprise” mean unchecked and unfettered Capitalism that has widened the gulf between the ultra-wealthy and the working poor over the past fifty years, all but erasing the middle class?

Can “limited government” protect the rights of a U.S population of 347 million compared the 2.5 million population in 1776 when the U.S was founded?

Does “individual freedom” only mean freedom for the few chosen that Christian Nationalists deem deserving, but not women, LGBTQ+ people, the working poor, and people of color?

 And what are “Traditional American Values? The values we were founded on include these words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (The Declaration of Independence, 1776)

If I have no rights to my own body or reproductive choices, I do not have liberty.

 If I can be arrested, incarcerated, and given no due process, I do not have liberty.

 If I do not have equal access to education, food, safe shelter, and healthcare, then I do not have the freedom to pursue happiness, and in fact the absence of some of these (food, shelter, healthcare) could interfere with my ability to have life.

“A strong national defense” is a subjective gray area. Our national defense budget encompasses 13% of our federal budget, far larger than any other nation's defense spending.  In comparison, our national resources and environment are only allocated 1% of the federal budget. Every military think tank knows that the chances of wars increase when people do not have access to water, when people’s homes and communities are destroyed by extreme weather patterns, and when agriculture is decimated by increasingly extreme heat. No amount of guns or weaponry or defense spending will stop those types of future wars. Our national defense should encompass not only military might, but also ecological and environmental research and oversight laws. But that would mean admitting that man-made climate change is occurring, and ignoring special interests like oil lobbyists. 

By the way, social services only accounts for 3% of our federal budget. So next time someone tries to blame our budgetary problems on a kid receiving free lunch at school or a minimum-wage working mom receiving food stamps, instead of putting the blame on billionaires who are exempt from paying the same tax rate as teachers, retail workers, librarians, truck drivers, and medical professionals, tell them I said to kindly bite my ass.

 

I never thought I’d live to see the day when The Handmaid’s Tale, 1984, and Brave New World would become instruction manuals.  It was real while it lasted USA. We might not have been ideal, but we were attempting to live up to them, even if those ideals were only an illusion.

FAFO I'm STILL rooting for America

 I've rooted for America by being a military brat from birth to age 19. I dropped whatever I was doing when I was a kid, usually dodgeball or Hide & Seek, and stood at attention as colors were being lowered on base.

I've rooted for American while watching the CBS Evening News with Cronkite talking about casualties that day in Vietnam, knowing my dad was in Vietnam and I that I was forgetting the sound of his voice.

I've rooted for America by losing friends and possessions (there's a weight limit on what can be shipped) when we moved every three years.

I rooted for America when my dad had to do a remote tour in Thailand when I was 14 yrs old and the Thai government kicked the US military out of their country and they had 2 hours to pack. We didn't know where my dad was for two weeks.

I rooted for America when my oldest son was in Iraq coming under fire at Al Asad base.

I rooted for America when my dad was dying a nightmare death from exposure to agent orange poisoning and my mom had to fight for four years to get him the care he deserved through the V.A.

I wouldn't wish the way my dad died on my worst enemy.

So don't talk to me about "rooting for America." I lived it. I'm still rooting for America by fighting the current president who has got to be the most incompetent, stupidest man to ever sit at the Resolute Desk. He's pure chaos and doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He's drunk on power.

Now I'm rooting for America by marching, carrying signs, writing and phoning my legislators, and by becoming an activist.

Pissing off our closest ally, Canada?????

Seriously taking away libraries??????. WTF?

Thinking "groceries" is a word no one uses anymore?

Destroying the Department of Education????

Cutting the V.A crisis line????

Removing any mention of the Underground Railroad from the Harriet Tubman Museum???? Removing the Constitution from the White House site??????

Deporting people to a notorious prison in El Salvador??? People who had the proper paperwork and had no criminal records?? Snuck them out in chains with no due process???

The stock market crashing because of ONE man????

I could go on and on. It's just insanity and chaos at this point. I can't wait for it to personally hit the MAGA voters. I'm over showing grace. I'm going to laugh my ass off when they finally get to the Find Out part.