For A True Believer, Truth Is Whatever The Leader Says It Is
People Cling To The Sweetest Lies To Soothe The Most Bitter Truths
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Satire, Humor, Fiction
My Strange Dream
I had the strangest dream.
I was at some speech or rally or something, deep, deep, in a huge crowd. The room was in shadow, but spotlights roved over the throng, randomly illuminating faces, arms and heads. When the beam touched them the figures roared and waved their fists.
A glaringly bright stage was far in front of me, populated with dim shapes at the back and a spot-lit human form in the front. His features were so blurred by the glaring light that he was barely more than a white silhouette against a mottled velvet screen.
The man raised both arms over his head and the crowd roared.
“Alright, alright,” he shouted after half a minute’s adulation. “I’ve got some important things to tell you tonight. Are you with me?”
Another roar shook the walls, then, almost magically, disappeared in response to a wave of the speaker’s right hand.
“I’ve learned something really important. Something that they don’t want you to know. But I’m going to tell it to you anyway. This is important, secret stuff that they’ve been hiding from you. Are you ready?”
The crowd deafened me with shouts and screams.
“For your whole life you’ve all been told that the sky is blue. You’ve heard that, right? ‘Blue skies tomorrow,’ the weather guy tells you. What’s that line from the song? ‘Nothing but blue skies from now on.’
Well, it’s not true. It hasn’t been true for years. Trust me, it’s all a lie.
“The sky is actually green. Did you know that? Did you?”
The crowd made a confused noise like a sputtering engine.
“It’s true. The sky is really green. It surprised me too when I found out. Just like you, I always thought it was blue. That’s what they’d told me too, until I looked into it.
“I get a lot of inside information. Top secret stuff. I’m probably the best informed person in the whole world. People come to me everyday with lots of really hidden information that nobody else knows. That’s how I found out. A little while ago a guy, a really top, top scientist, said to me, ‘Did you know that the sky is really green?’
“‘What?’ I said. ‘How can that be?’ and then he told me.
“‘They changed the colors. More than fifty years ago the government released radioactive isotopes into the jet stream in a secret, secret program to introduce radiation that would slowly change everyone’s skin color from white to brown, or at least beige, but it refracted the light in some crazy, crazy way and the sky began to turn green.
“Kennedy knew that he couldn’t explain why the sky was turning green so his guys got together with Those People who run the TV networks, we all know who they are, and had them put hypnotic codes into all the TV broadcasts — The Sky Is Blue, The Sky Is Blue. Subliminal messages — The Sky Is Blue, The Sky Is Blue.
“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week they’ve been hypnotizing us into believing that the sky is still blue when, in fact, now it’s really green because of the radioactive material they put up there.
“Have you ever wondered why there are so many brown people these days? Didn’t you wonder, ‘Hey, where did all these brown people come from?’ Now you know. They’re the result of the government’s secret, horrible, terrible, secret program to turn white people into brown people so that everybody will be averaged out, color wise.
“Is that something the government should be doing? Is that OK with you?”
“No! No!” the crowd screamed.
“Are we going to stand for that?”
“No! No!”
“Let me tell you, I’m going to put a stop it. Trust me. I’m going to stop it dead. Dead in its tracks!
“I’m going to have the Air Force, our magnificent U.S. Air Force, send a fleet of special cleaner planes up into the stratosphere and they’re going to filter out all of that radioactive stuff and turn our sky back to blue again, the way it’s supposed to be, the way God intended it to be before the Democrats polluted it as part of their monstrous plan to turn white people brown. Isn’t that what you want? Blue again? Blue again!”
“Blue again! Blue again!” the crowd chanted.
“White again. White again,” he prompted.
“White Again! WHITE AGAIN!”
“I’m going to clean the sky. Trust me. That’s going to be my first priority — Clean The Sky!”
“Clean the sky! CLEAN THE SKY!”
“Now, the next question is: What are we going to do about all those extra brown people? We can’t just ignore them.
“You know radiation affects people in many, many different ways. Some people, not so much. They’re just fine. They’re perfectly nice, decent people. No problem.
“But for others, it’s a different story. For them, there’s a problem. It changes them. They may start out OK, but then, for a lot of them, you end up with liars and rapists, killers and thieves. Not all of them, of course, but a lot of them.
“We have to do something about them. We can’t just let them wander around our country raping, stealing and killing any time they want. They have to be stopped. You may be asking yourselves, ‘How are we going to do that?’ But don’t worry.
“Luckily, I’ve got it covered. We’ve developed a device, and when I say ‘we’ I mean top American scientists, patriots really, real heroes. It’s this scanner thing. It looks like the gizmo that reads the bar codes in the grocery store, but it really measures a person’s skin composition and it finds the dangerous ones, the ones that we have to get rid of.
“I tried to understand how it works. They showed me all kinds of charts and equations and, to be honest, it was all gobbledygook to me. What do I know about nuclear physics? But they gave me a demonstration and it was amazing, amazing.
“They brought out this guy who looked like he had just escaped from Alcatraz or something and they put the scanner on his arm, and when they pressed the button it went ‘BEEP, BEEP, BEEP’ and then it flashed green. The head scientist opened a sealed envelope and laughed.
“‘This is Doctor Jimenez, Chief Of Cardiology at the Medical Center,’ he told me. Wow! I couldn’t believe it.
“Then they brought in the next guy, and I’ve got to tell you, he didn’t look threatening at all. To tell you the truth, he looked like the guy who mows the lawn at my golf club, but when they scanned his skin, the thing went off like a jackpot on a slot machine — red lights, BUZZ, BUZZ, BUZZ. The whole nine yards.
“‘Who the heck is he?’ I asked them. The head scientist opened another envelope and handed me the piece of paper from inside. You know what it said? It blew me away. It did. This guy was actually inmate XJ387623 who’d been locked up for nineteen child murders. A bad guy. A really, really, bad, bad, bad guy.
“Let me tell you, trust me, this thing works.
“So, what I’m going to do is order Homeland Security to round up all these brown people and run them through the scanner. It doesn’t hurt, no pain, nothing. Just, like one little beep and they’re done. Thanks very much. Have a nice day.
“It’ll be very, very fast. No one will even be inconvenienced. We’ll provide buses, maybe hot dogs and Cokes. It will be like a party.
“Every Saturday and Sunday the brown people will get on the buses, go to the local football or baseball stadium, stick out their arms, get scanned, grab a hot dog and maybe a bag of chips, and then get back on the bus. They’ll be back home in time for dinner. The few bad guys we turn up will be quickly transported to a secure facility for processing.
“I don’t like it. I hate it. I wish we didn’t have to do it. But we need to keep America strong and safe. We need to get rid of the bad people, don’t we? Aren’t I right? Don’t we need to kick them out? Right? Kick them out!”
“Kick them out!” the crowd shouted. “Kick Them Out! KICK THEM OUT!”
The speaker held his arms high and waggled them over his head. After about thirty seconds he made a cutting motion and the crowd quieted down.
“We need to remember that the haters are going to try to tear us down, tear America down. They’re going to tell you: ‘The sky isn’t green. The sky is blue’ but don’t them fool you. Don’t believe their lies. What color is the sky?”
“Green,” the crowd shouted.
“What color?”
“Green!”
“I can’t hear you.”
“GREEN!”
In the harsh light I thought I saw the blur of a smile twist the speaker’s face.
“And what are we going to do to the criminals and rapists?”
“Kick them out. Kick Them Out! KICK THEM OUT!”
“Who hates us?” he demanded.
“The media! The media!”
“Who hates America?”
The crowd’s reply was a jumble most saying, “The democrats” but some were still sticking with “The media”
“Who lies to us?”
This time they all got it and screamed, “The media! The Media! THE MEDIA!”
“Fake news!” the speaker shouted, and the crowd took up the chant:
“Fake News! FAKE NEWS!” most of them screamed, but here and there I thought I heard the mantra: “The Jews! The Jews!”
And then I woke up. Bleary-eyed, heart pounding, I staggered to the kitchen, pressed the button on Keurig, then turned on the TV for the early news.
“This morning the President took an unscheduled stroll on the White House lawn and surprised reporters with an impromptu statement,” the announcer began.
The President appeared on the screen, surrounded by reporters.
“I was thinking about my long journey getting here,” he began.
“In spite of the fact that Barack Obama had my phones tapped in Trump Tower I still won the Presidency in one of the biggest electoral-college landslides in modern history, plus, as you know, I also won the popular vote when you ignore the ballots of the millions of people who voted illegally.
“The American people ratified my massive victory with an attendance at my inauguration that was the largest in history. Recognizing my amazing triumph, Time Magazine has put me on their cover more often than any other President.
“Since taking office I’ve faced many challenges. For example, a murder rate that’s the highest it’s been in the last forty-seven years, but we’re going to fix that without infringing on every American citizen’s cherished right own a handgun.
“We’ve had some civil disturbances, notably in Charlotte, North Carolina, when, unfortunately, good people on both sides tried to settle their disputes with violence. Something I personally hate. Violence is bad, but contrary to the Democrat’s lies, banning so-called assault weapons will do nothing to reduce it.
“I’m on the side of ordinary Americans. I’m fighting to reduce taxes on ordinary Americans because America is the highest taxed country in the world. Our massive reduction in corporate income taxes will be a boon to working people.
“Unfortunately, we are still being forced to defend ourselves against our neighbors. Our trade deficit with Canada is close to $100 billion per year, something I’m going to fix with higher tariffs.
“Still, in spite of all those challenges, I’m going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it. I’m never giving up on my pledge to Make America Great Again.”
The image cut back to the announcer. “In other news,” he said, “the President’s approval rating has increased to 42%.”
I pressed the red button on the remote and wondered if I was still dreaming.
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
