“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” - Abraham Lincoln

I dedicate this diddy to honest Abe, whose moral compass may have leaned a tad closer to due north than mine. As you read, I urge you to sing aloud in the style of a knee-slappin' Honky Tonk tune. If you'd like to hear me humiliate myself, you can listen to me singing it in my bathroom here: https://voicespice.com/Player.aspx?c=p&h=37B44670&j=373839

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllll!

If I woke up one day omnipotent

I'd smile at the good fortune sent

I'd end hunger n' cure all disease

And o'course say no more poverty

But when all the major work was done

That's when I'd get to having fun

I'd take a swig to steal my nerves

And give you just what you deserveeeeee!

(Double-time, now!)

I'd strap Ted Cruz to my own dining chair

And give him what I thought was fair

Peel back every single finger nail

Say he's spendin' all his life in jail

He'll only get one meal a day

And every bite turns someone gay

Then when he tries to rest his head

We'll read'm anti-racist books insteadddddd

I'd put some dynamite in Mt. Rushmore

Blow it up and watch the pieces soar

The air would fill with stone and dust

And I'd replace it with who we must

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, HRC

Justice Jackson, Gaga and Queen B

Angie Davis and Mother Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Plus all three members of TLC (Why not?!)

We'd start the government straight from scratch

Only women in this brand new batch

Of leaders who know how to lead

With consensus and humility

And any shouting of #notallmen

Will land you in the lions' den

Is this a figure a' speech or real?

I'll let my emotions take the wheel

'Cause ain't that what ladies do best

I'll just have to get it off my chesttttttttt (Eyes up here, honey!)

And we'd try more old Republicans

With crimes against Americans

Send McConnell to live with his own kind

On a turtle reserve oh so fine

But first we'd make him watch TV

Only hours upon hours of Broad City

'Til his cold, dead heart was filled with rage

Then we'd slap his chins and throw him in his cageeeeeeeee (Were they only okay for kids?!)

But we can't forget dear Lindsey Graham

And Brett Cavanaugh, our boofin' man

Since they're cool with rape and sex assault

And nothing's ever been their fault

We'd let the women decide their fates

To chop or chemically castrate

And force Lindsey to show his special mooooooooooles

Just kiddin' - wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole

But don't you for one minute think

That we'd forget women who stink

'Cus there's right wing ladies 'round

Marjorie Taylor Green and Blackburn take the crown

Since they wear their internalized misgoyny

Like a badge of honor on their sleeves

We'll employ them at Planned Parenthood

Until they've changed their tunes for goooooooooood

I know this song did not have a bridge

But I'm God now, so it's my prerogative

And before I enact my incel ban

I'll give the remaining highlights of my master plaaaaannnnn

I'd end police brutality

Find all stray pets a family

Make the temp forever seventy

And make college tuition free

End women's clothes size discrepancieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

And keep Andrew Garfield just for me

(Yeehaw! Spiderman's mine!)

Everything moves faster now. Everything, and everybody, except me. I still look like a 35 year old woman, but I feel my full 102 years in my achy bones, in weakened muscles still warming and stretching, and in my mind -- looking out at a world that has left me behind. I didn’t have a choice. When the men in their gray, wool suits came to my cell that night so long ago, they knew I didn’t have a choice. Still they were polite. They offered me freedom, a fresh start, and something more. Hope. I was tired of the choices available to me in 1952. Tired of being at the very bottom. Being expendable. I have only one regret.

I’ve been wandering all day. I don’t even know where I’ll sleep tonight and I don’t care. I look into the faces of the people hurrying past me on this busy Atlanta sidewalk on this muggy June evening and I’m happy to be alive. I try not to gape at three tall, leggy men in dresses and high heels, their faces shining in the dying light, arms linked as they laugh and talk. A father swings his toddler up into the air and onto his shoulders while the child squeals with delight. A teenaged girl flies past on a bicycle, dark blonde dreadlocks brushing her shoulders, her bare arms covered in ink, an intricate jungle of images telling her story to all the world. A man leans out the passenger window of a battered pick-up truck with a confederate flag painted on the rear view window and yells obscenities at the girl on the bicycle as he passes. Two dark skinned youth sit on overturned buckets on the grass near the walkway making music, one drawing plaintive notes from a violin and the other strumming a guitar and singing a bluesy ballad. People throw money into the open violin case at their feet. Two women hold hands, smiling at each other as they sway to the music.

A woman with coppery skin and dark flashing eyes strides purposefully past in an exquisitely cut, blue silk suit. A slim black leather briefcase swings from one hand and she is shouting into her phone. “That’s the deal. My clients won’t come back to the table. We need your answer by end of the day tomorrow.”

All around me people talk into phones or look at handheld screens as they hurry along. Some look like they are talking to themselves, before I notice the tiny receivers in their ears. Packed together in this jostling stream of humanity heading onto the train or into the city for dinner, breathing each other’s air, a rainbow of skin against skin, intimate in their closeness, yet they are unconnected. I’m sorry so many of them are missing this moment. The laughter, the singing, the shouts, the soft air heavy with the acrid scent of warm bodies and an underlying sweetness of magnolias, lilies, and flowering tobacco. And something else – barbeque. Suddenly I’m famished. I see a van parked in a nearby lot, the menu painted on the side promises soul food. A lithe, young woman in tight jeans and a t-shirt with caramel skin and a smile like sunshine takes orders and hands paper plates through a window facing the thronging sidewalk. I step into the line.

I haven’t eaten since I left the laboratory early this morning. I was there just over three months after the awakening. That’s what they called it when they carefully and slowly reversed the cryogenic process and I opened my eyes in this new century. They wanted me to stay longer, but that wasn’t the deal we made. As I left, I promised to check in once a week for the rest of the year. They have ensured my compliance by promising a weekly stipend which can only be collected in person. I reach into my pocket for the little wallet full of bills. The middle-aged white man ahead of me orders the special of the day -- collard greens, cheesy grits, and fried chicken. My mouth waters in anticipation. The woman takes my order. Her t-shirt has a picture of a black man on the front of it. He must be famous, but I don’t recognize the name, Martin Luther King, Jr. A young man with a shock of orange curls barely contained in a hair net and a splash of freckles across his broad nose bustles behind her, an apron covering his gangly frame, a metal spatula in one hand.

I sit on a bench in a tiny park nearby with the warm plate on my knees. A few feet away, a young black man tenderly kisses the lips of a young white man and they lean into each other, speaking quietly, in a world all their own like lovers in every place and time. On the other side of the park, three white men in their late teens or early twenties are gathered under a tree. Their heads are shaved clean and a large tattoo of a Nazi swastika decorates one man’s muscular neck. He points at the lovers, his finger and thumb simulating a gun.

The first crunchy salty bite of chicken brings a flood of memories. I’m standing in front of a stove in a huge shiny kitchen, hot oil splashing up from the cast iron frying pan as I turn each piece of chicken. I don’t dare burn it. I remember the sour bile of resentment burning the back of my throat as I stood there. My momma had promised my life would be better than hers. That I would go to college. Would be somebody. More than a cook and housekeeper for a white man who treated me like property, cornering me in the pantry to put his sweaty hands on my breasts and under my skirt, looking at me as if I were less than nothing as I brought his dinner and refilled his whiskey glass. If it weren’t for Sarah, I would have left long before.

I look at the sea of faces passing by and wonder what opportunities these people have. Does their brown skin close as many doors for them as mine did for me? Do they have the power to choose their own paths? Or are they as powerless as I was when I finally broke that whiskey glass and shouted into that fat, white face at the top of my lungs, “NO! Do not touch me. I will not allow it. I am someone!” I had felt elation tinged with growing terror as I watched his face grow from red to purple with rage. When his fist slammed into my cheekbone I saw stars. The officers who came to arrest me refused to tell me what I was being charged with. They joked with my employer as they put the handcuffs on just a little too tight, “Looks like your girl needs to learn how to mind better, Joe.”

I had lain on the concrete floor of that cold jail cell for days before someone finally came to collect me for an arraignment. I was charged with assault and battery, as well as theft. I never took anything from that house and I was the one who was assaulted, but the judge and the police belonged to the same brotherhood as my previous employer. They had all of the power and they made it clear that I and my kind would never have any. Even though we had been “free” for almost a hundred years, we would always be enslaved in a world run by these men.

By the time the scientists came looking for a “volunteer,” I had given up all hope of real freedom in the country where I was born and had grown into a woman. I am pulled back to the present when a young woman sits down beside me. “May I sit here?” she asks politely, not waiting for my answer. I nod and continue my supper. The two of us sit in amicable silence for a few minutes before she looks at me and asks, “So what do you think of 2019?”

My eyes narrow as I try to determine her intentions. She is petite, shapely, maybe twenty five. Her hair is short and naturally kinky, but it looks soft. Her eyes are the color of cinnamon with flecks of green and her skin so light that in my time she might have passed the brown bag test that kept so many of us out of places where we were not welcome. She’s wearing a simple cotton dress and white canvas shoes with no socks. She looks familiar. “They asked me to keep an eye on you today, since it’s your first day out on your own.” She explains, as if reading my thoughts.

“Everything is fast and noisy.” I begin in answer to her question. “People come in every shade you could imagine and they all mix together with each other as if the color of their skin don’t matter. Men and women seem to have more freedom to be who they want to be and to love who they want to love. Some women have power. Even black women.”

“But…” she prompts, clearly reading the questions on my face.

“Things have changed, and yet it seems like they are still the same in some ways. It seems like we have more freedom and power. More choices. But I wonder if this is really true.”

“We still have a long way to go,” she agrees somberly.

“Do I know you?”

“Not really. I’m called June, but my name is Le Jeune. Sarah was my grandmother.”

And I see it. The resemblance is striking. Sarah was only sixteen when I left her. She made the choice so difficult. But they promised that she would be taken care of, and how was I going to take care of her from prison? My beautiful girl. My only child. My heart aches as I register the past tense in her statement.

“Where is Sarah now?” I ask.

“Granny Sarah was an amazing woman. She passed away two years ago. She had a good life though. Graduated from Spelman College and married a Morehouse man. They both worked closely with Dr. King, fighting for the rights of people of color. She eventually became an English professor and spent her last years writing about her life and work.”

I nod, surprised by the tears on my cheeks. Tears of immense sadness, but also born of joy that my daughter had a good life. She was successful and respected and free.

“You know, they may be able to cryogenically freeze you a second time. There has been some promising research. Maybe you would like to go back to sleep for another seventy years or so? Maybe things will be better then.” She gives me a half-smile, tinged with sadness.

I consider briefly, looking at the people rushing past on the sidewalk and those lounging on benches and picnic blankets on this little patch of grass as twilight softens everything. The fragrant breeze caresses my skin and I close my eyes just for a moment.

“No,” I whisper, reaching out to fold my great granddaughter’s hand in mine, “I have what I wanted. Hope. It’s enough.”

“Empty again, not that I should've expected any different.” I thought, the chilled metal of the can sticking to my fingertips.

In the days since our 'Saviours' had their bright ideas the clothes on your back and the food in your stomach were all that mattered.

"Come on Korm, looks like it's time to move out." I said, patting my shoulder.

The razor-sharp claws of that cat did little good for the condition of my coat but I can't help if I had a soft spot for the guy. It's not like anyone cared about our furred friends anymore, anything with a beating heart and meat was fair game. I once heard a man say before the chill, "We should consider cannibalism, it would solve overpopulation and world hunger all at once." at least the chill solved one of those issues.

I pushed open what was left of the glass doors and looked to Korm, "Once more unto the breach." to which they replied with a purr and curled into my hood. Most of the supermarkets like that one had been cleared out long ago but you could still find some potted meat or corned beef and if you were lucky a sardine or two. It's amazing how one moment can change a sardine from being the pariah of the food world to a hot commodity. Not only is the protein great but the oil works wonders for torches.

"Where to now old friend?" I asked, looking at a tattered travel guide.

A crunch echoed across the frosted plain with each step I took, an eerie reminder of just how alone this world had become. I stumbled through the wind-whipped landscape looking for anything still standing enough to count as a shelter yet hidden enough to still be considered safe. An abandoned community police vehicle appeared through the rose-colored haze and I chuckled, "Some help you guys were. At least all that money went to some fancy cars." A deafening crack reverberated through the near silence and I fell to my knees, the pure snow forever stained crimson with the blood of an innocent. "Don't let them find you." I said, thrusting my only companion under the car. Another crack and another stain, I turned with what little strength remained to face my fate and all I saw was empty snow, another crack and another stain.

BEEP

Looks like I'm out of time. To whoever finds this, just know that I tried. I sure hope it's warm.