These Dreams of You

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That night as both kids sleep, Zan surrenders to his insomnia and turns on the TV. The sound is down so low he can’t be sure, but back home the BBC seems to find the new president somber before his time. It’s a strange thing to witness from five thousand miles away, but Zan suspects that many people, from the woman on the plane to his anarchist friend in Texas, will take some satisfaction in this. For his part Zan takes solace in the same presidential ego that others consider so intolerable; the new president hasn’t merely a political sense of himself but an historic one. Mere elections are small potatoes for him. He’s running for history. He’s running for greatness, and in the eyes of history, whether he’s a megalomaniac, as is entirely possible, depends only and entirely on whether he succeeds.