These Dreams of You

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Though in fact the maelstrom created by this candidacy had grown from the brother’s death a few years before, it was its own thing now, concurrent with the way this man became his own candidate. It was hard to know whether he would have become a great or disastrous president but it seemed inevitable to Zan that he would have been one or the other, poised as such men are at a tipping point. By the time the crowd tore the coat from the candidate’s back and plucked the cufflinks from his wrists, it so had lost control that craziness found a gravity and vortex, catching Zan in the undertow around his ankles.

He felt his feet lifted off the ground and the rest of him pulled under. Enveloped by panic, flailing wildly and reaching for anything he could grab, Zan called for help but the noise and movement were too much for anyone to hear or reach him.

Then, as he was swallowed by the crowd to be trampled or crushed underfoot, a hand, young and female and black, reached to him from the sky and he took it.