(no subject)
January 20, 2005: George W. Bush is sworn in for his second term. Simon is at Ana’s home, staring despondently at the fishbowl that houses Iago. Ana has been in extreme and incurable foul moods today. Nothing that Simon has done has lifted her spirits. He has given up. He knows she’s not mad at him, but her anger, and his inability to lift it, has left him worn. Iago, at least, won’t stalk about, seething with rage. Iago is a goldfish. He can’t seethe with rage.
Politics have always fatigued Simon. He doesn’t really care beyond what it does for business. He votes with those concerns in mind. He’d rather leave everything else, especially the personal politics, alone. Problem is: everyone doesn’t want to leave them alone. They want to shout it from the streets, from the windows, from the mountains; they want to clash over it, claw over it, wage war over it; they want to protest; they want to fight, divide, and, in general, give Simon a headache. He doesn’t care what people believe as long as they keep it to themselves and don’t kick up a fuss about it. What good will it do, anyway? Debate and debate and nothing gets done. Theorize and theorize and nothing gets solved. Simon just wants peace and quiet and for things to get done, not argued about.
And he wants to smile, laugh, not angry.
Breaking his vigil of the fishbowl, Simon walks over to the bed and lies down. He’s not just emotionally exhausted. He’s physically exhausted. In two minutes flat, after making contact with the pillow, he will drift asleep. He knows it. He can run as many laps around Sandford-or around the block, in Chicago-and feel as physically fit as ever and still drop like a sack of bricks as soon as he gets vertical. It’s just a by-product of age. He’s used to it. He’s afraid of it, maybe like he’s afraid of politics, but he’s used to it. It’s something he hopes Ana won’t despise him for later down the road, something he hopes she won’t realize one day was despicable all along, like his rather conservative politics, like his apathy towards political activism and change, like his-like his secret activities in Sandford.
And thinking about them staves off sleep for 30 minutes. And when he falls, it’s uneasily, on the heels of an internal repeat that says he's doing the right thing, he's doing the right thing, on and on until a tiny voice breaks the chorus and whispers, no, maybe you’re not.
Politics have always fatigued Simon. He doesn’t really care beyond what it does for business. He votes with those concerns in mind. He’d rather leave everything else, especially the personal politics, alone. Problem is: everyone doesn’t want to leave them alone. They want to shout it from the streets, from the windows, from the mountains; they want to clash over it, claw over it, wage war over it; they want to protest; they want to fight, divide, and, in general, give Simon a headache. He doesn’t care what people believe as long as they keep it to themselves and don’t kick up a fuss about it. What good will it do, anyway? Debate and debate and nothing gets done. Theorize and theorize and nothing gets solved. Simon just wants peace and quiet and for things to get done, not argued about.
And he wants to smile, laugh, not angry.
Breaking his vigil of the fishbowl, Simon walks over to the bed and lies down. He’s not just emotionally exhausted. He’s physically exhausted. In two minutes flat, after making contact with the pillow, he will drift asleep. He knows it. He can run as many laps around Sandford-or around the block, in Chicago-and feel as physically fit as ever and still drop like a sack of bricks as soon as he gets vertical. It’s just a by-product of age. He’s used to it. He’s afraid of it, maybe like he’s afraid of politics, but he’s used to it. It’s something he hopes Ana won’t despise him for later down the road, something he hopes she won’t realize one day was despicable all along, like his rather conservative politics, like his apathy towards political activism and change, like his-like his secret activities in Sandford.
And thinking about them staves off sleep for 30 minutes. And when he falls, it’s uneasily, on the heels of an internal repeat that says he's doing the right thing, he's doing the right thing, on and on until a tiny voice breaks the chorus and whispers, no, maybe you’re not.