Waking Up in 2031
Getting up in the morning, lately, makes me happier than it has in the past, even though the events that have been occurring around me and everyone I know ought to make it more difficult. My bed is positioned against the north wall of my room, next to a window that shows the view of the neighborhood I live in, Lakeview, in the city of Chicago. I usually wake up half an hour to an hour before my alarm goes off. I feel like this is because the vibes and energy of what has been going on remain with me through the night, permeating my dreams. When I wake up I can see the sun rising over the buildings outside of my apartment. Today I wake and see rays of light of the sun, something that everyone in the world has the right to enjoy, and I imagine that people on the other side of the world are able to see the same thing. This makes me happy because the idea of the universality that goes along with this thought distracts me from the fact that my world, and the world of people I know and love, is tormented by acts of terrorism. The moment when I wake up and see the beauty of the morning, a moment that gives me a sense of happiness and freedom, is the only moment in my daily life that isn’t haunted by the threat of terrorism.
I live alone in my apartment, a studio that is small but somewhat comfortable, on the fourth floor of a twelve-floor building. Today is the third Saturday of the month, and I am going to visit my parents’ house later in the day, in Niles. I have established a routine for Saturday mornings, when I am usually off from my job as a physical education teacher at St. Augustine’s high school; a schedule that I have retained ever since I moved out of my parents’ house after graduating from college: wake up, make my bed, eat, check out wearenotaloneaslongaswehaveeachother.com, take a shower, and then watch the channel four news. I hop out of bed and then make it, using hospital corners (something my Mom showed me how to do before 9/11) and arranging my quilt under my down comforter so that when I would later watch the news I could lay on top of the layers, feeling the comfort of warmth; comfort being something that is lacking in my environment while I allow myself to be updated on the most recent facts and incidents of terrorism of the world. Usually on these mornings I have a small breakfast because my Mom would make a big lunch, and dinner, but today I feel especially hungry, so I decide to make a moderately sized breakfast, and I pull out a medium-sized pan from the cabinets above my sink to warmup a can of cream of broccoli soup. The pan makes a loud clattering sound that fills the room. The noise is so loud that it reminds me of the alarm that sounds throughout the neighborhood every Thursday, which has been sounding off ever since the terrorist attack in Rockford. These alarms go off all over the country now, in all major cities. The hijacking of the train has been one of the most recent of the incidents of terrorism throughout the past few years, and it being so close to home has placed a sense of fear throughout my daily life. When I walk to work, I look above and see airplanes flying high in the air, and I wonder if one will ever crash down over me and the people around me. When I take the train, the people sitting around me and I glance around with wide eyes, wondering if one of us could be a terrorist, with a bomb in a bag or a gun in a pocket. Taking a pan out of the cabinet to make breakfast brings to my mind the sound that penetrates the cities of America, a country that in the past thirty years has been terrorized by terrorism and the idea that we aren’t safe on our own land, our own home, our own turf.
I fill the pan with the soup after opening the can with a can opener. The semi-liquid makes a glug-glug sounds as it splatters into the pan. I turn the handle of the faucet of my kitchen sink and put the can under the spout to fill it with water, and pour the water over the condensed soup, so that the water spills over the yellow substance and turns around it, like the water of a moat. I stir the soup with a spoon and then gather my laptop from on top of my desk and lay down on my couch. Being updated about terrorist news has been something that I have been obsessed about ever since Rockford. A family member of one of the students that my uncle taught for had been a victim of the terrorist attack. The fact that someone that I knew was connected to a terrorist attack disturbed me, so that it began to be that when I watched the news, the reality of these events became horrifying. I had never met the family member of my uncle’s student, I didn’t even know what he looked like, but it had been something that became so personal to me that I constantly felt the urge to check the news and terrorism updating websites daily.
I flip open my laptop and rest it on my stomach. The keyboard feels cool to the touch. The gleam of my desk lamp falls over the screen. The website wearenotaloneaslongaswehaveeachother.com is one of the three websites I like to read (along with wehavenofear.com and ustogether.com), so I open up the link and watch as the screen fills with pictures and words. The top half of the website lists information about ISIS that remains there on a daily basis, while the bottom half contains information that is restructured almost daily. In case you have been living under a rock, and are not up to date with the happenings of 2031, ISIS (The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is the terrorist group that is responsible for half a dozen terrorist attacks on American soil. ISIS is a malicious anti-democratic group that dominates parts of Syria and Iraq. It is rich and well-armed. They prey on humanitarian aid organizations and provoke violent acts of suicide attacks, as well as acts of beheading journalists who are on their territory. They are a jihadist group, “jihadist” being a word that gives the definition that they support a war against nonbelievers. I know this information because it fills the top half of the website. Sometimes I lay on my couch and read it over and over again; although my mind already has it memorized, I read through it word for word. When I get to the end of it, I always hold my breath and look to the bottom to see if there is anything new posted. If there isn’t, I expel my breath, and I feel at peace for the rest of the day. If there is something new, I skim through it, looking for the names of cities, hoping that I don’t recognize any as close to home. I have never read of anything that has happened near Chicago except for the takeover of the passenger train in Rockford. In the circumstance that there is no news of anything near Chicago, I see that I am safe, and I am alright.
Last Saturday there was an article posted about the stance of the Sunni population in the Middle East being opposed to the presence of ISIS. Since the Sunni religion is the world’s largest religion, even more dominant than Christianity, I was intrigued by this. It made me feel good knowing that even among the presence of evil that ISIS creates, there are people who fight against it, even when they are given the opportunity to be part of it. The fact that the United States is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, if not the most, makes me think that the countries that are trying to control it through the fear that is created by terrorism would unite; but instead, the presence of religion and faith creates a group that is against this evil. The post described the Sunni religion, and their leader, the Prophet Muhammed in brief, but most of it was about the author’s perspective that there are people amid people like this, good within bad. This made me think of how the world has changed, but in a way hasn’t, because it has been my experience, and the experience of everyone and everything that the United States stands for, that people who stand up for what they believe in are always opposite some other group of people, some opposite pole.
Most of the time the level of danger of the news on the bottom part of the website is minor; maybe there would be a bomb threat in a small town that turned out to be fabricated, or perchance there would be an article posted by an American journalist about the journalist’s decision to travel to Iraq to practice embedded journalism; embedded journalism being where journalists report while having association with the military that is involved in instances of war, such as what is happening in the Middle East. Today there is a posting of the latest speech that the President has delivered to the public. President Anderson gives speeches on the fifteenth of the month to inform the nation on the status of ISIS. The speech is posted, and there is a link that leads to the video on USTube.
I realize that my soup is done when I hear the sound of bubbling come from the kitchen. I look up to the bright red digital numbers on the microwave, it reads 6:03. I walk to the kitchen of my apartment, barefoot, and I feel the cool tile under my feet as I hurry to my breakfast. When I pour the soup into a bowl, I hear the sound of a news anchor’s voice coming from the television. I walk to my sofa with soup in hand, just in time to catch my favorite news anchor, Jane Klien, who is summarizing and commenting on the speech given by the President. Her eyes look wide and critical as she speaks. It seems to me that through the last few years this is the set facial expression of everyone that I see in Chicago, on television, in the paper and magazines: scared and unsure. For a few seconds what she is saying escapes me, because I can already tell what she is reporting through her clenched smile. I can see the people that stand in the windows behind her who want to be on television. One person is holding up a poster of the flag of the United States.
“It has been a rough few days for the President,” the news anchor says in a nervous, high-pitched voice. “His recent trip to Egypt has given him the opportunity to strengthen relations with the country and President Asim, Egypt being a country that we all know has been threatened by an ISIS terrorist attack five years ago in the city of Cairo. We will now show you some of the coverage of President Anderson’s speech that was delivered yesterday night to the nation.”
I lean back on the sofa, cradling my bowl of soup in my hands on my stomach. I watch as he walks up behind a podium. He strides with confidence and poise. His blue eyes almost look surreal as he folds his hands on the top of the podium. He pauses for half a second, gathering himself, before he speaks to me and the other 450 million citizens of the United States. Then he begins the address.
“As you all know,” he says, lifting his chin up with confidence, “Our country is still threatened by the reality of terrorism. Though this is a fact, we, as a nation that practices and celebrates a democratic way of life, a life that we believe is meant to be based on happiness through freedom, should not be afraid. We will survive and continue to be free as long as we keep this in mind: that we will always be free as long as we feel free. I hope to continue to lead our country in this struggle, and I hope to win the war of terrorism that we face, so that we will be able to try to maintain a secure and happy state of existence.”
President Anderson’s speeches always leave me motivated, but what he says today leaves me feeling so inspired that I get the chills, just as I hear the sound of clapping, and see the President render his signature dimple-filled smile. Jane Klien returns to the screen as the phone rings from my desk across the room. I jump up to answer it, hoping it’s my Mom. She always calls me the mornings of the days that I go to visit my parents.
“Mom?” I whisper in my early-morning, cracking-and-still-tired voice.
“Hi Andrea,” she says. “Good morning! Great day to be alive, isn’t it?”
I shrug my shoulders to myself, as if my Mom can see me, in my tired-because-of-lack-of-sleep-yet-awake-because-of-the-President’s-motivating-speech state. “I agree,” I murmur, twirling a piece of hair with my free hand. “I guess I should be happy because you are cooking for me later today, and because Anderson just gave a really good speech.”
“I know, I am watching the news too,” she says, “We will always be free as long as we feel free. I bet those are words that he’ll be remembered for.”
I look back to the television, watching the President demonstrate his signature body language; as he talks, he hovers his left hand over the podium, and shifts his body weight from the left to right.
“I wonder what he’ll say next month,” I mutter, tracing the outline of the tiles of my kitchen floor with my bare left foot. I look up to the television to see a commercial for LunarSpace, the one that replays itself it seems at least five times an hour. The words Vacation on the Moon This Spring- Four-Day, Three-Night Packages Available for $20,000, flicker on the screen.
“What time do you want me to come over?” I ask. “The usual noon?”
“Of course,” she says. “Guess what I am making for dinner? Your favorite, meatloaf and mashed potatoes.”
Meatloaf and mashed potatoes has been my favorite meal my Mother makes since I was a little girl. My Mom used to let me smash the potatoes, while she would add the butter and milk. I used to stand on one of our oak chairs, next to the kitchen table, while the news or reruns of Cupcake Wars would play on our old HD television from the kitchen counter. In those days, the only predominant terrorism attack that had happened in the country was 9/11. People were scared, but terrorism hadn’t been as much of a problem as it was now. The American people, we were more sure of ourselves. We had other problems and preoccupations that seemed more important, because it seemed that 9/11 was a one-time thing. It was terrifying, of course, but we had always imagined ourselves to be stronger and more capable of overcoming the consequences. A number of incidents later; the beheadings, the hostile takeovers, Rockford, and it seemed that the words Never Forget, although true, were overconfident.
“Sounds great,” I say. “Hey, I have to go, I need to take a shower, but I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Ok, love you honey,” my Mom says, “See you later.”
“Love you,” I say and hang up the phone.
My parents’ house is a straight shot north, so I take the Metra to get there instead of driving. I take the train instead of driving for two reasons, one being that the fare was much less expensive after the hostage situation in Rockford, and two, that riding on the train and being able to do nothing for twenty minutes but look out the window at the city passing by and think is incredibly calming. I only felt alright to ride the train a few months after the incident. I had become so scared of what happened that I was afraid to take the bus, afraid to fly on an airplane to Hawaii when my friends asked me to go there for spring break with them, that my Mom suggested taking the train to calm my nerves. The feelings of fear and uncertainty had become so predominant that I knew I had to do something, so I started taking the Metra to my parents’ house when I visited. I expected it to be terrifying, but I survived. Ironically the experience was extremely placid and calming. The lights were dim, the conductor spoke softly and smiled when I gave him my ticket, and the cars were completely silent, with a lot of the other passengers sitting with wide eyes and shaking legs, as scared as I had been.
I climb up the train steps and find my way to a window seat in the back that is empty. I am the only one on the car until the train comes to its third stop. I hear the sound of heels clicking on the floor as I open my eyes and sit up to see a tall, skinny woman carrying a purse and a laptop bag. She gathers her skirt and sits on the bench directly across from me. I watch from the corner of my eye as she takes the laptop out of her bag and opens it up on her lap. Rays of sunlight glare through the windows of train. I close my eyes and almost fall asleep until I hear a large gasp from my right.
I turn to my side and see the woman inclined over her computer, her hand over her mouth.
“Are you alright?” I ask.
She turns to me and takes a deep breath. “No, I am not,” she says, “On wehavenofear.com there is a posting of another beheading. An American journalist was killed in Baiji. This was posted twenty minutes ago.”
The woman lifts up her computer to show me the screen. To the right of the website there are words in caps: JOURNALIST BEHEADED, with the posting underneath. To the right there is a picture of the journalist kneeling down, with another man, dressed in black, holding a knife to his throat. This is the usual picture that is posted when news of a beheading gets out, someone with a knife to someone’s throat. Sometimes instead of a photo there would a video posted, with a journalist being forced to criticize American foreign policy. The posting says that the journalist was a writer for Time, and that he was involved in embedded journalism. Information warfare is something, it is apparent to me, that the citizens of the United States and their journalists, along with journalists from other parts of the world, consider to be very important. Information warfare provides ways for people to know what is happening in other parts of the world. It lets the public know where we stand in the war against terrorism. At that moment, I feel that if American journalists continue to be beheaded, then me and everyone I know would be left in the dark, a dark without any hope, without any sunlight to value; but only the United States would be left in this dark.
My face breaks out in a sweat. I sit back on the cushions of the seat and tilt my head back, trying to fall asleep, but I am unable to. I can feel the rumble of the train moving under me. The energy goes through my body, and I feel like I might throw up. Finally, the train stops at my stop. I walk down a busy street until I get to my parents’ house. The sidewalk is strewn with pebbles and dead leaves. I arrive at the front of my parents’ house. The United States’ flag is still flying, because my Dad had forgotten to take it down after the President’s speech. There is, however, the welcome mat that covers my parents’ front steps. It reads, “The Smiths.” It has been there since I was a little girl, as something that is supposed to greet guests to our home, to make them feel welcome, safe, and happy. Now it seems like the only thing we have that allows us to feel this way is each other.