“The Dream Season” by A. N. Grace

A.N. Grace lives in Liverpool, England. His short fiction and poetry have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Queen's Quarterly, The Racket, Menacing Hedge, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and many others.

Author Foreword:

So many events seem to flash across the headlines with a burst of energy, only to then disappear without trace, as if there's a collective unconscious decision to bury things too large to reckon with. The subject here is The Panama Papers, but it could be the ongoing Uyghur genocide, or the massacre at Rabaa Square—events greeted with such inertia that in hindsight they can appear almost dream-like.

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Last night I drank a litre of table wine;

that stuff that comes in a box.

Last night they released The Panama Papers.

Now—days months years later—

it’s like no one remembers

and everyone is shouting he’s behind you!

But I’m in quicksand

and nothing works like it should

and my legs won’t move

and no one knows anything

and no one remembers anything.

They remember Make America Great Again.

They remember Get Brexit Done.

Hell

maybe they even remember Keep Cool With Coolidge.

At some point, I remember that litre of table wine

and I think maybe none of it ever happened at all.