In jazz, improvisation weaves the pluck of the bass to the scat of the saxophone, off-time chords riffed along the piano, the hiss of the brush on the high hat. The music spins up something magic, glistening, beautiful.
Some leaders can improvise equally magical strategy, spinning diplomacy like silk. But when leaders are simply unpredictable, decisions become cacophony, actions become noise. There is no artistry in change for change’s sake.
The missiles launch with a pop and a hiss, like fireworks at the ballpark, like a bottle of champagne opening at a party. They arc skyward, lighting up the American flag as they pass, then disappearing off into the distance like bright, hot birds.
These days, the Navy posts videos to YouTube, one-sided excerpts of the execution of a plan hatched in a dark, screenlit room. We only see the upward trajectory, the positive flight. No one films the landing, the damage, the last breaths of the recipients of this particular message.
They talked of ghosts in the woods. I think I saw one like a sparrow, she said, but it has been so long since we’ve seen real birds, I can hardly remember.
He remembered the spring blooms in the desert, the wildflower hikes he took with his parents along mountain paths. Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever see something real again, he said. Sometimes I wonder why our parents had us. Didn’t they know what was about to happen?
They probably couldn’t imagine the after, she said. And now, we can’t imagine what it was like before.
At the bottom of the hill, a wasp skittered across my windshield. In the carseat over my shoulder, my son muttered about a train, but his voice slowed as the legs of the wasp touched glass, one foot, then another, then another. Its stinger undulated as it crossed from right to left, and I held my breath though I knew all my windows were rolled up tightly.
The wasp bounced off my driver’s side window, then careened off into the world, where it might threaten someone, or it might not. Inside the car, we remained safe, privileged, behind glass.
There is no Messiah, he said. Once this nation’s in its tomb, it’s staying there.
Have you lost all your faith? she replied. Have you forgotten how resilient we are?
He curled his lip in indignation. Who is this we?
We, the people, she said.
We stand divided, not united, he said. No one has been assigned to be the savior this time.
It doesn’t have to be just one person, she replied. Perhaps each one of us, hands together, can move that stone aside.
During the spring’s unexpected snowstorms, the pine tree across the street lost branches. A rock in the creek out back halved, cleaved by ice as strong as a chisel.
I don’t recognize our land, she said, suddenly more tired than she had ever been. They’d gotten word their child’s free meals at school might be cut, and she fixated on the grocery budget every minute she wasn’t worried about something else.
She had grown up believing the daily words about the flag and the Republic. Now, adrift in unseasonable cold, she didn’t know where to look for truth.
There was no denying the plummeting approval ratings, which he understood because of his television work, because he knew how quickly the network cancels shows when people stop watching.
He began to look in the mirror for long minutes each morning, trying to get out of his own head, trying to see what might be so unlikeable. I’m a handsome guy, he thought. I know lots of things. Many things. Big things.
What confused him was how everyone was watching, but still, the ratings dropped by the day. This didn’t track with anything he’d experienced before.
100 Proof 