The rest of 2020 played out calm enough. Tense, then some relief only to remember that we were still all cooped up while a dangerous virus ran amok thanks to enough people not wanting to wear a piece of goddamn cloth over their face. I apologize for being so predictable, but I can’t rightly get into 2021 without bringing up January 6th.

I was sitting on the couch in my bedroom, facing perpendicular to the TV which had CNN on in the background. As a matter of fact, as part of a project with some friends I was wearing gothic makeup and a black wig and robe. It was in this getup, pretending to be someone else through a digital world that I looked up and saw Jake Tapper looking even more surprised than usual as video of red-capped insurrectionists clambered up the Capitol’s railings. Broke windows, sullied the floors with their presence. I watched them assault police officers who for them, were the embodiment of ‘deep state.’ I watched one of their own die because she didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation. I, and millions of others in the US and beyond watched as our President stood by after whipping these degenerates up into a frenzy.

It surprises me that Trump was impeached a second time for what he did. I truly believed that he’d get away without even an iota of comeuppance, symbolic as it was in the end. For a moment, I thought we’d get a storybook resolution: something that Sandra Bullock, or Tom Cruise could play a role in, in the inevitable movie adaptation. Of course it’s never that easy. Even now I think that bastard’s going to get what’s coming to him, but it won’t be how we want it to be. Maybe not even how we need it. That’s life, I suppose.