1/30/20 – no fascism.

A ghost hair stretched from somewhere behind her right temple to her left eye lashes. It slashed her purview with a blurry, crooked line. She’d forgotten about the gathering, four blocks from her house, and had taken the wrong exit. Traffic stalled between bars and convenience stores, a pizza shop, the contained center of a college campus, and a grocer selling Halal meats.

A young man, tall and lanky, wore red pants and a cowboy hat emblazoned with the American flag and lined with red, white, and blue sequins. It shimmered under a layer of glitter. Cartoonish sunglasses — also depicting the American flag — covered half of his face. She watched him stride by the grocer, tapping the glass absentmindedly. His mouth pulled into a straight line.

A middle-aged white couple in matching leather dress coats and brown shoes held hands as they crossed the street, aided by a security officer waving one hand and holding the other to say STOP.

A boy in a parka, no older than 18, held a sign on the corner. “NO FASCISM!” it read, in thick black block letters. He stood motionless, his face grim, one hand in the pocket of his parka. She watched him shiver in the cold. There would be more of him. Where are the rest of you? she said out loud through the window.

Someone honked. Another car honked in response. Soon, the line of cars, all pointed at the same 4-way intersection all honked like overlapping Morris Code messages. She bowed her head over the steering wheel and exhaled long and slow until her chest emptied.

Between a van and a nondescript sedan, a child’s red wagon sat parked and unattended. Red ball caps and beanies, scarves, and lap blankets, sat in tall piles, each boasting the short quip of the man in the suit making his way by motorcade through the streets of her city.

The boy with the sign waited. The young man in the cowboy hat disappeared into a sea of others.

She opened her glovebox and dug through the debris, past her secret cigarettes until her fingers closed around the lighter.

The air was chilly but not frigid when it hit her face. It took four casual steps to the wagon and five pulls on the lighter to spark a flame. The lap blankets were felt and caught easily. Hungry flames ate fabric and propaganda. No one notice. When the world is on fire, what’s a few more flames?

The boy with the sign nodded his approval. She flashed him the peace sign on her way back to the car. The crackle of the flames only audible to her.