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The Optimist


by stephen hastings-king


If people were more loyal to me we wouldn't be having all these problems. The 138,000 dead people who hated Trump so much they were willing to die in order to damage him politically would be understood for what they are. Testing would not be an issue. The economy would be awesome. The stock markets would go up up up. Positive signs would replace negative signs in the unemployment numbers. Grass would be greener and birds would chirp louder. Effective things would be more effective than ever: bathtubs would scour themselves and bread would take longer to mould. If people were more loyal to me problems would disappear because we wouldn't talk about them: when you talk about problems you dwell in them and that makes over your house as a problem. Me, I maintain a positive outlook. I have a sunny disposition. I'm the Optimist in Chief. The rosy scenario is integral to my style. Loyal tea loyal to me I like to say in the shower during commerical breaks. That's the kind of thing I spontaneously say when I have nothing particular in mind but hear my voice happening anyway. A kind of nursery rhyme that brings me back to childhood and how I loathed my father. But in a cheerful way. A happy and contented loathing. Even now, I'm at my happiest when I have something to loathe. That's just how I am. People think it's something else, I don't know, narcissism maybe. But they're wrong. They're wrong and they're disloyal. Those things fit together with a lack of education. I should send them to be re-educated. Someplace in the country, a camp by a lake. They can move rocks back and forth and think about what they've done. Even so often a loon would call out. Loon, loon it would say. They would hear the loon loon and then go back to moving rocks. They have no interior lives. It's sad, really.
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