What Remains
If only there was an easier way to forget Carey Stratford. Before that night lit by pillars of light and flame, we had two presidents. One along the west coast, the other on the east, both picking apart the states like children bickering over a spider’s legs. They carved their ownership with drones and tanks and bullets and borders and threats of mutually assured destruction. As our station was loaded up with nuclear armaments, I joked there would be a West Dakota with the other security officers. A few laughed. Ms. Stratford did not. Her first name was disallowed ever since she quit; she cast her gun and tag back to the station. “I want everybody to know exactly where I stand,” she said as she rode the wave of resistance and pulled the tide behind her like horses about to stampede. Ms. Stratford was a disruptor, an organizer, somebody who would grab Eden’s flaming sword by the handle to open its gardens to the world once again. Ms. Stratford became a threat. Did she see God’s ever-bur...