Voters

Mick tossed his nearly finished joint into the standing sidewalk concrete pot that held several cannabis sativa plants. Julia flicked her chestnut hair back in the bright sunny clear day. The usual downtown city noise surrounded them as they walked down Randolph Street, heading toward the lakefront.

            “Are memories coming back?” Julia asked her cousin, Mick.

            Mick kept walking but put his hand to his forehead rubbing it, as if it would help. “No. I still don’t remember. Do you have another one of your joints? I think you’re righ’ about this street vendor stuff.”

            “Sure, here,” Julia pulled out from her pant pocket another joint and handed it to Mick. She then made a small surprised jerk and pulled out her phone from her hemp purse. “Oh, I still have to vote.”

            “Vote?” Mick said surprised, “I’ll come along I guess, where’s the nearest polling station?” Mick asked pulling out his lighter and striking it.

            “Polling station?” Julia looked confused at Mick-again he felt like he had said something wrong about general knowledge-Julia showed him the screen on her phone, “No, No. We vote on this, I guess there are polling offices for those without one, but just with the press of a button I-anyone for that matter-can vote for the newest law or legislation being passed.”

            “What? Really?” Mick coughed after a drag, “But, wait, it’s not November!”

            “No…it’s July,” Julia was again confused by what Mick said-he was starting to get annoyed by that look-and he probably looked just as confused as she! After losing his memory from his accident up to a certain unmemorable day ten years ago, he had lost all memory of society’s advancement and changes since. And Julia, bless her, she’s been trying to help him remember but nothing has been coming back.

            “So, has…has the date for Election Day changed?” Mick asked. A light streaming through two metal beams from the elevated train track brightened her face as it hit her. “Oh, you don’t remember,” she said taking a drag of the joint and passing it to Mick. She held her phone in front of her and slowed her pace, she allowed Mick to view the screen as well.

            “Okay, voting is done on mobile devices, there are some devices made specifically for voting, they kinda look like-” she had to think for a moment nearly halting in their tracks, Mick guessed in a deep voice after hitting the joint: “Beepers?”

“Yes! That’s it! Well anyway, the program for voting allows anyone to view the law or proposals, only some voting is for officials into a position. But the position of any office holds a lot less power than what you probably remember,” Julia pointed to the screen. “For most legislation there are several choices: a simple Yes or No, and two others, Create Compromise and Search Compromises.”

“Compromises?” Mick arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, if you press here,” Julia taped the screen for ‘Search Compromises’. Many newly written or previously written versions of the single legislation being voted on that day, appeared on the screen and could be searched through. The law being debated at the moment was the amount of pollution allowed from the few coal companies left around the world after they were halted in their attempt to detonate explosives to decimate mountains in order to reach ore deep within; while unintentionally causing many health problems to citizens possessing little ability to stop the process. With all the renewable and green energy systems being put into place, the coal companies were a dying and archaic industry. With some use still but the factor of harm to the environment and people became the number one element. Jobs and work, just simply ‘shifted green’. Mick knew this even before the day he only partly remembers-the last day of his clear memories-till he woke up ten years later in a hospital having lived a life he can’t remember.

“Some of these Compromises-” Julia said taking the phone away walking stiff and straight while scrolling through the list, Mick followed dodging a group of people walking the opposite way, some sharing a blunt, “-aren’t compromises at all but a demand for the eradication of coal mining. Ha! Well, I’m fine with setting a bar, we need the energy until we can become less dependent of that sickening stuff.”

Mick looked to Julia as he heard disgust in her voice when she mentioned the ‘sickening stuff’. The opinion, no stronger, the belief he felt from her was concrete-he always knew her to side with humanitarian ideals-as did Mick. “So,” Mick started, “Did I used to vote?” he hated using the past, and Julia thought it weird for him to when-just two weeks ago-he was possibly one of the most well-informed persons she knew.

“Yeah,” she took the last hit of the roach jammed-twisting-it into a potted plant that contained blooming flowers. “When me and Tobias went to your apartment we discovered several things missing, one being your mobile. There may be several reasons someone would take that: Tobias said maybe for a phone number, to check the phone history or maybe the metal materials in it.”

Mick nodded, he seemed to always be in his head-which was filled with questions. Questions not of the crime he was a victim of however, but of this world he lived in and can’t remember, “This voting thing, can’t people-hack into the system and-change the numbers for their personal gain? Or what about the voting days? Are they all the time?”

“Usually once a week, sometimes not at all, the news and the mobile program lets voters know the next voting day and the subject. But the system is secured by hired government workers, they’re monitored as well-y’know-so there’s no foul play. The whole voting system created many permanent programming jobs,” Julia said as they crossed Michigan Ave. “This of course was all made to promote real democracy. Or some form of it.”

“‘Some form of it?’ Sounds like real democracy!” Mick exclaimed to his cousin.

“Yeah, I guess it is better than the old system. It was really corrupt if I remember right,” Julia took a swig of her water bottle and put it back in her hemp bag.

“Well, what’s so wrong with this system?” Mick asked, who was having trouble thinking of a flaw. Especially when anyone can propose anyone’s bill to the public.

            “Sometimes,” Julia started, “A rational voice can be drowned out from all the proposed compromises.”

            “I can understand tha’,” Mick said rubbing his five o’clock shadow when it was three. “Bu-the old system: it was just voting for a representative that could be backed by interests-tha’ many had no idea of. And I remember we promoted that system as a democracy! Really it was a constitutional republic-tha’-tha'-stopped providing justice for us, us citizens. What’s so wrong with this if both local and widespread laws are made by-populous vote?”

            “Its general knowledge,” Julia said explanatory. “Not everyone knows what’s at stake in a law when they are too involved in their own mistakes, worries and dreams to know what would really benefit everyone.” The two continued walking through the sunny day stoned, with Mick trying to remember all he had forgotten.

Justin Vaisnor

(An excerpt from an untitled book I am currently writing)