Standing outside the polling booth, Stanley realised he didn’t know where he was going to put his mark.
The black booth was occupied. While he waited for it to be vacated he tried to untangle his thoughts. One party was an avid and articulate supporter of the Oxygen Tax, whereas the other fully endorsed the Air Axe. In all honesty these issues confused Stanley as much as they concerned him. It felt like something was slipping from his grasp, either way.
He recalled Lionel’s words from last night at the bar. ‘It’s fear, mate, fear nudging you one way or the other. Abigail’s voting for the axe, you believe that?’
Politically anxious, Stanley had just put on a sympathetic face and shrugged.
‘It’s that bloody paper she reads,’ Lionel scowled. ‘Everyday it’s another story about the population crisis; immigrants using up the clean air, children not paying in to the world, etcetera. They want everything regulated, want everything balanced. What’s that mean, eh?’
Stanley mixed things up with a sigh.
‘She can blame who she wants, not gonna stop her lungs from turning black,’ Lionel muttered into the rest of his beer.
‘And you?’ Stanley ventured. ‘You’re voting for the tax?’
‘Nah mate, I’m voting against the axe.’
Stanley frowned. ‘Oh, right.’
There was a television in the corner, muted so people could spend more time at the bottom of their glasses. A sad parade of images flickered past. Stanley cleared his throat. ‘I did sort of wonder, I mean, it all sounds like the same thing.’
He watched that familiar, uncertain, dread flicker across Lionel’s face. He’d seen the same spiders of emotion make the same webs all week. No one knew how to answer.
‘Nah.’ Lionel finished his drink. ‘Your vote counts mate, can’t think like that.’
Stanley had nodded, then got another round in. By the time he’d come back Lionel’s sister had rolled in and joined them. Sitting quietly, hands worrying in her lap, Sam had already asserted she was voting differently. The only party she liked was the Greds. She always shook her head when Stanley argued about them. Sure, green and red used to be separate colours, but that was long ago. No need to be sentimental about it.
‘Green could still be a colour,’ she’d always say. The words and the heart behind them made him tear up, but it was still an empty vote.
Sam was staring up at the television. ‘You don’t vote for the hydra,’ she sighed, ‘not when it’s banned the guillotine.’
He tried to lightly scold her. ‘Don’t be so cynical. Let me get you a drink-’
‘You don’t see it, do you?’
Stanley was half out of his seat, but he hesitated. ‘What?’
‘You think it’s a toss of a coin, a gamble. You think there’s only two ways to vote, so that’s the only way you think. Left or right; but it’s not a road it’s a labyrinth. They’ve taken your ability to see anything bigger.’
He sat down. ‘That’s not true. Let’s say I vote for the Greds, where do they even stand on the axe? They never say.’
‘Or the tax?’ Lionel pointed out.
Sam looked from one to the other, she just looked sad. ‘You don’t even understand the choice. The tax paves the way for the axe, and vice versa.’ She grimaced. ‘We’re not the ones who broke everything, but we’repaying for it.’
‘That’s not fair, Sam.’ Stanley tried to smile, but she didn’t smile back. He’d got up and gone to the bar, when he came back she was gone.
She’d given up talking to them. He’d stared at the space left by her wheelchair and tried not to be upset. There were only two parties left worth a damn, and the Greds weren’t going to get them out of this.
There had to be a sacrifice. Not that anyone was using that word. According to each campaign, there had to be an adjustment.
That strange word had been in his mind ever since.
Stanley watched as the woman ahead of him vacated the booth and limped away. He walked in and pulled the curtain shut. Taking out his voting card, he studied the handful of names, the parties they represented. It was the axe or the tax; that was the real choice. The slogan had been everywhere for the last three months. It boomed out of every television set, scowled from every poster.
Vaguely, he was aware he was being asked to blame something; it was less a vote than an act of deflection. Mend this, or mend that, it seemed to say, but you’d better give us something to break.
It wasn’t enough to fix things, they had to make everyone angry. Everyone had to be insecure, yet thankful. What if people ignored the parties? Where would their attention turn then? What would they do?
Stressed, unsettled, Stanley felt a drop of sweat abandon his face and land on one of the squares. He looked at the name, and his eyes narrowed.
Well, that made as much or as little sense as anything else. He ticked the box, marked once already by the tension that had abandoned him, and then he left the booth.
Depositing the card in a box, Stanley strolled out of the building. It was first noon. He looked up as the red-raw clouds prepared bone-rain, and the sun retched in the east. Deciding to cut through the park, he put on his breathing mask, and walked across the black grass while children played at suffocating.
Imagine, a party that wanted to reintroduce green. He shook his head and smiled.
Green could still be a colour.
A wasted vote. He sighed, but the sigh didn’t go through him like it usually did.
Barry Charman is a writer living in North London. He has been published in various magazines, including Ambit, Firewords Quarterly, The Ghastling and Popshot Quarterly. He has had poems published online and in print, most recently in The Literary Hatchet and The Linnet’s Wings. You can find Barry on Twitter at @BarryCharman or at barrycharman.blogspot.co.uk.
Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash.
