Monday
On the morning of the election I woke up groggy. Cindy had slipped out of bed already and had vanished from the room without waking me up. I stretched and relaxed under the covers, refusing to be tantalized from bed. I reminisced over the past two weeks of chaos and tumult with a much fonder eye than when I'd actually been living them.
We had formed a bond within my little team, between my old friends whom I'd first engaged with two years earlier at the commencement of my university career, and the new ones I had only met two weeks ago. A closeness permeated us, a trust of each for the other that I had otherwise only known in familial circles. I was grateful for this - and continue to be so to this day.
Other people saw the closeness, and it both helped and hindered us in our further lives. People would join and leave the team, in most cases envious for that sense of security we had within the core group for each other. We may have also been cold - or at least clinical - towards these others that would try and join the group simply because the familiarity we had forged with each other was missing with the others. Only a few others would ever breach that circle.
But going forward I always had my core group with me, and still do now I am bedridden and likely will not rise again. Abby still totters to my bedchamber daily to give me the business of the day, and Matt has himself wheeled to a small desk I keep in the room to help me write this book. Erica still mourns Keisha, but through a video-link approves of my wrinkled visage, even while she refuses to leave Paris and Keisha's final resting place. Alex and Irina both rest side by side in a Mausoleum at a place I dare not reveal for fear of an eternal haunting in whatever afterlife I end up in.
And Cindy is still by my side. She doesn't recognize me most days, Alzheimers the only thing that could bring any serious distance between us. Despite her inability to remember our history or my name, we are still comfortable with each other at all times, and while she wanders around the room discovering it anew daily, she will still smile at me fondly while I conduct the business of state. We love each other as much now as we did in these first days I recount.
But I digress from the salient points. On the Monday morning of my very first election, I woke up groggy, and took stock of my team, and the events that had led me to that day. And I smiled more content that I would have thought possible to that point.
Eventually though, I did have to get out of bed - I had tasks to complete. I showered, dressed and did my makeup before I discovered that the house was empty of any other living being. That surprised me, given the activity that had been going on there the past weeks, the evidence of which (sleeping bags, re-arranged furniture and a couple of scattered loose posters) was still very present.
I called Abby, confused, but she didn't pick up. I called Cindy next, but she hung up on me. A moment later she sent me a text message.
Sorry hun. In class.
I considered calling the rest of my team, but figured that they'd not really be able to give me any real pointers on what I was to do. So I figured I'd head up to the university, cast my own vote, and then see if I could grab a coffee before my own lecture.
It was a good plan. I turned up on the campus, and headed over to the polling station on one side of the main quadrangle. There wasn't a long line of people, but enough so that there was a good 5 minute wait. I joined the end of the queue, but quickly noticed that people were getting nervous and whispering around me. I guess they were expecting me to be shaking hands and cajoling votes - or perhaps they thought that I was there to coerce votes. I simply smiled at anyone I could catch looking at me, and shuffled forwards with the line.
I reached the front, where the outgoing president with his staff was overseeing the freedom of the electoral process. Given that his term was up, he was considered a neutral party. I knew little about him except that he'd been studying biology and I think had won his seat almost completely unopposed. Still, he'd kept himself out of the bitter rivalry between myself and Roger, and that was to his credit.
He did recognize me though, and gave me a surreptitious wink as I vanished behind a curtain with my voting ballot. Once there I actually hesitated. It's something I still haven't gotten over to this day - but something feels wrong about voting for myself in an election. It's too arrogant and too forward. No-one should be able to declare themselves the best person for an elected position. At the same time there is a sense of having a part of the power to enforce an outcome. Either one can vote for someone whom they believe to be the best candidate - or one should respect the opinion of the voters who have placed their trust in you. A vote for oneself and to lose is to declare oneself unfit for the position in the first instance, but even worse, to vote for myself and to win would be to declare myself (even if only in private) to have a hubris of the highest order equally as disqualifying for the position I'd be elected to.
On the other hand I couldn't bring myself to vote for Roger. He was a quasi-fascist nut-job, and would have made a complete hash of it. The ballot paper didn't have any other options, however, not even a blank line for a write-in candidate - and so I took the last option available to me. I folded the paper untouched by my pen, and returned outside to drop it in the collection box. As I left I saw Roger and his posse approach the line, loudly discussing their 'obvious and only choice'.
When they saw me, a couple of them sneered at me. I had to walk past them at the end of the line to head towards a coffee. I had almost passed them, when on impulse I turned to face Roger, and stretched out my hand. He looked at me confused, not sure what to do.
"Good luck, Roger." I said, not overly loud, but then again I didn't have to be loud since everyone in the nearby vicinity was watching us, and the nearest people would further report my words when asked.
Recognizing himself painted into a corner, Roger put on a tooth-grinding smile and accepted my hand. "You too." He grunted.
I smiled at Roger while he gripped my extended hand, and we parted ways - my hand smarting a little bit from the handshake.
I headed to get a coffee, but changed my mind along the way when Jenny noticed me and roped me into a discussion she and Helen were having. Both girls were from my class with Professor Lex, some of the more vocal students (if still silent in comparison to me). Helen even joined in our irregular Halo parties from time to time.
They were sat on a bench in an adjunct to the quad, more quiet and overshadowed by buildings on all sides. More private, but still heavily traversed, and on the route I was taking in search of the coffee.
Jenny grabbed my wrist as I was walking past. "Back me up on this, Helen is being stubborn."
"Am not," Helen retorted. "You're refusing to acknowledge the influence of feudal court society on the modern desire for limited government!"
