Mind on Fire Books

Like many of us, I first met Kurt Vonnegut in a high school classroom. He’s the reason I’m still reading—still looking at the world. He was the literary equivalent of a perfectly timed pratfall: sharp, sad, and full of that beautiful, slapstick humor. This humor makes you laugh at the absolute worst things. In his own way, he challenged systems and ideologies. He suggested that sometimes to move forward, you must shut down outdated beliefs. He’s the author who didn’t just get me reading, he got me loving the wild, boundless honesty of science fiction.

I spent this weekend, as I often do, wondering what Kurt and the rest of the literary ghosts would make of… well, all this. Specifically, the current government shutdown. What would a man who saw the human condition as an ongoing, cosmic joke—whose answer to every fresh absurdity was always, “So it goes”—write about a president who loves silence and ballrooms more than the rule of law?

This little piece of flash fiction, narrated by the very nonessential Kilgore Vought, is my personal ode to Vonnegut. It’s a small attempt to see the gold podiums and the theme-park governments through his cracked, funny, and deeply humane lens. I hope it’s an honorable little echo of the voice that taught me how to read.

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The End is Me

So it goes.

The President had shut down the government again. Not because he hated it—though he did—but because he loved the sound of silence. Silence meant no one could say “no.” Silence meant the National Endowment for the Arts couldn’t fund a poem about a lesbian tree. AIt also meant the EPA couldn’t measure the President’s carbon footprint, which was roughly the size of Nebraska.

During the shutdown, essential personnel were redefined. Border Patrol agents were essential. Moon rocket engineers were essential. The guy who built the 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom was essential. This was because the President needed somewhere to dance when America burned as it was shut down.

I, Kilgore Vought, was deemed nonessential. My job had been to alphabetize the Constitution. I got to “Fourth Amendment” before the lights went out.

Meanwhile, the President held press conferences from a golden podium shaped like a bald eagle choking on a tax return. He said the shutdown was “beautiful,” “cleansing,” “like a spa day for the soul of the nation.” He said it allowed him to “trim the fat.” This meant firing librarians and replacing them with holograms of John Wayne.

The Department of Education was repurposed into a theme park called “Founding Fathers Land.” The rides included “Hamilton’s Fiscal Rollercoaster” and “Jefferson’s Plantation Simulator.” Tickets were free if you could recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards while juggling copies of The Art of the Deal.

Outside, the people starved politely. They formed poetry circles around empty soup kitchens. They wrote haikus about unemployment. One read:

Shutdown again, friend  
My job is a memory now  
So it goes, so goes.

And still, the President built. He built walls, ballrooms, and a statue of himself riding a bald eagle into a sunset made of tax breaks. He called it “Freedom.”

I asked him once, “What’s the endgame?”

He smiled, teeth like gold-plated subpoenas, and said, “The endgame is me.”

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Government Shutdown: A Satirical Reflection

Why does Vonnegut’s voice still matter when discussing politics in the 21st century? Because he understood that the most effective way to deal with overwhelming absurdity—the kind of absurdity that shuts down a government just for the “sound of silence”—is not with fury. Instead, it is with a weary, yet persistent, kind of gallows humor.

This flash fiction, and the very concept of a Kilgore Vought alphabetizing a fractured Constitution, is really just a way to cope. It allows us to look directly at the golden podium, the grotesque theme park, and the final, self-serving endgame. And instead of screaming, we just shrug and say the quiet, terrible words: So it goes.

The government may shut down, but the spirit of satirical reflection continues to offer a lens through which to view the chaos. Thank you for visiting with us. For more Flash Fiction or Original Fiction, visit our blog at The Ritual. Copyright Mind on Fire Books.