Red and Blue (Short fiction)

 

I woke up to find Sheila Nellis, my old high school crush from decades ago, standing in my bedroom in a red sling bikini and six inch Lucite heels.

At first I thought I was dreaming because she still had her braces and her hair was in a Karen bob that nobody under 50 had anymore. And I would never admit even anonymously online that I found Karen bobs and braces to be as sexy as a bikini.

And Sheila was happily married and lived two states away.

She smiled with a mouth full of metal. "Do I have your attention, Seth?"

"Sure."

Suddenly she was wearing a black turtleneck and jeans.

"You already know that I'm not Sheila. But you aren't dreaming either. I'm more real than you are. Say My name."

"You're Satan."

She smiled. "For as long as I've known him, he has never admitted to anyone who he is. Try again."

"You're an angel."

"That's not a name, and you're way off. I'll give one hint, and one more guess. There is only one of Me."

The way she enunciated that first person pronoun was the final proof.

"You are God,’ I told Her.

She nodded.

“Sorry that I was an atheist since high school.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t need you to believe until now.”

“Why do you allow bad things to happen to good people?”

She wagged a finger, and Her voice reached a deep baritone, deeper than any man I’ve met “I decide what is good and what is bad. I decide what is right and what is wrong. And I decide who is good, who is evil, and all shades of grey in between. And I allow you all to have your own opinions based on the very limited information available to you. But now that I’ve established my identity, I have orders for you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Of course. In one week, all humans with Internet access will be required to vote red or blue. Everyone who votes red will live. Everyone who votes blue will only live if more than 50% of all votes are for blue. You will have from noon to 1pm local time to decide. I’m going to spare indigenous tribes, coma patients, and infants, but anyone with their own email account must participate or die.”

“This has to be an elaborate prank, but it’s pretty dumb too. Nobody cares about that meme anymore.”

“I was inspired by the meme to impose the test. Eight billion people around the world are getting the same message as you, Seth. Good luck.”

She vanished. I assumed it was a dream until my mother called. I answered.

“You saw Him too, right?” she asked.

“I did,” I admitted.

“Good. I thought we were all losing our minds in the hospice. The staff saw Him too, but I thought they were just humoring us. What did He look like to you?”

“He looked like a woman.” I was never going to tell anyone about the bikini.

“Well He looked like that one actor who played Him in that movie. I can’t remember the movie but do you know the one I’m talking about?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Well my friends and I are all voting blue. We’re just about ready to go. God’s calling us all home, so we’re all getting on the bus. But you’re my only son, so promise me you’ll vote red, okay? You have a lot of years ahead of you.”

It was the most sense she made in decades. In a way, that was more miraculous than the divine revelation in my bedroom.

My phone made an irritating beep even though I always kept it set to vibrate.

IMPORTANT PRESIDENTIAL ANNOUNCEMENT, said the notification. Then a video started playing even though I didn’t click anything. The President was standing behind a podium. He was in his suit, but his hair was a mess and he was ghostly pale.

He sighed, then just started talking.

“Look, I saw Him, my Wife saw Him, so we need to talk about this. I’ve agreed to issue an executive order for the development of an official, divinely ordained voting app. All Americans and visiting foreign nationals will be strongly urged to use it to make their selection next Saturday.”

He swallowed hard, then went on “As your commander in chief, I fully support every American’s right to make their own choices…but I’m choosing blue. It’s pretty clear that I have a lot to answer for, so I’m just not going to make it worse for myself. “

I wrote my own post to my 655 followers. “The President is voting blue. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Let’s vote red and save ourselves.”

I scrolled down to find a video from a verified legacy media account. A pastor of a Texas megachurch declared that he and his followers would all voted blue in order to leave this wicked world behind.

My original post got flamed and ratioed. Three likes and 6K comments. I was declared to be a selfish baby killer, even though God had already said infants were exempt.

So I made a video.

“Folks, it comes down to this. You are NOT going to tell your kids to vote blue. And you shouldn’t want them to be orphans, so you’re going to vote red too. But you want to look like self-important martyrs. Like you’re so special because you want to die and the rest of us want to live.”

My video got taken down and my account got suspended. I shrugged. Soon either all those #VoteBlue clowns would either be dead or exposed as hypocrites.

The Pope issued a statement insisting that he personally would vote blue, but his designated successor would vote red. He also urged all pregnant women to vote red.

Nobody was talking about anything else beside Saturday’s vote. The weekly episode of World War Woke had a darker tone as Toxic Teddy interviewed B-list popstar Daisy Short. The interviewed was held remotely; both sat wearing headphones in their own personal studios  with YouTube plaques in the background.

“I’m still processing this whole existence of God thing,” said Toxic Teddy. “I think it says a lot about the way our culture is headed by His appearance. I think that He has had it with all these virtue signaling hypothetical questions. So what if you would take a bullet for the President or the Pope or Bernie Sanders. That isn’t your job. So what if you would give up your seat in a lifeboat for you wife. You never take her on a cruise anyway.”

“I think God wants us all to vote blue as a show of unity,” said Daisy Short.

“Toxic Teddy held up a hand. “Consider this. God gave us free will. He gave us the power to choose. If He just wanted us to die, He’d just kill us. But now He is giving us a choice. We can choose to live by voting red or choose to die by voting blue. People who are suffering will choose blue. If all these healthy do-gooders get what they say they want and most people choose blue, then they are denying a merciful end to thousands of terminally ill patients. On the hand, the results could be even more disastrous and billions of healthy people will die in one weekend.”

“Is that really a bad thing though?” asked Daisy.

“Excuse me?”

“Consider that our planet is dying. We won’t do the right thing and cut back on carbon emissions. It’s not even a matter of limited resources; we are choking to death on our own waste. So God is stepping in, and putting the solution in front of our faces. Everyone in the Global North should choose blue, and everyone in the Global South should choose red.”

Toxic Teddy snorted. “No! Look, the way the original red-blue question was framed, you had to make the choice instantly, without communicating with anyone else. But here, we’ve been given a whole week to talk it out and make the right choice. And the right choice is red! Folks, I apologize. I agreed to interview Daisy a month ago, before all this God thing happened.”

“Seriously, Teddy, people like YOU are what’s wrong with this world!”

“Okay, you’re all going to be dead after Saturday, so I don’t need to care about what you think. Goodbye.”

The next day, a #ChooseBlue activist posted a video of himself beheading Toxic Teddy with a machete. I couldn’t tell if it was AI or not, but the safety algorithms were allowing all sorts of content like that.

Finally, Saturday came along. I voted red. I went online and saw dozens videos of people filming themselves voting. There were way more people advertising their choice to vote blue, but there were still a few reassuring me that red was the right choice.

After the voting was done, my phone started playing a video.

It showed a glowing orb  hovering behind the president’s podium.

“Yeah, he died. You need to know that he lied about voting blue, and he actually voted red. And then he had a heart attack. I didn’t kill him. In fact, I’m not killing anyone, even thought the tally was 48% blue. This was just a test, like that time I told Abraham to kill Isaac. Yes, that really happened, but I just wanted to see what people would do. Please just be good to each other. See you in a few thousand years or so.”

 

We had a new President and we all moved on with our lives. After a couple days, the entire Internet had been scrubbed of content related to the red/blue vote. Nobody I’ve talked to seemed to acknowledge that it happened. There were numerous conspiracy theories about the old  President being poisoned, but people rarely about the glowing orb or the voting. When it is brought up, people will dismiss it at an elaborate prank.

But I KNOW it happened. Because it changed me. Because I now believe in God, and I know He hates hypothetical scenarios. And I am making this my entire personality from now on.