Trumptopia: Through the Darkness

By K.A. Brauner

Set in a world where the fictitious President Trunt wins a second presidency then becomes a dictator in a white supremacy USA, this action-packed thrill ride will keep you on the edge of your seat. Joye, a typical eighteen-year-old, finds herself surviving on the streets in hiding with her best friend, Matt.

Survival is just not enough anymore. Something must be done to set things right in the USA. Are Joye and Matt the ones to bring about the needed change?

Follow Joye and Matt through their trial and tribulations as you enjoy this sensational adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228865810

K.A. Brauner

KERRI-ANN BRAUNER is a dedicated mother to two adult children, and a grandma too. She is a middle school teacher with a passion for teaching math and science, though in her undergraduate degree she majored in English and minored in the social sciences. Kerri-Ann is completing her Master's in Education (M.Ed) in Inclusive Education and Educational Neuroscience with a completion date of 2022.Kerri-Ann is also a figure skating coach working with athletes from the age of 2 to the age of 60. This is a passion and takes a lot of her time.This is Kerri-Ann's first novel. She would like to continue writing in a variety of genres.

Book preview

Trumptopia

Through the Darkness

K.A. Brauner

Trumptopia

Copyright © 2022 by K.A. Brauner

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-6580-3 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-6581-0 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 - Life as We Know It

Chapter 2 - Lights

Chapter 3 - Plans

Chapter 4 - New Friends

Chapter 5 - Through the Darkness

Chapter 6 - Heart to Heart

Chapter 7 - And Then There Were Five

Chapter 8 - Truth and Daring

Chapter 9 - Slow and Steady

Chapter 10 - Confidence Shattered

Chapter 11 - Desperation

Chapter 12 - Salvation

Chapter 13 - Sustenance

Chapter 14 - Plans

Chapter 15 - Sam and Sarah

Chapter 16 - Plotting

Chapter 17 - Preparations

Chapter 18 - Rescue

Chapter 19 - Journey to Safety

Chapter 20 - The Family Together Again

Chapter 21 - Drama and Daring

Chapter 22 - Canada, the Land of Freedom

Chapter 23 - Decisions

Chapter 24 - Planning for a Fight

Chapter 25 - Training Week

Chapter 26 - And Action

Chapter 27 - The Long Road Home

Chapter 28 - Chaos

Chapter 29 - We Take to the Streets

Chapter 30 - A Changing of the Guard

Chapter 31 - Into the Light

Acknowledgements

Preface

This novel was dreamed up one night about three months before Donald Trump became the president of the United States of America in 2016. The work has ebbed and morphed over the span of the five years it took to write. It’s intended to be a fictional portrayal of what could happen in a white-supremacy America with closed borders and a power hungry, narcissistic dictator. My hope is to entertain and to get society thinking about equality and equity as embedded values necessary for a just world.

While real world personalities and events may have influenced this fictional piece, all characters and events are, indeed, fictitious. No portion of this work is to be construed as representing real world facts.

Chapter 1

Life as We Know It

It has been five long and arduous years. Life seems to drag when you hide in obscurity, each meal more inventive and disgusting than the last. The world doesn’t get to see us. We remain invisible while life goes on all around us, seemingly calm and normal. These five years have made us the less desirable of humanity and have forced us into hiding. Hunted daily, we scurry and scutter around like rats. The masses blamed us for their woes, so we ran. Stifling memories threaten to break us daily. We will persevere. We will make things right in the world again!

***

Tenuously, I slipped from shadow to shadow, looking for something, anything, to bring a slight smile to my face. Really, I wasn’t even sure my face remembered how to use those particular muscles. I knew how to cry—that one was easy. My life was often an emotional mess. I knew how to scream and spit venomous words from my mouth—that was a matter of survival. Smiling? It was too distant to remember.

I was only thirteen when the world was turned onto its face and given the beating of a lifetime. The riots alone were too much to take, but then the bombs showered the earth like rain. My beautiful little suburban community was laid waste, along with my parents and friends. So much death and destruction everywhere.

I was just wandering absentmindedly down the road, slowly making my way home from a grueling, exhilarating volleyball practice, when I first heard it. Then I saw the flames and the earth started to shake. Frantically yelling from his porch, my savior—a sweet, elderly man who had lost his wife to cancer a few years earlier —hid me in his storm shelter. When I was at school, I would often see this nice old man volunteering in the library for something to do. This horrid day, I remember him shouting my name, Joye. I remember running. It was so loud. The world vibrated and shook. An acrid stench filled my nostrils as the world burned around me. I remember shivering and whimpering in the storm shelter. I don’t remember that man’s name. George or Jerry or … something like that. That volleyball practice was the last time I remember really smiling, laughing, and being normal.

Now I sit still, slither around like a snake, or attempt to sleep. Panic is my lifeline.

I turned a familiar corner and jumped back immediately; my heart and breath froze instantly. In that minute instance, I saw everything. An African American man in cuffs being beaten by five of Trunt’s minions he called Peacekeepers (his unbelievably short-sighted answer to police reform). Shop owners closing their shutters so as not to feel so much guilt. If you didn’t see the brutality, did it really exist? A small child screaming while a woman ran the other way, the child in her arms. An instant in life.

I quickened my pace towards the nearest alley, checking the hood on my sweater so I could be as invisible and inconspicuous as possible. It was around suppertime. Generally, we hid during daylight hours, scavenged for food during the evening or early morning, and slept at night trying to stay warm. I was sneaking around trying to find food. That poor man and his family were probably just trying to get food to stay alive.

Peeking around the dumpster in the alley, I spotted Matt. Tears welled up in my eyes immediately, but I pushed them down with a strength developed through intense hardship and strife. I would not be broken.

Hey there, my friend! Got anything worth punching you in the nose for?

Matt coughed something from his mouth then slowly looked up at me.

Don’t tempt me, cause you know I’ll do it. I stared at him, arms crossed over my chest, trying to look all rough and tough.

Whatever, Joye. I have some bruised apples. Here!

One hurled through the air. My mouth salivated and I unconsciously licked my lips. I dared not let it hit the ground or he may never have shared again. He may have been my only friend, but it truly was every man (or woman) for themselves out here, and I was well aware that he would totally sell me out to save his own skin. That’s just how it was. I wouldn’t hesitate to sell him out either. Survival was always the deciding factor in all choices.

If we were caught by the Peacekeepers, we would be either dead or imprisoned wishing we were dead. We’d heard stories about those who were caught. The prisons were like the Auschwitz death camp from World War Two. They performed grotesque experiments on the imprisoned and tortured them for fun. They would promise leniency in exchange for cooperation and then, often, end up killing them, it didn’t matter, though, because they weren’t real people, anyway. They were subhuman and expendable.

In between this row of garbage bins in the alley it was usually safe. We were stuck in the middle of condominiums on one side of the alley and row houses on the other. Most of the people in this area just minded their own business and turned a blind eye to those who were different. Those with colored skin. Those who were sub-human. Some of the white folks even put good food in their trash to help feed us but they needed to be careful not to get caught or they would get punished too. We could never figure out who left the food. We had no idea who was helping us survive. We were just grateful and stuck close to the area because of whoever it was.

Because we stuck so close to our alley, we both knew the area well. If our spot was ever jeopardized in any way, we had multiple escape plans. We were both quick thinkers and great at being invisible when we needed to be. That’s how we both made it so long in this craziness.

Together we had spent many long days finding better ways to hide and coming up with crazy escape plans for the day we were discovered by the Peacekeepers, which seemed to be an eventuality. My personal favorite scenario was where we sprint up the fire escape across the alley, over the roof, zip line across the rope we’d strung to the next building, and then we would run down the stairs into the basement and then into the sewer through a large manhole in the floor. Elaborate, I know. And totally crazy. We’d thought of everything. We had spent far too much time together.

Matt and I attended the same junior high school but definitely did not have the same circle of friends. Popularity and competing in sports were my only two concerns, and he wasn’t even on the radar for either. He was more into actual school stuff, like studying and getting good grades. I didn’t see the point in either and look at just how right I was. School, now, was only for the high-class white kids who may go to university if their parents could afford it. There were no more loans for higher education. Financial assistance went out when the market crashed hard shortly before the race war started. Honestly, who cared? I wasn’t planning a long educational career anyway.

My family, God rest their souls (or whomever you pray to), were the best. My parents had immigrated here before I was born for the better life promised in America. My dad was a doctor in Kabul, Afghanistan, but my mom was the smart one in the family. Dad hated the way people would look at my mom and judge him for wanting more for her. He was totally a liberal in every way and loved the idea of freedom promised in America. I was born two years after they had reached New York and my name, Joye, was a result of their feelings about life at that time. My mom managed to get a law degree by the time I was seven. They whole-heartedly believed in the power of education. I just wanted to hang with friends and play sports. I believed that those sports and the skills I developed were what made it possible for me to survive this cruel new world and had given me the ability to help Matt survive too. After all, teamwork made the dream work. Obviously, our current dream was to stay alive.

The prospect of life not including school hurt Matt way more than it did me. While I was scavenging for food, he was often looking for new books to read. If he happened to find food in the process, then it was a great day for him. He was such a nerd it hurt my brain even looking at him. At least he wasn’t bored to tears. Either way, we were both alone, except for having each other.

In our past life, before we found ourselves in hiding on the streets, Matt had his heart set on being a veterinarian. He loved animals so much. He was always giving food to stray dogs and cats when it was hard enough to feed ourselves. I even caught him feeding a squirrel once. He wanted to run a sanctuary for injured, mistreated, and abandoned animals. He would be so good at that too. It would really be a passion for him. And animals were way easier to talk to than people. Now he just wanted to survive. We all just wanted to survive.

Matt slumped against the wall of the dumpster, his hands hanging limply over his knees, and breathed deeply. Do you think we’ll ever have freedom or sanity again, Joye? He always