Page 192 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II
P. 192
KRISTIN FLYNTZ
Truth and Silencing
It is a bright, sunny day. I am outside with a shopping cart, collecting evidence. Two men
are standing nearby and depart upon seeing me.
I pull out a small silver key. It will open a mailbox in which are documents that will serve
as evidence. Before I can open the mailbox, one of the men returns. He is tall, broad-
shouldered. He doesn’t like what I’m up to. He smiles down at me. He thinks he can
charm or cajole me out of it. I tell him, “Go away. This is not your truth, this is not your
story.” He replies, “But it has to do with me”, intimating that he should have a say in how
the story gets told.
He looms over me, and I feel he means to do me harm.
He beats and binds me, then seals my mouth shut with duct tape before dumping me in
a body of water. The key is under my tongue.
This dream came a month before the U.S. Presidential election, when already there
were signs that the truth – including our understanding of and relationship to it – was in
jeopardy. Fast forward to May 2017, following the introduction of “alternative facts” into
the national lexicon; baseless claims of voter fraud during the election and wiretapping of
then-candidate Trump by President Obama; and of course, the unceremonious and
controversial “dumping” of several high-profile individuals who had ties to investigations
involving the current President and members of his campaign and/or administration.
Perhaps, as in the dream, whatever emerges from these investigations—provided they
are allowed to continue independently and unimpeded—ultimately will not be “his story.”
Regardless, this is a man who seemingly cannot rest until every story becomes a story
about him, and who will go to extreme lengths to shape the narrative in ways that he
