Federal Shutdown: Day 25

     The streets are strewn with wrecked, burned-out cars and the gnawed remains of the dead.  A cold wind howls down from the north, seeking the gap at the collar of my coat like an arrow to the heart. It is a half-hour before dawn, with the only light a faint, bluish skyglow and the flickering of candles down the block -- or perhaps larger fires, farther away.  A coyote howls and another, closer, answers.

     I can't let it frighten me.  With a prybar, rubber tubing and gas can, I hope to siphon enough gasoline from the wrecks to get to work, if there's anything left downtown.  A dozen hours ago, the generator was running and my co-workers were patrolling the fences, a block-sized island of order in a world gone mad....

     Except, of course, that hasn't happened.  I won't kid you: the news isn't great and the dim light of Caesarism flickers over the horizon like heat lightning.  This is good or bad, depending on your choice of pundits, and a cunning plan or the surprise outcome of mutual intransigence, also pundit-dependent.  Me, I don't know; all I know is that the rough beast slouches on towards our modern Babylon, with no recognizable face save that of Everyman.  Tick-tock!

     Tick-tock.