Gilead

How will we recognize our Handmaid’s Tale?¹ What will our great grandchildren cast and emboss for tourists, wear as their wealth, or burnish in buckets to commemorate our origin myths? We have plenty of plastic, plywood and pig’s blood — but who doesn’t? What is nearsclusively American, brandable and so two-thousand-and-teens that it will translate into eternity? Combining a McNugget, an iPhone and an enameled silver Facebook thumb is too shallow and too deep a pastiche. A pitted, chrome lug nut, rolled in bacon is too dull. Maybe tiny, golden dildos, made from spent brass bullet shells, etched with Confederate flags, filled with mercury-bone amalgam. When we are issued these tokens, in paper bags, velvet boxes, or blister packs, we’ll know we’ve made it safely to Gilead.