I'm stuck in a refugee camp on the desert coast of Western Sahara. The place pretends to be a resort--which it is, for the paid guests--mostly men. The only ticket out for us women is to marry a guest. That's why they come--rich, exploitive, repulsive guys fishing in a pool of trapped green-card women. Smiles, drinks, blackmail. I'm disgusted.

Also scared. I hear that an old enemy of mine is here. It's a big camp, but if we meet, he'll won't try to exploit me. He'll try to kill me.

I plan to just walk out--along the desert beach--hundreds of miles, but I'm a tall, lanky girl with plenty of wilderness experience; I think I can hike it. Collect supplies...

But my enemy rises to power. Declares himself king of the camp.

He turns the resort into an even more obvious prison. I flee him and his friends--a marching column four men wide, at the north end of camp. I carry a big bundle of carrots over my shoulder, make sure he can't see my face, and try to look like staff as I lug them to the southwest corner of camp--a beach-gate. Less prepared than I wanted, but I can't stay now.

But I hesitate at the gateway. It's still an open arch--no door to unlock, no fence to climb. But new barb wire around it, as if to force all traffic through the open door. That makes no sense. I bite off and toss a bit of carrot through the gate. A flash--it struck the wire. Electrified--burnt in a flash.

Still, I don't have to touch the wires. The gate's wide. Toss another bit through the center of the arch. It hits the wire too. Flash. A clumsy toss? I didn't think so. What is this? A third piece--this time I take care, aiming for the center. It curves in flight to hit the wire and burn.

A forcefield--unmarked and lethal. He wants anyone trying to flee to die.

I turn back. No choice now! I have to fight--and kill him.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Western Sahara: of all the world's illegal occupations, the least known--Morocco invaded decades ago, enslaved the locals, and the world's done nothing.
• Old enemy: illness? or Trump, the god of all the thuggy white boys who beat me up? Oh, I think it's Trump.
• Female, persecuted: recurring. Last night I dreamed I was tied up and gassed unconscious. Again: while the media acts as if Trump's all about race, to me he seems more blatantly and explicitly sexist.
• ACTION: turn and fight, I guess. I've been just trying to live my life and do my art despite Trump. I didn't want to get hijacked into fighting him and his cabal. But he won't let up. Maybe I do have to spend this next year as an activist helping to get him and his crooked friends out of power.

I took the dream's advice. I contributed more time and money to ousting Trump and the GOP senate majority than I had in any campaign year in my life; indeed, more than all the earlier years combined. It worked. Trump and the GOP are out.

But his successor Biden is still turning refugees back into Mexico to be preyed on by gangs, just like Trump--on the absurd grounds they might bring Covid into the US! Which is free of it so far, right...

I guess he's afraid voters in swing states will call him soft on migrants. So trap those kids in the desert, to be kidnapped and raped! Who cares? They can't vote.

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