Kim's Mother (Terrific Leader)

A woman lived with her daughter Kim lived in an apartment in a remote village. Kim had been born after the Terrific Leader took power in the United States. The woman's husband had been declared an enemy of the state and taken by the police--three years later, she didn't know whether he was in a prison camp or had simply been executed. Despite this, both Kim and her mother maintained unshakable faith in the Terrific Leader. They had three portraits of him in their apartment.

Despite the arrival of a blizzard, the government had not delivered a promised a shipment of coal. Consequently, there was no power in the mornings, and the fellow villagers slept fully clothed at night. Because resources were limited, Kim and her mother stretched and reused their resources as much as possible. In fact, Kim's mother could be rather selfish with their meager resources, such as tea, if she thought could get away with it, this despite the fact that Kim often foraged to keep them both alive. Her mother didn't give in to her self impulses that often, however.

While Kim was unwavering in her faith in the Terrific Leader, she could be somewhat careless in her word choice. When her mother wished her luck on one of her foraging trips, Kim said she hoped for good luck, as they'd had too much of the alternative. Kim's mother, mindful that the state might have bugged their apartment, reiterated that they were doing fine. Still, the trip did prove lucky: Kim brought home mushrooms, grain, and a rat, ensuring they'd be able to eat for a while. That afternoon, Kim, her mother, and the rest of the village gathered in the square watched his speech on the community televisor (which, like radio, was tightly controlled by the state to block out the outside world's lies). The Terrific Leader, wearing a red ball cap that proclaimed "America is Great Again", extolled his plan for putting America first, for ending crime and restoring order, pronounced that the country's border wall, and proclaimed that respected the dignity of work and of working people. He signed off again with his motto "America first", which the villagers repeated.