Democracy: POV
by S. K. Kruse
(First published in Arkana, Issue 18, April 2025)
When the alien apocalypse comes
democracy won't matter at all.
When they intercept our satellite transmissions
and scratch their thoraxes
in perplexity
at the hijinks they witness on our news
and laugh at self-governance
as an idea
ideal
and practice
and then
upon further reflection
become enraged
that the subprime species
Homo sapiens
endeavored to give everyone a voice
and decide
they better get in their alien ships
to come obliterate us
because if one species
on one planet
in one galaxy
should have this
preposterous
and quite frankly
dangerous idea
who’s to say it
might not spread
to every corner of the universe
and then when their ships arrive
and they wipe us out
and take over the planet
democracy won't matter at all.
And when
this worst system of government
except for all the others that have been tried
is reduced
in the alien textbook “The Rise and Demise of the Sentient Sapiens”
to a slim chapter
carefully positioned
between one on the
holland tulip craze
and another
on fast food chains
and some young alien scholar
decides to do her PhD
on the topic
and finds that corporations
which were somehow considered sapiens too
spent billions of dollars
to influence their representatives
at the expense of the non-corporate sapiens
and that sometimes
less than 50% of eligible sapiens
showed up to vote
and that sometimes
they voted for candidates
who promised to act
like tyrants
then no one could fault that alien scholar for concluding that
as far as the sapiens themselves were concerned
democracy didn't matter much at all.
And when another alien scholar
same school
different class
pursues her PhD
and is granted access
to the archives of the sapiens
to document the incessant wars of the sapiens
as justification for the xenocide of the sapiens
should their own species ever be brought
before an intergalactic tribunal
and she gets a look at all
the books
and movies
and songs
and art
they made
and all the things
they were free
to do
and say
under their system of self-governance
and all
the sapiens who died
to procure
and protect
that freedom
though she could not find one single corporate sapiens who’d ever done so
imagine her surprise
when she concludes that
despite all the
foibles
and failings
of that subprime self-governing species
democracy did matter for all.
And when she agonizes over
whether to publish her findings
and have all six of her legs pulled off
in a public spectacle
and be left to die on her back in the town square
her husband and children banished to the desert
or just keep it all locked away
in the privacy of her own mind
because
even to suggest that the sapiens
took a shot at something great
and that for a brief moment
in their sad, sordid history
they made things a little better
for a lot of their kind
would enrage the powers that be
who didn’t want
any of their own kind
getting any of their own ideas
and when she looks at her daughters
getting ready for school
eating their alien mush
and washing their alien antenna
and then at her sons
who she's been secretly teaching to read
down in the basement
by the light of a candle
before they must leave for the mines
she wonders
if it might be worth it
and what it would take
to bring about such a revolution now
and if she’s willing to make that kind of sacrifice
of her career
her life
her family
whom she loves
bug-eyes and all
to bring about
once again
such a world
as the sapiens had created
in their
short
nasty
brutal
existence
and as she hands her children their lunches
and locks up their flat
she wonders
if those sapien revolutionaries had been able to see into their future
how much
in-fighting
and apathy
and absurdity
would follow
and how it all would come
to an unceremonious end
if they would still do what they had done
and if
sleepless in their beds
on the eve of their revolution
not knowing the future
neither its victories
nor its defeats
they had the same
doubts
and fears
she has now
and if they wondered
as she does now
sitting down at her terminal
to enter her true findings
whether the sacrifices
she is about to make
will matter
to anyone
at all.
