Breakfast is sugar-free pea fibre from the state-run ZohranMart. I wish that I could give my son something better—it’s his birthday. But he doesn’t mind. School has turned him very woke. He starts to lecture me about my bourgeois values, so I change the subject by asking which classes he has today.
“Morning session is Communism and Zohran Studies. Then, in the afternoon, we learn how to burn different kinds of American flags.” I sigh. It’s the answer I was expecting, but I do wish he would learn math.
I go to take him to school in our car, but then I remember that Mayor Mamdani took all of our cars and melted them down to supply raw material to implement his brutal Fast and Free Buses doctrine. They say that soon even the subway will be free.
On the street, young people spit on me for being in the 35-45 demographic, which is now old. I have done nothing to them—they do it out of pure Socialist cruelty.
I notice some graffiti on a hollowed-out Chase Bank that reads, “Join the Uprising.”
At school, I wave goodbye to my son, but he doesn’t even look back, such is his hurry to get to the singing of the Soviet Anthem.
My office is a ghost town. A few lost souls like me sit around, in our patched suits, staring blankly at flickering MacBook Airs. The window is smashed in, so it’s freezing cold. Stray cats mate loudly in what used to be the office kitchen. I look up at the familiar name of my once great company: Goldman Sachs.
I head out for lunch at my favorite bowl place, but in Zohran’s New York you don’t get to pick your protein, base, two sides, and three sauces anymore. Now the state picks a protein, base, one side, and one sauce for you. Today, my sauce is “tap water.”
“Please complete your purchase on the screen,” the salad-maker says, with a smirk. The screen shows two options for tip: five thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars. That’s more than I make in a year at Goldman Sachs! I decline.
BEEP BEEP BEEP! An alarm goes off. “You have committed the crime of not tipping one thousand per cent,” a robotic voice intones. My heart sinks. Who will pick my son up from school if I have to spend the night in woke jail?
Suddenly, a strong hand grabs my shoulder! A voice in my ear: “Come with me if you still love freedom.”
Before I know it, I’m sprinting down the block with my would-be savior. We dart into a burnt-out Au Bon Pain.
“What’s your name?” I ask, panting.
“My name?” He pauses, but I feel like I already know what he’s about to say.
“My name is Andrew Cuomo.”
“Well, this is Uprising H.Q., such as it is,” he says, ushering me into a room.
I look around. Curtis Sliwa is playing Ping-Pong with Rudolph Giuliani. Bill Ackman is drinking an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Michael Bloomberg is taking a catnap on a little beanbag chair.
“So, what is the Uprising?” I ask shyly.
“We’re the ones Zohran left behind,” Andrew Cuomo says. “Misfits, rebels, police officers, hedge-fund billionaires. Come stay a while, and we’ll teach you our ways.”
But I shake my head—it’s my son’s birthday after all, and I have to pick him up from school.
On my way out, Eric Adams tosses me a Coke, and says, “Watch out for yourself, friend.”
Back at home, my son cracks open the soda and takes a long drink. “This isn’t very woke, but the taste is cool and refreshing,” he admits. “Thanks, Dad.”
Thanks, Dad—as the sun sinks beneath the horizon of the crumbling city, I can’t help but smile. ♦
