Election Day

The stupid alarm went on again. I couldn't remember if it was for the second or third time. It didn't really matter, it meant that I was already late. Fucking insomnia. Before getting up, I decided, despite that well known feeling of anxiety lying in my stomach, that it would be a good day. It had to be. 8.45, fuck. I had to go vote before going to work otherwise I wouldn't be able to pull it off. After the regular morning routine, in its express version, which had become the regular version these days anyway, I walked to the polling place; it was sunny and I took it as one more good reason to shake off my anxiety. There was no line, after all, I guessed it was normal at 9 on a Sunday. My fellow citizens were not known for living by the early bird catches the worm principle. I did my thing, with all the gravitas the moment required, and rushed to work. In 10 hours we would know. Thank god, the first half of the day went by quickly, as it was always packed on Brunch day. I wouldn't have wanted to be anxiously agonizing in front of my TV anyway. I didn't check my phone and was just eavesdropping on customers' conversations throughout the day. Nothing deeply revolutionary or particularly smart. Most of them weren't even talking about the election at all. During my last break, my attention got drawn to a family sat at a table at the end of the backyard, where I was used to going smoking discreetly: two dads in love, a little boy who was around 10, although guessing people's age had never been a strength of mine, playing on one of his dad's phones, and a baby girl sleeping in her stroller, peacefully, like the sun had been hung just to shine on her sleeping. This was the kind of family I wanted to see happily walk around in the next years. In 3 hours we would now. My shift ended later than planned as stupid Max had its schedule all mixed up and got there late to take over. 45 minutes, and we would now. I would never have the time to meet my friends for the results. Fuck it, tips had been good. I decided to treat myself to a cab, which turned out to be a very poor idea. Traffic was insane. 5 minutes. "I'm sorry, I'll get out here sir"; I shoved a 20 in his hands, didn't wait for my change and ran to the first bar I could spot. The final countdown had started just in time to order myself a beer. A silence filled the bar, the girl sitting next to me took my hand while her eyes wouldn't leave the screen. 3, 2, 1. Screams of joy started filling the place, the street and the whole city. We had won. As I was hugging my new friend next to me, I couldn't help but think about the two kids at the bar earlier. We hadn't bought them a perfect ideal, but we had bought ourselves some more time to try to achieve it. I would cheer a lot to that idea during that long night, and already knew I would snooze the alarm more than twice tomorrow.