Bread and Bread

1. requiem for a dream In college I read a short story in which a boy gets kicked out of school. He’s the child of migrant farm workers, and he has trouble keeping up. He knows his parents will be mad. On the walk home, he keeps thinking, Maybe it didn’t really happen. Texas, 1942. I’ve long forgotten the name of the book or author, unfortunately, but that scene stayed with me because it perfectly captured those moments in your life when you try to rewind time with your brain. When I got out of work on Tuesday, I looked an animated New York Times graphic that depicted a needle wobbling between Hillary and Trump, showing the likelihood of who would get elected based on the count coming in. It showed an 82% chance of a Hillary win. Like so many people, I’d showed up to my local polling place that morning feeling proud and optimistic. People chatted in English and Spanish, greeted their neighbors and sympathized with a toddler who wondered where the “boating” was. ...

Scene: Int. car, night. CHERYL is driving. AK is in the passenger seat; her phone emits a white glow. In the back seat, DASH sleeps. AK: I read an article--where did it go? I can't seem to find it now. Anyway, it said that there's this statistical model that has accurately predicted every election except for 1960, which some people thought was rigged. And it's saying there's a 99 percent chance Trump is going to be elected. I don't know if that's true, but for the first time I feel really scared. CHERYL: Yeah, I just felt a sinking feeling in my stomach when you said that. Is it Nate Silver? AK: No, it's a statistical model. Supposedly Nate Silver has been wrong about a bunch of things lately. CHERYL: I feel like if the model were that accurate we would have heard about it. We'd just predict every election that way. But yeah, I get your point.  How about corn for president? I could get behind corn. AK: Sometimes I think, "So what, it...