Anxiety Dream Zine No.1: The Donald Is My President

ANXIETY DREAM ZINE TH E

DO NA

LD

IS MY

NT E D I PRES VOL. 1

OH, FUCK Anxiety Dream Zine is a new zine by Alana Mohamed collecting all your woes. The anxious artists included in this issue are Alex Greenberger, Electra Gardinier, Emily Ruth, Hieronymus Bosch and/or his followers. Many thanks for their time, effort & generosity.

Please find Alana on twitter @alanamhmd if you like this zine & want to keep up with it. She hasn’t thought through the whole web aspect just yet.

Email your thoughts and fears to anxietydreamzine@gmail.com.

12

OH, FUCK Anxiety Dream Zine is a new zine by Alana Mohamed collecting all your woes. The anxious artists included in this issue are Alex Greenberger, Electra Gardinier, Emily Ruth, Hieronymus Bosch and/or his followers. Many thanks for their time, effort & generosity.

Please find Alana on twitter @alanamhmd if you like this zine & want to keep up with it. She hasn’t thought through the whole web aspect just yet.

Email your thoughts and fears to anxietydreamzine@gmail.com.

12

ANXIETY DREAM #1 Alana Mohamed was drinking coffee in a diner when the earth first caved in on itself. A heaviness settled on us all, just for a moment, until suddenly we were light, airborne. Everything was vibrating, we all thought it was an earth quake, tho everything we touched was pulled to one point, just out of sight. The doors detached from their frames, glasses smashed through the diner window. I didn’t have the presence of mind to note that I was floating, even as I clung to the door frame and everything slipped away.

When we settled, a man in a blood red van cruised by, unbothered. We didn’t pay too much mind. Instead we dusted off our clothes and smiled curiously at one another, as if to say, “What a funny little trip that was.”

Soon the city got used to the sight of the man in the blood red van, driving through streets that had just been torn apart. The small alt weekly I worked at became obsessed with him. Everyone on staff wanted to know who he was. He had no name, no friends, and, frustrating our reporters endlessly, no license plate. He was no one.

1

(Left) Illustration by Electra. Electra is an artist and educator living in Alaska. You can find her online at www.electralucille.tumblr.com and on Instagram @electralucille.

2

ANXIETY DREAM #1 Alana Mohamed I was drinking coffee in a diner when the earth first caved in on itself. A heaviness settled on us all, just for a moment, until suddenly we were light, airborne. Everything was vibrating, we all thought it was an earth quake, tho everything we touched was pulled to one point, just out of sight. The doors detached from their frames, glasses smashed through the diner window. I didn’t have the presence of mind to note that I was floating, even as I clung to the door frame and everything slipped away.

When we settled, a man in a blood red van cruised by, unbothered. We didn’t pay too much mind. Instead we dusted off our clothes and smiled curiously at one another, as if to say, “What a funny little trip that was.”

Soon the city got used to the sight of the man in the blood red van, driving through streets that had just been torn apart. The small alt weekly I worked at became obsessed with him. Everyone on staff wanted to know who he was. He had no name, no friends, and, frustrating our reporters endlessly, no license plate. He was no one.

1

(Left) Illustration by Electra. Electra is an artist and educator living in Alaska. You can find her online at www.electralucille.tumblr.com and on Instagram @electralucille.

2

Our office on the lower point of manhattan went down with all the others one day in the middle of autumn. We moved in with a daycare for troubled youths who couldn’t express themselves. The teacher thought being around writers and artists would help them.

When the announcement regarding the Reduction of the United States was made, Rikers rioted, the inmates buoyed by the hope of a new life in previously known territory, while the prison guards despaired at the thought of spending the rest of their lives on the island. They all charged at the city, only to find themselves suspended in midair, along an invisible boundary. We were lucky. Their gray, blue and orange uniforms dotted the sky, demarcating the boundary between us and the old world.

More and more homes were destroyed. We welcomed our neighbors, piling on top of each other in the very center of the city, which seemed indestructible.

When Donald Trump was elected no one was surprised. The surprise came when, shortly after the inauguration ceremony, Donald Trump decreed that our tiny sliver of New York was now an entity unto itself, for national security reasons. He said couldn’t protect such a vast land from terrorists, so he had chosen the smallest and most likely target of violence to protect instead. We were to be referred to simply at the State of America.

Donald Trump had the man in the red van secure us all in with the same tricks he’d used to segregate us to the middle of Manhattan. No one knew how they knew each other. Regardless, he guarded us diligently, driving around the perimeter of our homes to make sure no one escaped

3

4

Our office on the lower point of manhattan went down with all the others one day in the middle of autumn. We moved in with a daycare for troubled youths who couldn’t express themselves. The teacher thought being around writers and artists would help them.

When the announcement regarding the Reduction of the United States was made, Rikers rioted, the inmates buoyed by the hope of a new life in previously known territory, while the prison guards despaired at the thought of spending the rest of their lives on the island. They all charged at the city, only to find themselves suspended in midair, along an invisible boundary. We were lucky. Their gray, blue and orange uniforms dotted the sky, demarcating the boundary between us and the old world.

More and more homes were destroyed. We welcomed our neighbors, piling on top of each other in the very center of the city, which seemed indestructible.

When Donald Trump was elected no one was surprised. The surprise came when, shortly after the inauguration ceremony, Donald Trump decreed that our tiny sliver of New York was now an entity unto itself, for national security reasons. He said couldn’t protect such a vast land from terrorists, so he had chosen the smallest and most likely target of violence to protect instead. We were to be referred to simply at the State of America.

Donald Trump had the man in the red van secure us all in with the same tricks he’d used to segregate us to the middle of Manhattan. No one knew how they knew each other. Regardless, he guarded us diligently, driving around the perimeter of our homes to make sure no one escaped

3

4

P. 6

5

Original: Christ in Limbo (1450-1516), a follower of Hieronymus Bosch

6

P. 6

5

Original: Christ in Limbo (1450-1516), a follower of Hieronymus Bosch

6

ANXIETY DREAM #2 Alex Greenberger

Donald Trump is still awake at 3:15 a.m., the time of night when only insomniacs go online, when people, still half-asleep, roll onto their side, check their phone, groan when they realize they’ll wake up for work in five hours, and go on social media.

But Trump isn’t most people—he always seems to be awake—unassailable, the Great White Hope of our time. He can barely open his eyes, but somehow he can barely keep them closed either. And he has been thinking—yes, thinking a lot, contrary to what the biased liberal media thinks, about immigration, women, and China. He knows what he must do.

Yes, he’ll show them.

7

Trump reaches over to his nightstand, picks up his Android, opens Twitter. If he tweets what he’s thinking, about this Alicia Machado woman, she who was once Miss Venezuela, he’ll rest easy. (He won’t—the blue-white light of his phone causes his him to blink less, only further messing with his already fucked sleep cycle.) And so he tweets.

But it comes out wrong. He missed a word, and the sentence structure is off. Look, it’s not like he’s a grammarian, but there is a lack of correctness to the whole thing. He doesn’t care, though—he knows there will be millions more tweets where that came from. The tweet that launched a thousand think-pieces. Yes, that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it. (It doesn’t.)

He’s done it; he places his phone back on the nightstand. As the light on his phone dims, his eyelids begin to shut.

The next day, they know. He’s at a press conference, when, all of a sudden, his eye rolls back into his skull—just his right one, not the left one, which remains perfectly fine. It’s almost imperceptible, but, thanks to some computer programs, you can see it, if you zoom in far enough. This is caught on camera, but no one notices until later in the day, when a reporter, scrutinizing the footage for a scoop, comes across the veiny white of the tiny eyeball and realizes there is something wrong. Certainly this is not natural. Could it really be that this man is a machine? (You better believe it.) Maybe he isn’t human, after all. Maybe he isn’t even real.

8

ANXIETY DREAM #2 Alex Greenberger

Donald Trump is still awake at 3:15 a.m., the time of night when only insomniacs go online, when people, still half-asleep, roll onto their side, check their phone, groan when they realize they’ll wake up for work in five hours, and go on social media.

But Trump isn’t most people—he always seems to be awake—unassailable, the Great White Hope of our time. He can barely open his eyes, but somehow he can barely keep them closed either. And he has been thinking—yes, thinking a lot, contrary to what the biased liberal media thinks, about immigration, women, and China. He knows what he must do.

Yes, he’ll show them.

7

Trump reaches over to his nightstand, picks up his Android, opens Twitter. If he tweets what he’s thinking, about this Alicia Machado woman, she who was once Miss Venezuela, he’ll rest easy. (He won’t—the blue-white light of his phone causes his him to blink less, only further messing with his already fucked sleep cycle.) And so he tweets.

But it comes out wrong. He missed a word, and the sentence structure is off. Look, it’s not like he’s a grammarian, but there is a lack of correctness to the whole thing. He doesn’t care, though—he knows there will be millions more tweets where that came from. The tweet that launched a thousand think-pieces. Yes, that has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it. (It doesn’t.)

He’s done it; he places his phone back on the nightstand. As the light on his phone dims, his eyelids begin to shut.

The next day, they know. He’s at a press conference, when, all of a sudden, his eye rolls back into his skull—just his right one, not the left one, which remains perfectly fine. It’s almost imperceptible, but, thanks to some computer programs, you can see it, if you zoom in far enough. This is caught on camera, but no one notices until later in the day, when a reporter, scrutinizing the footage for a scoop, comes across the veiny white of the tiny eyeball and realizes there is something wrong. Certainly this is not natural. Could it really be that this man is a machine? (You better believe it.) Maybe he isn’t human, after all. Maybe he isn’t even real.

8

1.

ANXIETY DREAM #3

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Alana Mohamed 7.

9

Donald Trump was my first kiss and too many people know the story.

Eventually I am on the cover of People and am the most hated woman in the country.

Donald Trump ate my homework, but my teacher doesn’t believe in him.

Donald Trump is the birth father I’ve been searching for years to find. He embraces me warmly.

I wake up with Donald Trump’s face tattooed on my ass. I can never wear a string bikini and spend the rest of my life having sex in the missionary position.

Donald Trump personally revokes my New York Times digital subscription and tells me to go outside more. I become the face of his anti-obesity campaign.

Donald Trump and I were friends once. He sees me on the street and waves madly. I look away and try to cross against the light. A man on a vespa hits me.

Twelve days later, I wake up in a hospital room with Donald Trump clutching my hand. He’s paid all my medical bills and now I have to be nice to him.

Donald Trump likes this zine and has it framed in the Oval Office.

10

1.

ANXIETY DREAM #3

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Alana Mohamed 7.

9

Donald Trump was my first kiss and too many people know the story.

Eventually I am on the cover of People and am the most hated woman in the country.

Donald Trump ate my homework, but my teacher doesn’t believe in him.

Donald Trump is the birth father I’ve been searching for years to find. He embraces me warmly.

I wake up with Donald Trump’s face tattooed on my ass. I can never wear a string bikini and spend the rest of my life having sex in the missionary position.

Donald Trump personally revokes my New York Times digital subscription and tells me to go outside more. I become the face of his anti-obesity campaign.

Donald Trump and I were friends once. He sees me on the street and waves madly. I look away and try to cross against the light. A man on a vespa hits me.

Twelve days later, I wake up in a hospital room with Donald Trump clutching my hand. He’s paid all my medical bills and now I have to be nice to him.

Donald Trump likes this zine and has it framed in the Oval Office.

10

ANXIETY DREAM #4 Emily Ruth “First of all, I want to say that I just received my ballot in the mail and I'm voting Hillary. I also want to say that I in no way wish 99% of Americans died in some kind of super-apocalypse-plague-event-thing. And that I believe in the Constitution and its specifications on Presidential term limits. Okay. So here's this dream I had last month.�

I woke up. Everyone was dead. Almost everyone. Survivors passed the message along: meet in Washington, DC. I joined a group and we journeyed to the East Coast, and finally to Washington. There were enough of us to fit in on the National Mall. The crowd reminded me of President Obama's inauguration.

Somehow the word went around that he was still alive.

Only a few member of Congress were left. The Clintons were gone. Some people said Trump was dead, some people said he was responsible. There were a lot of rumors. President Obama's second term was ending. Until then, he took charge of the government of the survivors.

On November the 8th, all of us held a referendum ... by holding up our hands.

We repealed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution and President Obama was elected to his third term in office.

I remember raising my hand to vote. All I felt was relief.

11

ANXIETY DREAM #4 Emily Ruth “First of all, I want to say that I just received my ballot in the mail and I'm voting Hillary. I also want to say that I in no way wish 99% of Americans died in some kind of super-apocalypse-plague-event-thing. And that I believe in the Constitution and its specifications on Presidential term limits. Okay. So here's this dream I had last month.�

I woke up. Everyone was dead. Almost everyone. Survivors passed the message along: meet in Washington, DC. I joined a group and we journeyed to the East Coast, and finally to Washington. There were enough of us to fit in on the National Mall. The crowd reminded me of President Obama's inauguration.

Somehow the word went around that he was still alive.

Only a few member of Congress were left. The Clintons were gone. Some people said Trump was dead, some people said he was responsible. There were a lot of rumors. President Obama's second term was ending. Until then, he took charge of the government of the survivors.

On November the 8th, all of us held a referendum ... by holding up our hands.

We repealed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution and President Obama was elected to his third term in office.

I remember raising my hand to vote. All I felt was relief.

11

ANXIETY DREAM #4 Emily Ruth “First of all, I want to say that I just received my ballot in the mail and I'm voting Hillary. I also want to say that I in no way wish 99% of Americans died in some kind of super-apocalypse-plague-event-thing. And that I believe in the Constitution and its specifications on Presidential term limits. Okay. So here's this dream I had last month.�

I woke up. Everyone was dead. Almost everyone. Survivors passed the message along: meet in Washington, DC. I joined a group and we journeyed to the East Coast, and finally to Washington. There were enough of us to fit in on the National Mall. The crowd reminded me of President Obama's inauguration.

Somehow the word went around that he was still alive.

Only a few member of Congress were left. The Clintons were gone. Some people said Trump was dead, some people said he was responsible. There were a lot of rumors. President Obama's second term was ending. Until then, he took charge of the government of the survivors.

On November the 8th, all of us held a referendum ... by holding up our hands.

We repealed the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution and President Obama was elected to his third term in office.

I remember raising my hand to vote. All I felt was relief.

11