NaPoWriMo Day 4 (Off-prompt): How to Stop a Protest Using the Jenner-Kardashian Method

More late postings.

How to Stop a Protest Using the Jenner-Kardashian Method

Slouched against a wall wrapped in a size zero tin foil of sequins, posing like you only got ten minutes of sleep. How dare they steal the gaze off your five-figure photoshoot, hungry for attention. Don’t they see you’re starving?

Act interested. Because they can never become you, though they try. But you: a blank canvas;  you blend in easily no matter what. They march, you strut. How easy. It’s only been three minutes.

Of all the protests you’ve scrolled past on your timeline, this is the only one you will ever enjoy. Around you, everyone smiles. Everyone dances and makes music and drinks Pepsi. They stop to take selfies. Invite yourself and drop a photo bomb. Not a storefront broken into and not a thing taken. They hold sparklers, not flares. Throw out your blonde wig because dark is in. The black woman to your left is more than happy to keep it for you.

Don’t make eye contact as a woman in a hijab snaps a photo of you from the ground. Relish at the alternative fact that she makes you look taller, that you’re bigger than her with your Persian sisters.

Do make eye contact with the Asian musician who asks you to march with him. He can’t resist you, no one can. You’ve been given the ok to make some noise. No need for music or dance or photography skills. The sizzle of the soda can does all the work for you.

You’ve made it to the front lines, Pepsi in hand. You’ve bid your time. But you don’t drink it (mostly because it’s not diet). Because right in front of you is a line of sweaty, armored men in blue who could use a young, famous female body to serve them a drink to calm them down. It works because he smiles and the bodies behind you erupt with cheers for you. So this is how history works, you think.