I have this idea for a magical realism drama, on the order of Planet of the Apes or several other scifi classics. It involves a powerful state which expands through war to gulp down a portion of its southwest border in order to grow its slavery market economy and just because it can. The natives are summarily dismissed from the conquered teritory, of course, and the Right of Return is severely restricted by the sacred Agency of Assumed Superiors, which is the governing body of the imperialist monolith.

And what’s more, the possession of this land is given unto the ASS by a holy book writ long ago by, er, members of this ASS – but under holy orders, so it’s to be respected! If the natives are allowed to return, the superiors shall no longer be so, you see, as they will be diluted by these faster-breeding inferiors.

The middle pages will be spent on such ironies as the ASS proclaiming always and forever the noble enterprise of democracy, while labeling anyone who criticizes their ethnic cleansing as racists, and woefully bemoaning the vicious tactics of the natives which exacty mirror their own prior activities. And in the later chapters, we discover that the Holy Writ is of course a fraud, and the true nature of the struggle is no more holy or divine than any other war of supremacy anywhere on earth forevermore. But there will be 200 pages of war and posturing to that point.

It’s fantasy, of course, but don’t you think if you saw it in paperback on the terminal racks before a long flight it might tempt you to take leave of the turmoil of today for a few hours? I’ll call it River of No Return, after the classic Marilyn flick, indicating as it does how the molecules of the current run invisibly to the sea where evaporation and strong trade winds bring it all back home as rain.