My phone won’t stop vibrating. I wake up to so many texts with so many pleas desiring gestures of devotion, camaraderie, more devotion and loyalty. The success and survival of so many endeavors hang on the tips of my fingers, no less my tongue. My silence to them is the equivalent of the magistrate remaining absent, hence staying the execution to which they believed themselves damned. And I use this silence without remorse, although, at times, I will indulge my exasperation by writing a less-than-eloquent rebuff. And yet, if they could reply in turn, I imagine I could sum up their reproach in three words: “How dare you?”

To that question I could reply, “With ease,” but I suppose the ease is in understanding my own point of view and not necessarily the time it would take to write the text message to explain it. But at this stage, my phone bill is likely already sky-high, so what’s one more message?

*Ahem* I engaged in acts of charity in light of a previous catastrophe. Some advised against such investments saying there was no guarantee that they would pay off, but to those more mature reflections I paid no heed as I felt these misgivings would be assuaged by my acts of giving. Knowing I could not be the lone angel investor, I did what I felt within the bounds of reason and waited for fruits to be born, or to receive more seeds to sow. I look at the fields and see them on the brink of being barren as most of the harvest goes to those who are already fat with resources that they have the audacity to continue to ask of me. And yet you insist on asking me for more on their behalf. How dare you? That is the better question.

And yet it shall be my fault when the quota is not reached? And yet it is my avarice, and not that of your handlers, that will propel us over the precipice and into opaque orifices of opprobrium? Shall I be the incendiary instrument of your plummeting, having impeded but a part of your plundering? Honestly at this point, that sounds great. It’s nice to know that I do have at least some kind of power. Maybe I’ll start to use more of that, and less of what you used to tell me it was.

And “send.” Maybe if I send this to everyone, they’ll think I’m a bot and won’t text me anymore. Or maybe they won’t read it at all and block me all the same.

Whatever it takes to stop them asking for donations during election season in America.