In the final episode of HBO’s hit series Game Of Thrones, Tyrian forces Bran to become king of the Seven Kingdoms even though Bran does not want to become king. The rest of you watched and thought it was the best moment in a series that was universally brilliant, but I watched this scene in horror, thinking,
“Oh no. That’s going to be me. I’m just like Bran and they’re going to force me to become the next president of the United States of America.”
I beg you, please don’t do this to me.
Try as I might, I cannot ignore the similarities between Bran and me. It’s getting creepy at this point how much the two of us are essentially the same person. Strangers accost me on the street to ask me if I am Bran, and when I tried to avoid these people by becoming a hermit, they began to sneak into my house to let me know.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Last month, I died in a horrific accident, and when an angelic choir called me to heaven, creating a path for me of music and love, I found myself face to face with God, a horrific creature of boundless energy and rotting flesh. His stench invaded me like a virus, giving me full-body convulsions while I was stuck in the high fever of his existence.
“It is your destiny to become the next president of The United States of America,” he said. “I created you in the image of Bran from Game Of Thrones, and you must study his actions and model your own actions after his actions. You must pull George R.R. Martin from his home and lock him in your basement and make him write more stories about Bran. Then you will study these stories as well, and the more you study, the more you will become like Bran.”
He cast me down to Earth like he cast Satan into the bowels of Hell. And though he placed me comfortably in my bed, my collection of brittle cat skulls surrounding me and providing me with a measure of comfort, two things became apparent almost immediately. Firstly, I could not feel my legs. I must have been sleeping on them weird because it took almost three whole minutes for my legs to wake up and become aware of physical sensations yet again. Secondly, a man with a knife loomed over my bed like the Satan child in The Exorcist.
“Could you please put that knife away?” I asked. “It’s dangerous.”
“But I’m hungry,” he replied and cut off another slice of apple and popped it into a mouth that oozed blood.
I’m afraid of knives, yet still he ate. Still he ate and dripped all over me the juices of the apple. I held still to avoid an accidental prick from his phantom blade.
All the while, a haze lifted, revealing the ways Bran and I are essentially the same and revealing our fates, caught in lockstep though mine was reality and his fiction. These connections, I should have noticed all along, but we often overlook the truth about those with whom we are closest, and I am closer to myself than I am to anyone who is not me.
Our most relevant similarity is neither of us want to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, but our genius ex-brother-in-law keeps telling people that we should. In Bran’s case, that is a recently imprisoned Tyrian Lannister, presenting himself in chains to the leaders among the Seven Kingdoms. In my case, it’s my sister’s ex-husband Butch. He travels from major city to major city holding a cardboard sign that says, “Vote for Kendon Luscher,” and screaming insults at birds.
Let me be absolutely clear here. Despite what Butch tells everybody, I should not be president.
I’m an anti-social, erratic mess and I’m not stable enough to be the leader. People say I am bad at maintaining eye contact, let alone relationships. I get nervous being around other people and I just really don’t like it. I don’t even have a single friend in this world. Nobody could rightly expect me to maintain a healthy relationship with other countries. I’d be an asshole one day and accidentally start World War III.
Bran and I are also similar in other ways. We both make large men physically carry us or pull us around in a sled. I often make Butch carry me from city to city while he rants about how I am the savior. Obviously, I hate his rants, but it’s an inexpensive form of travel, and if I cannot avoid people asking me if I’m Bran or telling me I should be president even when I’m in the safety of my own home, I should get out and see the world.
And while I’m sure most people, even my supporters, would consider this next similarity irrelevant to my potential unwanted presidency, much like Bran, I can also see across all space and time. If I know where to look, I know what is happening, what has happened and what will happen. No, I do not actively hold all the knowledge of the world inside my mind. How it works is most similar to looking for a clue at a crime scene or a lost set of keys. I have access to all the knowledge but I have to either stumble upon it or know where to look.
Equally useless to a prospective president is that I can warg into the body of any creature, but unlike Bran, I prefer hawks or owls to ravens. I get it that he has his own Bran-ding and ravens are it. Fine, but this is one way we differ. We’re just into different birds is all. Also, I’ve warged into a penguin and it was weird.
Since I’m definitely going to become president even though I don’t want it, I should probably get out ahead of one scandal before it gets too big. Yes, from time to time, I have climbed a tower or two and watched as twins fucked. Unlike Bran, I did not allow the twins to push me from the tower. Instead, I insisted in joining in because that shit is hot, okay?
I like threesomes with twins. Is that a crime? I’m really asking. Is it? When I become president, it definitely won’t be a crime, assuming it currently is one.
Maybe nobody is comfortable with a president who is into that kind of fucked up shit. Is it too gross for you? What if I aired our sexual odysseys on every television in America every minute of every day? Would that make you unwilling to vote for me? Please?
My only hope here is the futures I’ve witnessed while sitting beneath the Weirwood Tree are not locked by fate but are merely possibilities given the path I am currently embarked on. Do not vote for me in the 2020 Presidential Election nor any other future election after that. Let’s defy the fated reality. Let’s be cool and refuse to write my name down on the ballot when it comes time to vote.
I do not have a platform or any policies. I know nothing about how anything works. I’ve done no research on anything, and I’m a complete idiot. I’m begging all of you not to vote for me. My life has paralleled Bran’s for too long already. Let my parallel zig while his line zags.