I was maybe ten years old and soaring above the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in the Sky Glider with my dad. My slippers were dangling precariously off my feet. There was just the metal bar to hold onto, no restraints. My small body could have slipped down the cold plastic and plummeted to the ground below.

My small body could have slipped down the cold plastic and plummeted to the collective unconscious below. I would have found another me, feral, enraged, a bite-sized berserker gone red with trauma and grief, bent on revenge. A horrifying little sand n—, r—, f—.

We could have been friends, maybe.

We are making friends now.

We are the Americans.