Episode 4: News of the World

“You write your truth, I’ll write mine.”

It wasn’t meant to be public.

The letter started as a scribbled draft on the back of a shipping label — a way for Jackson to vent. After the third time watching Councilwoman Marjorie’s interview replay on the breakroom TV, something in him cracked. She was smiling again. Saying her hands were tied. Saying the town had to make “tough choices.”

He hadn’t planned to hit send.

But his thumb did it anyway.

By the time his shift ended, it was already circulating.

Some called it a rant. Others called it brave.

Marjorie called it “misinformed.”

Jackson called it true.

He wrote about the crumbling dam no one seemed to be fixing.

The zoning board that kept approving luxury condos while families doubled up in trailers.

The ICE vans parked near schools.

The Amazon-style warehouse where workers pulled double shifts for corporate tax breaks they’d never see.

He didn’t name names. But everyone knew who he meant.

Especially Marjorie.

Sitting in his regular window booth at the diner, the usual bustle and clatter seemed quieter today.

Jane hasn’t shown up.

Becky, sat a few stools down the bar, head bowed over her coffee. She hadn’t said a word since the letter started making rounds.

Thomas walks in wearing the same red cap, louder than usual.  Seeing Jackson, he stared him down saying:

“Careful what you write, Jackson,” he says with a smirk.

“Words have consequences.”

Across the street, protest signs bobbed in the wind.

Asha’s voice rose from the courthouse steps — clear, passionate, determined.

She’s calling for housing protections, infrastructure funding, transparency.

Jackson watches from behind glass, heart caught somewhere between admiration and fear.

Jackson knows he isn’t brave.  Asha… she is brave, but not him.

His life has been filled with shadows, day after day, until his letter dropped.

That’s when something changed… just a little, but it was noticeable… in recent days he’d felt a bit more optimistic about the future —

But the Tower was always there, that damn Tarot deck of Jane’s, the shadow the Tower Card cast loomed large and imposing —

No amount of optimism could fully shake the fear of a collapse.

What he didn’t know was it had already begun.