Winter of the Rising Sun
Hills have been scaled in the past year. The first half of 2023 amounted to a depressing nightmare. I had one duty, and this was to avoid collapsing into nihilism. Back living in the house I grew up in after 2022, a record year of independence. The winter was cold. My debut novel still had a year before publication. Rejection after rejection from potential employers, postponing indefinitely, my return south. It was a period of waiting. Waiting for the summer. Waiting for a legacy to be born. Waiting for emptiness to be fulfilled, and light to replace darkness.
This past December, I was assigned my most important news story yet — to cover the migrant crisis plaguing Chicago, centered around Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic Church, and whether or not it would become a temporary shelter for roughly 300 migrants from Latin America. The meeting began as a morbid shitshow, but the tide turned and it allowed me to write an extremely insightful story. A dozen Chicago city officials answered questions from the public, and I recorded them. But of course, answers from politicians are never really answers, but vague assurances that spawn more questions.
Tonight I will be covering the Cook County State’s Attorney’s race. Former Appellate Court Justice Eileen O’Neill Burke and former prosecutor Clayton Harris III are contending to replace incumbent Kim Foxx in the influential office. Kim Foxx…
