It’s been almost a year since I started writing This Could Happen.
When I began, I was facing the one-year anniversary of a worst-case-scenario in my personal life. Though I’d been worried it would happen for years before it did, I’d always wanted to believe that I was overreacting, that even though I had lots of evidence that my worst-case-scenario was actually a pretty-realistic-potential-outcome, I thought surely something would intervene to keep it from happening. When it finally did happen, I was gob smacked anyway. A year later, the reality of it was still waking me first thing in the morning like a medicine ball dropped from above onto my chest.
At the same time, I was also completely heartsick about the way the first months of the new administration had unfolded. There were so many things to worry about: climate change and reproductive rights and surveillance and immigration enforcement and the crumbling of institutions and…surely I was overreacting again?
I decided I’d try writing down and sharing my fears. Maybe that had been my downfall before, that I hadn’t told enough people or the right people what I was afraid of, that my silence allowed the terrible thing to happen.
Unfortunately, I find this approach has not worked with the downfall of the United States as I knew it, either. I’ve written every week for a year with my wild imagination dragging me into a dystopian future directly set into motion by the policies, science, and cultural events of today, and I’ve been horrified to see many of the things I flung at the wall stick there like perfectly cooked spaghetti (if the spaghetti was made of something more sinister and dangerous than semolina).
Something I’ve noticed is that Substack might not have been the right place for this. Over the course of this year, I’ve seen very little growth in subscribers and very few subscribers who interact with the stories I’m putting here. There could be many reasons for this, not the least of which might be that these stories are mostly huge bummers, but it’s discouraging to mostly write into the void. I’ll probably slow down in this next year; even if I keep writing these, they’ll likely show up less often. In my other writing life, I’m working on a historical novel to which I’d like to give more attention, especially as I look for a new literary agent to represent my book-length fiction. (Agents, if you’re reading, this is the weirdest stuff I write; I promise I’m more marketable in longform!)
You’re here for the “it really happened” round-up of what inspired each of the last 12 stories. I won’t keep you from it any longer.
There have been so many leaks of information in this administration, and they have to be coming from somewhere, right? I was thinking, here, about Melania Trump’s press conference back in April, covering her alleged links to Jeffrey Epstein. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in the private conversations between the wives of this administration’s leaders!
FAQ About the Jackson Trauma Processing Center
I spend a lot of time reminding myself that hurt people hurt people. No one behaves with as much lack of regard for others as some of the people in this administration do without having been broken, emotionally, at some point. If I think about the criminal proceedings that, hopefully, will follow this administration, I wonder how we might rehabilitate those who behaved in ways that hurt people so that, after they serve their sentences, they won’t do it again.
Mostly this is a playful imagining of the dumbest things that DOGE might have done. When I think about how they used AI to make decisions about budget cuts, I also wondered where else they might have used it and missed important information.
It surprised me that this was the most popular story I’ve written so far. It seems, to me, one of the most likely to come true even though it sounds incredibly far-fetched. If you follow one of my favorite independent journalists, Jessica Valenti, closely enough, you’ll learn that the far right in this country has expanded its anti-abortion fight into the advances in fertility treatments, creating bizarre new rules in some places about the storage of embryos created via IVF.
FundMyCause: Help My Neighbors Alan & Louise Cover the Cost of Port-a-Potty
I wish I could say that this is inspired by a real story, but in truth it’s more inspired by the kinds of community mutual aid I’ve felt grateful to witness in recent months (like this one shared by Senator Cory Booker, who often reposts acts of kindness by people and makes me feel less hopeless whenever he does), combined with my concern about the overreach of religious entities into the lives of private citizens.
Angry Wives Fight Erectile Dysfunction Drugs in Court
I admit that I am very, very concerned about the potential end of no-fault divorce (and for my husband who often reads these, this is not about us!). Coupled with the obscene double standard of female reproductive healthcare being under-researched and under-funded compared to male reproductive healthcare, this is still probably not even my very worst worst-case-scenario here.
A List of Approved Claims from the Political Pain Fund
I mean, duh.
Classroom Management for Hybrid Teaching
I am lucky enough to be surrounded by fabulous, dedicated teachers in my family and among my close friends, so I am privy to the bureaucracy that is never enough to knock them down but sure does drive them to the edge of sanity. This story was inspired by them – both a friend who accompanied a group of middle school kids abroad as well as an experience I had trying to accomplish something with AI, combined with the stories of people forced to stay out of the country because of their exposure to hanta virus on a cruise ship.
In the Case of Senator John Martinson v. Paul Marcus
This is an incredibly litigious and thin-skinned administration. They file suits all the time, and they detain people for the most ridiculous stuff. I was imagining what might happen if the remedy was as useless as the suit.
A Meeting of the Therapeutic Decision Team
Therapeutic abortions were sometimes granted before the fall of Roe v Wade, pending review by hospitals’ teams of doctors who decided whether a pregnant person’s situation merited an abortion to save their life. With state laws becoming so draconian that even people whose pregnancies have ended in miscarriage being unable to obtain abortion care, I worry deeply about the next phase of health care by committee.
Federal Regulations for Arrest of Rageful Women
I mean, they just keep arresting protestors. It’s getting too complicated to keep coming up with reasons why; it might be easier to just pass new regulations for the worst of these.
Hormone Restoration for America
Hormonal birth control is under attack. In Wisconsin, legislators are fighting to protect it while in Washington DC, the “MAHA” hysterics are screaming about the dangers of hormonal contraception and doing what they can to avoid funding it for lower-income people. This story is only far-fetched if we stay vigilant to slippery-slope legislation.
So, there you have it: twelve stories in which I let my imagination run away with me. Twelve stories about my Really Big Whatifs. Twelve stories inspired by the news, shared with those of you who don’t want to be told everything will be fine.
(I still hope I’m wrong.)
THIS COULD HAPPEN is a collection of speculative short stories based on the news, which itself these days scarcely seems believable. And yet here we are.
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August 28, 2025
It’s been over a month of publishing these speculative, quasi-apocalyptic bits of flash fiction here, and I suppose I can consider it a sign of success that a friend who has been reading them checked in on me this week to see if I’m ok.
It Really Happened: A News Roundup, Vol. 2
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October 22, 2025
It’s time for a roundup of the news that inspired these speculative tales, which a friend has described as half-Margaret Atwood, half-Black-Mirror. It’s been a hard, hard couple of months since the last roundup. The real news is every bit as surreal as the stories I’m making up in my head, and that’s created an inner monologue for me that sounds something like this:
It Really Happened: A News Roundup, Vol 3
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December 26, 2025
Every dozen stories I publish here on This Could Happen, I go back and share the stories in the news that made me wake up in the night with Shel Silverstein’s “whispering whatifs.” Sometimes, the whatifs attack during the day, too, I’ll admit: walking down the streets of my town which has been invaded by immigration enforcement over and over; or scrolli…
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