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“What happened?”

Everyone asked the question, had been asking for over a year. They asked while watching the news, that shitstorm of headlines, jump-cut footage of marches and speeches and hand-Sharpied cardboard, an endless swirling blizzard—a siege, really—of protests and counter-protests, action and reaction, people screaming at each other in the street, neighbor vs. neighbor, friend vs. friend. (Or too often: friends no more. We were in new territory. People were learning they had limits.)

What happened? Reporters asked it in small-town diners over $7.50 lunch specials, BLTs cut into neat triangles, Heinz bottles perched like microphones on scratched formica tables.

What happened? People asked each other in church basements, community centers, gyms, coffee shops, living rooms where they came together to weep, process, scribble on postcards, plan the revolution.

What happened? Parents snapped off NPR mid-story, not wanting to answer questions from the backseat. College students climbed flagpoles, ripped down stars and bars. A giant inflatable chicken appeared behind the White House lawn, some sort of protest that no one entirely understood. Everything was some sort of protest now.