The Reversal

Mary Lynfield held onto her cue cards tightly. There was a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go away. Even after being in this business for 12 years, she always got nervous before a show. Millions of viewers across the country had no idea that she actually hated what she did for a living. She was an introvert with a penchant for perfectionism and a bad tendency to self-deprecate. None of her staff knew that she’d rewatch old clips at home, just to focus on all the ways she could have done better.

There was a knock on her dressing room door.

“Come in!” Mary yelled, wondering who it was.

The door opened, and she saw her assistant, Tia standing there sheepishly.

“Marcus is here,” Tia informed her.

“I’ll be out shortly,” Mary answered as she reshuffled her cue cards so they were in order.

She got up and walked to the door, trying to get a glimpse of what, or who, was outside of her room. All she could see was the shadow of a tall man. As she stepped outside of the room, the man’s face became visible. He was slim and had a meek stature, despite his height. He looked nervous.

“Mr. Wilson, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said to him before realizing the words that came out her mouth. She immediately wanted to take them back.

“Mary Lynfield. Wow, I can’t believe I’m standing here right now, talking to you. Who would have ever thought?” He looked down, still visibly nervous as he spoke.

“Why don’t we head to the set?” Mary suggested. She wanted to hold off on discussing the segment. Her high ratings came from her ability to surprise her guests with questions they’d never see coming.

“Sure!” Marcus said a little too quickly.

Mary, Marcus, and Tia walked to the set without saying anything.

“Tia, would you mind grabbing me my copy of Mr. Wilson’s book? It’s the one with purple post-it’s sticking out of it,” Mary said.

“On it!” Tia shouted, and ran off to get the book.

“Mr. Wilson, please have a seat. We’ll be getting started shortly,” Mary said. Marcus sat down. As he fidgeted in his seat, he noticed audience members starting to trickle in. The seats began to fill up with people and he found himself engaging in a habit he promised himself he wouldn’t do anymore- counting the number of men and calculating their ratio to women. By the time the seats were full, it was 50:1, with a total of four men in the crowd.

He tried to get a closer look at the four men he’d identified, but all he could make out was that they looked unhappy. They always looked unhappy.

A producer yelled out, “Five minutes to showtime!” bringing Marcus back to the moment, and he realized he wasn’t actually ready to begin. He tried to run through all the answers he’d rehearsed in his head, but his mind kept racing.

“And ten, nine, eight…” the producer started to count down. Marcus straightened his back and repositioned himself so he was facing Mary. The producer called out, “Showtime!” and the lights adjusted so they were centered around Mary and Marcus. Marcus noticed that Mary now held her copy of his book in her hand. There had to be at least fifty post-its in the book. A knot in his stomach formed.

“Good afternoon, ladies! Welcome back to the Mary Show. It’s so great to see all of you! I’m thrilled to announce today’s guest of the hour- Marcus Wilson, author of the book ‘Starting Over.’”

The audience booed loudly. Marcus was expecting it. He counted down from ten to avoid getting flustered by the women chanting obscenities at him.

“Ladies, ladies! There will be time for that later,” Mary said and winked. “First, let’s give Mr. Wilson a chance to talk about his ‘book’.” Her tone when she said ‘book’ was the first sign that let Marcus know he’d made a grave mistake in agreeing to do the show. Nevertheless, he was already there and had to see it through.

“Thanks for the introduction, Mary,” Marcus started off. He couldn’t help but feel like his microphone was substantially lower than Mary’s. “You know, I started writing ‘Starting Over’ only seven years after The Reversal happened. It’s hard to believe that six years later, I am sitting here talking to you about it,” he continued, looking around at the audience to see if they were paying attention. The lights were so bright that he could barely make out faces though. He looked back at Mary and saw her smiling in a seemingly mischievous manner.

“Six years in the making- isn’t that something!” Mary exclaimed. “Well, Mr. Wilson, I’d love to ask you a few questions about the book.”

“Please, go ahead,” Marcus responded. He smiled disingenuously, nervous about whatever questions Mary was about to ask him.

“Well, for starters, in Chapter 3 of the book, you talk about how The Reversal was, and I quote, ‘not an expression of women’s liberation, nor was it an opportunity to even the playing field for women who had been historically marginalized prior to its occurrence. Rather, it was a form of gender eugenics. Women across the world united with the common goal of eradicating any men with the PC mutation on Chromosome X- the so-called “sexist gene”. They did this despite the fact that research studies were not clear on the full effects of the mutation. That is murder. That is genocide,’” Mary read the words with disgust. The audience had been booing as she read Marcus’s words, but as she finished saying the word ‘genocide,’ they exploded with displeasure.

Marcus looked around instinctually, but still could not see anything because of the blinding lights. As the roars of anger continued from the audience, he felt something heavy strike the side of his head. His vision blurred for a moment before he realized it was a bottle of water that was almost full.

“Now ladies, please contain yourselves- we’re only getting started. Let’s give Mr. Wilson a chance to defend his words,” Mary said snidely, a grin forming on her face.

Marcus was disoriented. He knew there wasn’t much time, so he tried to collect his thoughts. He clenched the heart-shaped locket his partner Robert had given to him a few months before finding out he had the sexist gene.

Marcus sat up straight and stated, “Thank you for highlighting those words, Mary. They really do speak to the core message of my book- replacing one form of oppression with another is not justice. It is simply more oppression.” As he spoke, the audience began booing again, making it hard for him to even hear himself.

He waited a few moments before continuing on to say, “When I agreed to do this show, I knew it would be a risk. I know the legal and de facto consequences of spreading propaganda about The Reversal. I knew that if I did not come here with the right evidence, you would throw me to the wolves and let them eat me-”

Before he could finish his sentence, Mary cut him off, her voice slightly shrieking as she asked, “Now Marcus, are you calling these ladies wolves? If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you have the sexist gene too!” The obscenities and booing from the audience grew louder. Marcus felt his palms becoming sweaty. He knew this would not end well.

He tried to do damage control. “Now Mary, I would never call the folks in the audience wolves. I was simply using a common expression to make an analogy to the legalization of vigilantism. I apologize if it came out the wrong way. But let’s get back to the issue at hand here. When the government passed Executive Order 30245 granting emergency approval of medication to counteract the effects of the sexist gene, it did so under false pretenses. The Lixerol pill was intentionally designed to cause a deadly interaction with the sexist gene, not simply ‘counteract its effects’ as promised. Since The Reversal took place thirteen years ago, more than seventy percent of the male population has been wiped out.” Marcus felt himself growing excited as he spoke. He paused for a moment to catch his breath.

Mary took the pause as an opportunity to speak. “Yes, and one hundred percent of those men had the sexist gene. Maybe Lixerol was a little more effective at addressing the sexist gene problem than we originally thought. Does it really matter? The goal was to eliminate sexism in the world. And it did that. Research has shown all of the effects of The Reversal. Domestic violence rates decreased by over one thousand percent. The gender wage gap closed. The number of women in government increased by over five hundred percent.”

Marcus jumped in, exclaiming, “You completely ignored the fact that those data are primarily for White women. The gender wage gap simply turned into a wage gap for White and non-White women. And men are now making less cents on the dollar than women of any race. This-” before Marcus could finish his sentence, another object struck him in the head. This time, it was his own book. Mary had thrown it. As the edge of the hard-cover book struck his temple, it left a gaping wound.

“How dare you!” Mary shouted. It was the last thing Marcus heard before the rest of the audience started throwing objects at him, striking him unconscious.