Charles reached out and switched the clock radio off. Okay, it wasn’t over yet. Hillary still hadn’t conceded. But the math didn’t favour her. On one wall of Charles’s crowded Queens bedsit, along with a mass of campaign posters, flyers, and hats, was a chart of calculations. Of pledged delegates, and committed superdelegates. Of how Hillary could not now win.

He stepped over to that wall – his ‘campaign wall’, and started taking down everything on it. Looking back, it had been a great year. He had been with Hillary’s campaign since the start.

‘How could they?’ he mumbled , packing away the campaign junk. ‘How could they?’

He blamed the voters. Charles knew you weren’t supposed to do that. He was a European Literature major, he’d read Brecht’s line about ‘dissolving the people and electing another’ in the original German. But he still felt disappointed. Hillary, with all her experience, on the scrapheap. And this – this newbie – with the whole world at his feet….

Charles sat down on the sofa-bed. He pulled a bottle of whisky from under it, unscrewed the top, and took a swig.

‘What next?’ he thought. He had lived on his savings for almost a year now. He had never had a formal role, just turned up wherever Hillary was campaigning, offering his services. He had dropped leaflets all over the country. Even taken a few punches while canvassing in Alabama and Illinois.

The Greyhound rides, the cheap flights, the crappy hotel stops…all for nothing.  He remembered the upbeat victory parties, the gloomy concession speeches. He turned to the opposite wall of his room, the one covered with pictures. He was in some of them – hugging Bill, shaking Chelsea’s hand.

Back to the real world, he thought. His savings were gone. That was why he hadn’t flown out to join the campaign for the past few weeks. He had even had to sell stuff – like the television, and DVD player. Now he would have to try and get another job. His wife – she would never take him back. But he’d try to patch things up with the kids.

And yet…there was one last throw of the dice. Hillary would have a farewell party for the volunteers, that weekend. He would be there.

Charles looked again at the opposite wall, his ‘picture wall’. It was covered with photos, mostly of Hillary, and mostly cut from magazines or newspapers, or downloaded from the internet. Hillary as a child, as a college student, as First Lady of Arkansas, and then of the US.  Wearing skimpy lingerie, or totally nude – but those were his Photoshop creations of course.

The party…he’d go all out to meet her there. There’d been stuff in the press about a rift between her and Bill, over him conceding before she did. She would be vulnerable now…if he met her, he could work his charm on her, surely….