Mike Pence in The Haze

Mike Pence is the great American absence. At some point in his youth, he became some other one, someone that is not he. Now his voice issues from that other, while his face remains perplexed, in the zone between what he was and what he's become. And Mike Pence? Well, he's not there. The job of “Mike Pence” is to carry around the face and the voice so that they may broadcast a version of Mike Pence that he is not. The voice, the face and the bearer are made to lie for his boss, which he does and he doesn't even know why. There is a mercy: Reading the Bible brings a poetic ecstasy wherein the false Mike Pence fades and the real one emerges and resonates like a struck bell to the word-cadence, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. But this lasts for mere seconds and then his fear of a vengeful father God hurling lightning, threatening to sacrifice sons returns and the other face and the other voice come back, leaving their bearer to a cruel limbo that plods on dumbly into the haze of days.