The Ashes of Ideology

A Short Story

By Eric McQuiston

Part I

Late evening in the city. The street was glazed in the amber haze of old sodium lights, each lamp humming faintly as if reluctant to stay awake. Storefronts lined the sidewalk like forgotten stage sets — blinds drawn, neon flickering, door signs flipped to CLOSED. A light wind pulled scraps of paper and leaves along the gutter.

A battered foreign compact pulled up to the curb, its engine rattling unevenly. The muffler gave a little backfire as the car jerked to a stop, a puff of smoke curling from the tailpipe like a nervous sigh. The driver stayed in the shadows. The back door creaked open.

The figure stepped out.

They were wrapped in dark clothing, head down, face obscured by a cloth mask. A backpack was slung tightly across their shoulders. But beneath the anonymity — the black hoodie, the nondescript pants — were clean, fashionable skater shoes. Slightly too white for someone trying not to be seen.

The figure hesitated. Just for a second. One hand gripped the strap of the backpack a little tighter. The door shut behind them, and the old car sputtered off into the night, taillights bouncing with each pothole it swallowed.

The figure stood there alone.

Breathing.

Then walking — not fast, not slow. Just moving. Past a row of dim businesses, empty as waiting rooms. A check-cashing place with flickering signs. A vape shop. An old diner with barstools lined up like forgotten soldiers. No one passed by. Not even a late-shift security guard. The city had gone quiet, but not safe.

At the far end of the block, they stopped outside the glass door of State Senator Jackson Lee’s district office.

The door was framed in rusting aluminum. The name stenciled on the glass in gold was worn from weather and sun. Inside, the main room was dark, but from somewhere in the back, a faint desk lamp glowed — yellow and soft, like someone had left it burning unintentionally. Or maybe not.

The figure knelt on the sidewalk.

Unzipped the backpack.

They removed three bottles: two wine, one tequila. Labels soaked off, filled to the neck with gasoline. The clear liquid shimmered under the streetlight. Each bottle had a fabric wick — ripped from a faded protest T-shirt, the slogan unreadable now, just scorched edges and old sweat.

The figure lined the bottles on the concrete with care, like they were setting up a shrine. Their hands were steady, but their breathing wasn’t.

A glance down the street. Empty.

Another glance — up this time — checking corners, ledges, lampposts. One dome camera, angled the wrong way. Another half-smashed. A third one, maybe fake.

They pulled a disposable lighter from their coat pocket. Flick. Flick. Flame.

The first wick caught, the gasoline drawing fire like it had been waiting. Then the second. Then the third. Each bottle hissed softly, alive with heat and promise.

The figure stood, gripping the necks by the wicks.

One by one, they hurled the fire.

Crash. The first bottle shattered through the glass, igniting curtains and carpet. Crash. The second burst near a desk, flames licking upward like breath. Crash. The third rolled under a file cabinet and exploded.

The office lit up in seconds — a hungry orange roar pressing out of the broken windows. Smoke curled skyward like a signal. The building groaned.

Somewhere, an alarm tripped. Distant sirens stirred awake.

The figure turned without looking back.

They walked briskly, hands shoved deep in their pockets, the flicker of fire dancing in the window glass as they passed. When they reached the end of the block, they didn’t run, just turned the corner and disappeared, leaving only heat and ash behind.

---

Part II

Rebekka was not the prettiest girl in school. Not the smartest either. She existed in that vague middle-space; not popular, not an outcast. Tall, a little awkward, and clumsy in conversation, she played on the girls’ basketball team mostly because her height got her noticed during tryouts. But even on the team, she never really felt like part of it.

For Rebekka, high school sucked. As it did for everyone.

It was a daily cycle of quiet humiliation: misread social cues, forced laughter in group settings, awkward silences when she walked up to a table in the cafeteria and no one made room. She tried, God, she tried. New outfits. Makeup tutorials. Joining clubs. But nothing stuck.

Her parents meant well. She knew that. Her dad, an engineer at a manufacturing plant, was precise, efficient, and distracted. Her mom was loud, energetic, and always closing deals; a rising star in real estate who never missed a listing but often missed dinner. Her younger brother, Scott, was two grades behind but already more accomplished in everything that seemed to matter.

Rebekka spent more and more time online. First in fandom forums, then on Discord, then through curated feeds and TikTok pages where people talked openly about not fitting in. About identity. About finding strength through gender discovery and breaking free of the boxes the world kept trying to trap them in.

It felt like home.

It was the first place where Rebekka wasn’t judged; she was affirmed. She read stories that mirrored her own loneliness, her frustration, her inability to connect. There were usernames and voices that said: You’re not broken. You’re brave.

One evening, over meatloaf and awkward silence, she told her parents she now identified as a boy. She wanted to be called Beckett.

Their faces froze. They asked questions. Too many, and not the right ones. Their concern felt like condemnation. Their hesitation like betrayal.

But Beckett felt stronger than Rebekka had ever been. This wasn’t a phase. This was power.

Graduation came and went. Beckett’s hair was short now, their clothes sharper. The skater shoes were intentional. College was more welcoming. Beckett met others who shared their doubts and anger, their hope and defiance. They adopted they/them pronouns. They joined meetings. Safe spaces that didn’t feel safe so much as righteous.

One group in particular became central. Tightly knit. Politically energized. They didn’t just protest; they planned. Senator Jackson Lee became a symbol of betrayal.

He had campaigned on trans rights and protections. But when the polls shifted, so did he. Beckett and their new friends called him a fraud. A tool of the machine.

Someone said, “There’s no reforming a rigged system.” Someone else replied, “So we burn it down.”

No one laughed.

A message needed to be sent.

Beckett volunteered.

In a friend’s garage, they worked in silence. Cheap gas canisters. Ripped wicks. Glass bottles from parties long gone. They cut up a shirt that once read Support Our Teachers.

The irony made them smile.

They packed the bottles carefully. Flame tested the wicks. Everything was ready.

This was their moment.

---

Connie

Connie was twenty-five, a single mother of two. She had dropped out of high school in her junior year after getting pregnant by a boy she barely knew and wished she had never met. At twenty-one she thought she had found true love and moved in with a man who turned out to be a meth dealer and escaped him, with help of friends, but not before becoming pregnant again.

Connie was now in charge of her life. She had worked her way from an office assistant to a paralegal with a good law firm and was recently hired part-time by the Jackson Lee campaign. It didn’t pay much but the position offered a great resume enhancement!

This night she had left the kids with her mom and was working late, recording the latest polls and entering them into the predictive algorithm at the office. She was tired and hungry but glad to be a part of something. She didn’t even really know Mr. Lee. He seemed a nice man, friendly and always had a kind smile. It didn’t matter to Connie as much as the paycheck did.

Suddenly she heard a crash and a whoop that seemed to suck the air out of the room. Two more crashes and the front office was ablaze with fire!

"What the hell is going on?" Connie screamed, frozen at her desk before a wave of heat hit her.

She ran to the back hallway and the door beyond — but it was blocked by stacks of file boxes. As the flames approached, she clawed at the boxes...

Connie’s body was found in the rubble the next morning.

---

Part III

Beckett was sitting cross-legged on the couch, a bowl of Ramen balanced on one knee, a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew sweating on the armrest. The TV was on, low volume; just background noise to the humming silence of her apartment.

She was halfway through the noodles when the news anchor’s tone shifted.

“Breaking overnight: An arson fire at the district office of State Senator Jackson Lee has claimed the life of a campaign volunteer. Authorities say the fire was intentionally set late last night, and surveillance footage has led to the arrest of several persons of interest..."

The fork dropped from Beckett’s hand and clattered into the bowl.

She stared at the screen.

A photo appeared; charred wreckage, yellow tape, firefighters still working in the early morning haze. And then: the victim. A young woman with tired eyes and a soft smile. Two kids beside her in the photo. Their faces blurred.

Beckett didn’t breathe.

The words filtered through like smoke: Single mother of two... twenty-five... working part-time for the campaign...

Connie.

Beckett hadn’t known anyone would be there. It was supposed to be symbolic. A statement. A righteous scream into a deaf world. But now, it was a coffin.

Then: a knock.

Loud. Heavy. Final.

"Metro Police! Open up! We have a warrant!"

Beckett sat frozen, skater shoes still on, laces undone. The apartment walls suddenly felt smaller — closing in with the echo of that knock.

The trial was swift. The video footage. The fingerprints. The online chatter. It was all there. Her friends vanished. No support. No solidarity.

Despite the best efforts of the lawyer her parents hired, the verdict was unanimous: guilty.

Arson. Homicide.

Sixty years.

Because Beckett identified as male, the court honored that identity on the intake forms. She was incarcerated in a men’s penitentiary.

She didn’t fit in.

Not with the gangs. Not with the guards. Not with the men who laughed behind bars and called her "princess."

She was misfit again. Just like high school. Just like college. Just like always.

Some nights she lay awake in her bunk, staring at the concrete ceiling.

The same question circled over and over:

Was this who I wanted to be? Or who someone wanted me to become?

There were no answers.

Just time.

A lot of time.