He looked out the window at the lake below. Waves lapped on the shore. He could barely make out the stars in the sky, so he grabbed his glasses to bring them into focus. 9:00 pm, one week after he read the papers and read the election results.
Bernie stepped out of the shower cautiously. He was always careful these days – he didn’t want to risk a fall. He wrapped himself in a plain white towel, and wiped the fog off of the mirror.
Bernie saw an old man looking back at him. He traced over the features of his face, and mused silently over how the years had passed by. It had been a lifetime, and it had been an instant.
He had felt this way for a while, but he felt different now. He felt more tired. He felt less ambitious. He felt, in a word, spent.
Bernie shuffled to look back out the window. His gaze moved wistfully from star to star. He hadn’t spoken to his brother since the convention, but not a day went by that he didn’t think about his brother’s appearance during the convention’s roll call. It was his most emotional moment, the most moving minute in his entire career. It was the only time that he had really realized what he meant to so many people. “But it was too late by then,” Bernie mumbled as he walked back to the mirror.
Bernie had had some time to decompress since the convention, save for just a few appearances later on in the season, but he still hadn’t let it go. Bernie knew what they were saying about him. They said he abandoned his followers. “They said,” he spoke softly to the mirror, “they said I started a movement, and walked away.” He sighed and shook his head.
One last time, he frowned at his reflection.
Bernie looked at the ground, and he walked away.
Character Studies from the 2016 Election Season 