a/n: I tried—and obviously have failed—to post this before the election results were announced. But... ah, whatever.
Very rushed, this oneshot. Sorry!
O N
T H E
R U I N S
O F
L I B E R T Y
-1-
He first felt his presence in Boston, 1776.
America watched England's ship withdraw from the harbor, his countrymen's cheering drowning out all other sound, all other sensations. This was the first step to his Revolution. This was the first step to freedom.
In a distant hill, England was there, perched atop a horse, looking at him. America tipped his head up to meet the eyes of the man who used to be his beloved older brother. But even after he had defeated his troops, fired at his ships, America still could not hold his gaze, and he turned his head away.
The mask that was England's expression frightened him.
When America gained the courage to peek at the hill once more, there was neither horse nor man. Instead, there was a young boy.
America still had his perfect vision back then, before his people's arrogance and greed blinded him. The boy, he could clearly see, was wearing a black cap too large for his tiny head, a coat too broad, and breeches too wide. Those ill-fitted clothing were colonial wear, not the Redcoats', and America was ready to walk forward—perhaps, in the chaos of battle, a mother had left her child and noticed only too late—but he hesitated. There was something different about this boy. Perhaps it was his silence, unnatural for an abandoned child; those would normally be crying. Perhaps it was his blank gaze, too eerily calm to be innocent.
Something cracked loudly. Surprised, America turned, fearing that the British troops had, for whatever reason, already returned; but his worry was unnecessary. The noise was followed by a round of applause and an even louder cheer as men rushed underneath the billowing American flag to catch the trickling beer that flowed freely through the cracks of a wooden barrel. He supposed General Washington was giving the boys the free rein for the night.
When he returned his gaze back to the hilltop, those short brown curls were no longer in sight, though America could not say he was surprised. People had the tendency to disappear in the split seconds that he turned away.
After searching the woods and fields with no progress, America asked a few of the men assigned for sentry duty that night to keep a look out for the boy and prayed that he would be found.
That night, America lied on his bed—his hand curling over the dull ache that manifested itself in his heart since Lexington last year—and dreamed about independence and liberty. In his dreams, there was England again, charging at him with his bayonet. When the protruding metal spear pierced through his chest, America saw the boy's shadow stand behind England before it flickered and faded away.
-2-
He felt nothing but elation when the first election was held. Even though his body was weighed down by war scars and debts, his heart was whole, and that was all that mattered.
His buddy George was president for eight years, and by the time the second term was over, America, like his people, was sad to see the man leave.
"Run for office again!" he would plead Washington. "You know you'll be elected."
But the man just smiled and shook his head.
Two months before the country's third presidential election, America took a stroll around Philadelphia's countryside. As much as he loved listening to his bosses, he loved the ordinary people even more. There, he did not have to wear the stuffy suit which every politician wore and which reminded him of England. The countryside and its simple life, with lives centered around harvests and seasons, helped him escape. There were talks of factories and industry coming from Alexander Hamilton and his newly formed Federalist Party, but America did not particularly care much for it. He grew up among buffalos and wild frontiers, and the idea of machines stamping their way across his land put him off.
There were few people tending the fields that day, and when America strolled by houses and schoolyards, he found them all empty. He voiced his confusion to a big, burly man working in a nearby potato field, who told him to go to town.
"The president's in the papers, but someone's gotta finish these chores," the man said, shrugging.
When America reached town, he found a crowd, large enough to explain the farms' missing presences, gathered in town square. People huddled together in small groups over copies of the morning's newspaper. These individual groups in turn formed a larger ring for an aged, scholarly-looking man who stood at the center. He was reading to the illiterate.
"...This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind," he boomed, forming sweeping gestures and giving those around him a significant look. "It exists..."
"Excuse me, madam," America whispered to a woman with three kids leaning against her legs. When he caught her attention, he bowed and continued, "Please forgive my ignorance, but what is this?"
The mother smiled and replied, "Why, it's the president's farewell adress. Neither I nor my younglings can read, so we're listenin' to Mr. Husten right here."
"The president's... farewell address?"
"...The alternate domination of one faction over another," Mr. Husten continued, pausing dramatically when appropriate, "sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetuated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
"The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."
-3-
Two months later, America felt himself being ripped into two.
-4-
The same thing happened in four years, then the four years after that, and after that, and after that, and after that. There were times, like that once in the year 1820, when the pain came rather mildly, but those were the exception rather than the rule.
There was no mistaking its source: the climax of his agony always coincided with Election Day. In the months prior, he would feel the sensation clawing in his chest as the candidates campaigned their voices away in a wretched cycle of speeches and debates. Then countdown of months became weeks and weeks became days until the pain grew to such a degree that he would not be able to leave his bed. But even so, he said nothing to the presidents or his people. He let no one know his weakness.
But even more terrifying perhaps was the brown-haired boy, who appeared in his peripheral view but flickered away whenever he tried to turn around for a better look. He was now sure that the boy was not human, because brunet danced in the corner of his vision even as Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison returned to dust; but he did not believe the boy was a ghost either. The only thing America understood was that the child's appearances always coincided with the coming of Election Day, with his presence more defined as America's pain worsened.
-5-
America did not have the best of relations with France after his independence, but in 1848, just after winning Texas from Mexico, he visited Europe for France's first election and—more importantly—to warn France of the consequences that accompanied democracy.
To his surprise, France did not pale when he heard the new. In fact, his reaction was not even nearly as fearful as it should be.
"Why do you laugh?" America asked incredulously.
Tears of mirth slipped from France's eyes, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. America was startled to realize that the nation's fingernails were cracked and caked with blood, while multiple scars, pink and fresh, lined his palms and wrists.
"Dear, dear," France chuckled, leaning back against the park bench. "Oh, mon Dieu—I have briefly forgotten just how young you are. Goodness. To think that it has not been yet a century since you left that bastardly England... Well America, the pain you feel, the presence you see... those are not—how do you say it?—byproducts of democracy. Non, non, the world would be a much easier place for you and me if it were only so simple."
"What do you mean?"
"Civil wars, America. Civil wars." France shook his head, his smile gone. "They separate brothers, tear apart families, tear apart nations—tear apart us."
America frowned, watching a woman tow away her bawling daughter. "I do not understand."
"What don't you understand? C'est simple. When a group of your people ceases to see itself as part of you, they detach themselves, and at the same time a new nation is born. Depending on what happens next, you or your nation may live"—France looked down at his hands—"or die."
Dread clawed up America's throat. "Die? But I thought..."
France glanced up, one of his eyebrows raised. "You really do not know? Just how many wars have you fought in after becoming independent?"
America's lips quirked up. "Counting the one against you?"
France shrugged. "Sure, why ever not?"
"Six," America said, wincing at the memories of his men and his enemy's men hacking each other away. "Six, give or take."
"Six," his companion breathed. He shook himself a little before continuing, "I suppose you haven't seen any nations fall in those wars, then."
"No."
"Well, you see—"
A man wrapped in a heavy coat and multiple scarfs rushed into town square, shouting vehemently in rapid French. In his left hand, held high, was a bundle of newspaper. France's mouth fell open.
"Ah, I'm sorry, mon ami." He stood up, his eyes on the growing crowd gathered around the man. "Let us continue this conversation later. Right now, I have to meet my future president."
America blinked. "H-hold on! Following your logic on civil wars and fallen nations, the source of my pain would be... But I've never gone through a civil war, and my countrymen would never—we would never declare war against other. How can...?"
But France, that flashy bastard, had long disappeared with the afternoon Parisian breeze.
-6-
He would always be America the Majority. Born a Colony, he became a Patriot, then a Nation, a Federalist, a Democratic-Republican for quite a while before changing his name to Democrat, then Whig, then Democrat, then Whig, then Democrat once again.
The night he became Republican was the night the brown-haired boy emerged from mirage to reality.
It had been twelve years since he last visited France, yet America had no doubts as to who was the brunet leaning against his bedchamber door. America tried to stand up but tumbled down his bed, his limps weak, his shirt soaked through with sweat. It was as if he had lost half of his strength.
The pain, which had haunted him incessantly for the past ten years, was gone.
"Confederate," he croaked.
"Union," the Confederate States of America sneered, hatred distorting his young face.
"Don't do this," America pled. "Don't leave me. Please, I beg you."
"It's too late!" the Confederacy snapped. "For far too long, you northerners have deprived us of our rights—"
"The right to keep slaves!"
"Slavery has always existed in the United States," said the Confederacy dismissively. "It is the right of the whites to own those of lesser value. It is the natural order."
"All men are born equal."
"Yes. That's right." The Confederacy looked down his nose at his brother. "All men are born equal."
America saw that there was no reasoning with this child. He knelt before the Confederacy then, swallowing his pride, swallowing his conscience, swallowing the voices of freemen and abolitionists which were wreaking havoc in his head for the words he was about the say.
"Please, don't leave." I don't want to kill you. I don't want to hurt my people. "We will not destroy slavery. The Southerners can keep their slaves. We will not take them away."
There was a long pause, and sounds outside the White House trickled in through the window. People were cheering, laughing, and most likely drinking. America could not help but think of his own independence.
Finally, the Confederacy leaned down and spoke into America's ear:
"Right now, neither of us can destroy each other. You are too weak, and I am too young. Your countrymen will eventually rise up in hopes of destroying mine. We will see who is right and who is wrong then."
"Winning wars does not make you right."
"Then remember your own words, and know that the South will never recognize a slave-loving president." He picked up America's glasses from his dresser. "Goodbye. I'll be taking this."
And America watched his brother walk out the door.
-7-
For four years, he saw his children slaughter his children, clumsily launching cannons and other weapons they barely knew how to operate. He watched boys being sent into the battlefield as drummers and girls working their fingers to the bones to sew up soon-to-be-bloodstained uniforms.
"What will it take to end this?" he would shout at his president. "How far will you go to keep this war?"
And each time, Abraham Lincoln would look at him with sunken, somber eyes.
"Whatever it takes to preserve the United States."
-8-
In the April of 1865, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant after the South's final, disastrous battle at the Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia.
A hundred miles away, America's hands slowly squeezed the life out of the Confederacy.
"F-France," the young boy choked out. "E-England."
"You were counting on that, weren't you? You hoped to win the war by having other countries to recognize you." America shook his head. "But they didn't."
"A-Am..." the Confederacy coughed then tried again: "Ame—"
"Stop it." Tears spilled uncontrollably down the bloodied man's dirt-smudged cheeks. His grip tightened. "You can't change anything. It's done. It's over. It's over."
The Confederacy's eyes rolled back, and for the very first time America noticed that the boy's eyes were those of a bright, vivid green.
"A...merica..."
And he drew his last, dying breath.
-9-
And from there on, it was Democrat-Republican-Democrat-Republican. Blue and red and blue and red.
-10, 11, 12, 13-
Many countries underwent a period of insanity after their civil wars, such as France during his Revolution in 1789. Some could argue that America's eventual deterioration of intelligence capacity was a consequence of his own civil war, but the truth remained that America—though suffering from a severe cold for quite a while after 1865—was never so dangerously affected that his mental state became unstable.
The Confederacy was dead, but his spirit stayed and morphed in different forms. He was the anti-America, the opposing minority, the quiet voice desperate for acknowledgement, and he took up his role as a Tory, then a Confederacy, then a Republican-Democrat-Republican-Democrat.
By the time the world stepped into the twenty-first century, the burn was almost part of America's daily life, though coping with it never grew easier. Every four years the agonizing sensation revisits his body, tearing his heart apart, a constant reminder of what it meant to be a nation divided. He sees the brown-haired boy—no longer the South, but Democrat or Republican—and sees the child-like face in the mirror, sees that small shadow following his own.
On the Tuesday after the first Monday of November, America lies on his bed, hearing cheers roaring in his ear, feeling his body tear into two by the ballots and speech after speech.
Choose, choose, choose... his other half whispers.
But this was the price of democracy. The people's choice would be his pain. The two candidates' campaigns would be his civil war.
And he will bear it till the day he succumbs to madness.