Challenges of Living Together
Insanity
I procrastinated with this one. The challenge was a real challenge for me to write. I just didn't know what to do with it. A special thanks to P., who gave me the idea. I swear I didn't mean to take so much time with it.
Characters: Canada, Québec
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: I want to go for a bike ride and ice cream.
Challenges of Living Together
Insanity
There were times when Matthew couldn't sleep at night. He would turn around and glare at Gilbert who would be sleeping soundly, snoring lightly. At times like these, the Canadian man would be envious of the other man's easy ability to fall asleep whenever or wherever, but there wasn't much he could about it except watch and try to get some shut eye himself.
Whenever he couldn't sleep, he would start thinking about various things. Usually, he would think back to the events of his day and reflect on them. It so happened that earlier today, Québec started talking about separation again and the conversation was replaying in his head. They ended up arguing like they always did and it bothered Matthew he could never get along with Jean-Pierre on that subject.
Sometimes, he wondered what would ever happen if Québec did become an independent nation. He would close his eyes and try to imagine the situation. Canada firmly believed he had already seen a preview of what his son would become during the seventies and he had not liked it one bit.
For starters, the poor English speakers would be victimized and they would try to leave for the neighbouring provinces. Jean-Pierre would force his people to get a Québec passport and probably have them shun their Canadian citizenship. It would only be downwards from there.
Matthew remembered the time of Duplessis when Québec had been blinded by the darkness that surrounded him. He had seen his son be enraptured by his boss to the point where things got out of hand. People were taking steps back as opposed to going forwards and even though the English speakers had been better off money wise, there had been quite a few strong handed French speakers as well.
He feared the same would happen again.
Jean-Pierre would isolate himself from the rest of his family; impose more laws that would make it difficult for anyone to learn English or anything else that wouldn't benefit Québec. His son would probably start fights over the water supplies and that would only serve to destroy him even more.
And what would happen to the provinces to the East of Québec? Would they be forever forced to be apart from the family they belonged to because of their older brother? Canada feared Jean-Pierre would try to gain the land to the East and expand his territory. Consequentially, he would end up destroying his father and his siblings.
Matthew knew his son couldn't handle power all that well; it went straight to his head. He had seen it in the past. Jean-Pierre was too hot headed. He couldn't act in a diplomatic way and he would end up spending all his money until he would reach the brink of insanity. It would be a spiralling hell from there to watch his eldest destroy himself, but not before making chaos out of the peaceful world they lived in.
Canada could imagine his son drive himself in a bigger economic slump and case more havoc than was necessary to him and to the world. He wouldn't be surprised if Québec would become a dictatorship that would control everything his people did and prosecute anyone for things he deemed wouldn't be patriotic enough.
And then there was Matthew's brother, Alfred, who would probably try and expand his own territory by trying to strike a deal with his nephew. Canada could see how that would work out; badly. America would persist and Québec would impose a military regime to his people and force them to fight.
Matthew could see more gruesome pictures of his son's land change from lush green to murky brown until it would be barren. His people would slowly die off, the streets would be full of disease and crime would rise. When it would get to that point, the Canadian man would snap his eyes open and realize he had been partially sleeping.
He would still be plagued by those disturbing thoughts, so he would get up from bed and locate his eldest. When he couldn't find Jean-Pierre in his room, Matthew panicked, but then he would hear a sound coming from downstairs.
When he would be downstairs, he would find Québec sprawled on the white couch, his mouth hanging open, one arm and a leg propped on the back of the piece of furniture, while his other leg dangled to the floor and his other hand remained on his bare stomach. The younger man would be snoring away in his sleep and it would assure Matthew for another night that things weren't as insane as they seemed.
Canada would walk over and tuck a stray strand of hair away from Jean-Pierre's face before placing a kiss on his son's forehead and heading back upstairs. Perhaps he was insane for doing so, but he wouldn't let his son destroy their family. He just knew the damage would be irreparable for all of them and Matthew cared too much for his children to let that happen.
OWARI 12
TO BE CONTINUED
89 bottles of beer on the wall, 89 bottles of beer…
You take one down, pass it around
88 bottles left on the wall
I do accept anonymous reviews.
Started writing: April 9th 2010, 3:37pm
Finished writing: April 9th 2010, 10:45pm
Started typing: April 24th 2010, 1:30pm
Finished typing: April 24th 2010, 1:54pm
