In seventeen-eighty-three, England signed the Union's independence from the Empire's realm.
There in Paris they sat across each other to stitch the terms of their boundaries, and England watched with none of the rage nor despair he had come to expect as he cut the colonial threads of his past for the framework of his future. And yet as they discussed 'exceedingly generous' (or so England claimed) clauses that stare was maintained, and the expectation in them that almost made his stomach twist because even here, even then in aftermath of his seventeen-seventy-six rebellion and victory, he still refused to take the (independent) United States with the seriousness he demanded all those years ago and how could he remain so smug—
He never liked it, the look in his former overseer's stare. The expectation for his loose Republic to unravel at the seams.
It's seventeen-eighty-seven now, and Columbia gazes across the Atlantic and thinks about his independence and the uncertainty it holds.
(These are growing pains, Jefferson assures him as he nurses the unraveled wounds of Shaysite unrest—for wasn't a little rebellion, now and then, a good thing?
He, Union, looks upon the articles that sews his Confederation, and wonders how perpetual is the limited union that threads his thirteen-part whole.)
Over in Philadelphia, delegates debate the clauses and phrases that would form the foundations of his future. Here in Boston, at the harbor he recalls tossing expensive goods into during his fit of rebellion, he remembers the expecting look in his England's eyes back in Paris in the midst of exchanges and agreements for the promise of mutual benefit. And yet while wrapped in the independence he had longed for all those years ago, he finds he still feels his presence across the Atlantic and over at the border he shares with his neighbor up north—
(Because Canada, Canada who remains stitched to the Crown's fabric, just had to play the good son, didn't he?)
As the delegates of his states contest over how strong of a presence he should maintain, the question that lingers on his—the Republic, he who holds too many names over the fragile blanket that forms These United States—mind is what his future will look like beyond the close of this century.
His future, his story. A byword through the world.
(Long after in nineteen-o'-nine—after expansion and tearing and stitching the fabrics of his being, after shedding blood and bringing Spain's crumbling empire to its knees—America will visit England at Gibraltar and look into his eyes once more as the midday sun sets into the afternoon. With his Great White Fleet behind him and his former overseer before him, he will see a different expectation in England's eyes—
He will see uncertainty as the British Empire witnesses the framework of colossus's rise.)
Yes, all the varying titles (Union, Republic, Columbia, etc.) were in reference to America himself. I wanted to use the different names that were contemporary at the time in use to refer to the United States; while 'America' was occasionally in use it was much rarer, and only after the rise of the United States as a world power did 'America' become synonymous with 'United States'.
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing." Quote from Thomas Jefferson about Shay's Rebellion, to put the line into more context.
Anyway, something that fascinates me is the uncertainty of how events unfold while they're still happening. I like to avoid allusions to predestination in my interpretation of personifications, so rather than portray them as things to come I like to examine how they felt in the moment.