The Nationalist

Chapter 1

When the Silence Kills You

How do you fight a war without munitions when your opponent is stronger, bigger, and owns everything? I raised this question for the first time in my life exactly one year ago today when my best friend was taken away to prison. His trial wasn’t fair and he was depicted as an enemy of the state, a traitor, an extremist for sharing our true history as a nation. He didn’t sugar coat that our history started out with bloodshed or that the Southern states of our nation was built on slavery while the North tried to suppress the evil spreading throughout the new states.

The fact that the land was taken from Native Americans wasn’t hidden in his writings either. He told the truth about the group of men known as the Founding Fathers who fought for a free country even though some of them owned their own sets of slaves and supported the expansion west into Indian territories. They weren’t perfect and neither am I but neither are you for that matter.

The prosecution painted my friend as a dangerous man intent on creating anarchy and questioning authority while his own lawyer stood by. He hardly defended his client’s position, knowing damn well if he did, he too would be deemed a traitor. But he was one of many that continue to be persecuted for their conflicting beliefs and a quest to know the truth.

So I ask you again, how do you fight a war without guns? How do you defend the ones you love without bullets and armor? I remember growing up hearing my father say that knowledge was power but I never understood why. How in the hell would I learn anything from a book that would get me through life?

It wasn’t until I turned 30 and needed a better job because my wife and I were expecting our first child and it was the first time that I realized knowledge was king and I needed to be a king. That was when I went to college. While I’d love to share a happy ending story with you all, the end hasn’t been written yet and right now, there isn’t much to be happy for besides the fact that we’re alive and that you are alive to read this.

But tonight before you go to bed I want you to ask yourself a question: are you really safe? If you do nothing at all could you live the way you do right now? Could you live in fear of those that want to oppress your voice and demand that you conform to what they want you to believe and do? Will you let them continue to win? So how do you fight a war against a powerful opponent who wants to silence and destroy you into submission? You destroy it from within.

-Lincoln.

Darius looked over the passages he just wrote. The printer continued to print page after page of tomorrow’s circular that would go out across the state, to as many locations as he could hit in one night which was limited to a few newspaper stand outlets. The document he held in his hand was slated for next Friday, exactly one year after Eric Glazier was found guilty of treason and sentenced to a life of slumber in a sleeper cell prison.

No one knew the exact locations of these prisons but they were rumored to be located throughout the country in undisclosed locations. One could theorize which buildings were actually prisons by the tall concrete walls that surrounded them. The buildings had windows only on the first and second floors and they were always guarded with patrols and electric fencing at the entrances. When and if prisoners were released, they were taken to local hospitals to be aroused, never at the actual prisons.

It had been a whole year since Darius used the pseudonym Lincoln to address a nation in turmoil and it brought melancholy emotions to the forefront as the thought of Eric. The progress of the uprising was long and slow but people were listening, reading, and talking. He had never met the elusive “Eisenhower” who was the only one of the original Maverick team to escape into hiding.

Apparently Eisenhower was still writing, keeping The Maverick alive from somewhere, presumably in the barren lands of New Mexico. But no one really knew who Eisenhower was or where they really resided. Darius collected a copy of The Maverick each time it came out on streets of downtown and had a growing collection of them inside the storage unit where he still wrote his own circular, The Independent Nation.

The printing stopped. He had 1000 copies of his next circulation ready to distribute. He looked at his latest incarnation of freedom and hope. He folded each page in half so that it was a pamphlet that opened one way to reveal the articles inside. On the cover, it plainly read: The Independent Nation in the center of the page. Inside were two articles of history.

Darius particularly liked the stories of the presidents and in this circular wrote about the “dark horse” presidents starting with James Knox Polk who no one thought would win the highest seat in office and literally came out of nowhere to become the 11th U.S. president. He highlighted the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes on the opposite page, another “dark horse” president who believed that a united local government was key for a united nation in which men were truly equal and free. As the 19th president, Hayes pushed the American dream as an opportunity anyone could pursue, white or black, denouncing racial lines and championing the unity of the nation.

Darius collected the circulars and tied them into bundles, stacks of 200 sheets each so that they were easier to carry and leave at various locations. The timer on his watch started to go off and he quickly stopped it, looking at the time. It was already 6pm and his wife was expecting him home for dinner. He ran his hand through his brown hair and then stretched. He wished only to keep his secret doings away from her but she continued to question him anytime he left earlier than expected in the morning or came home late because the printer stopped working. It was better for her to think he was having an affair than to know the truth of what he was doing. It was better for her to live in ignorance because that would keep her safe.

He loaded the stacks into the spare tire well under the floorboard of the trunk of his car and drove home. Arriving at 6:30pm, his wife eyed him from the kitchen as he entered and kissed his daughter’s head. She was finishing up her dinner of lasagna and particularly chatty about school. He promised to entertain her stories as soon as he too finished dinner.

“You’re late.” Nora said as she placed a clean plate on the dish rack to dry.

“I know, I had a lot of work to do.” He said, sounding somber. “I’m going to take a shower first before I eat.”

He always felt dirty after being in the storage unit. Perhaps it was because it was a dusty place. He went straight to the bedroom and closed the door. Nora fumed silently to herself. He was avoiding having to talk to her, she just knew it.

“I’m done!” Lily happily announced, “do I get a dessert now?”

Nora smiled at her innocent request, “no, you can’t have dessert after every meal, Lily. Sometimes you just don’t get dessert.”

Lily pouted in her seat, “I’m going to ask dad then.”

“No you will not ask your father for something I just said that you couldn’t have.” Nora retorted sternly. There was no way a 5-year-old was going to run the show. Nora had a stern and strict upbringing and even though she was quite lenient with her own child, there were some things just drilled into her psyche and one of those things was that too many sweets can rot your teeth.

Darius appeared minutes later, having taken one of his fast showers and looked more relaxed in pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt.

“Dad, mom said I can’t have dessert but if you say I can have dessert then well I can have dessert, right?”

Darius smiled at his cunning little daughter who he knew just went against what her mother just said.

“Well honey, if mom says no then I’ll have to agree with her. It isn’t fair to ask one of us for something and then when you get the answer you don’t want, go and ask the other. I tell you what, tomorrow you can have dessert if you eat all your dinner again, alright?”

“Ok.” She said, hanging her head down. Darius served a piece of lasagna and sat next to her to eat. “But can I tell you what happened today at school?”

“Sure.” He replied.

Her mood quickly changed to being a happy child again, “today we had a substitute teacher and all the kids were acting bad. I wasn’t acting bad though, dad because I knew if I acted bad, then I could get in trouble. There was kids laughing and playing when they weren’t supposed to but I was good and because I was good I got a gold star.” She lifted up her light brown bangs to reveal a tiny gold star in the middle of her forehead.

“That’s great sweetheart but why is it on your forehead?” Darius asked in between bites of food.

“Because that’s where the teacher put it!” She exclaimed, her green eyes bright with a child’s innocence.

“Alright you, time to get ready for bed.” Nora said.

“Awe but I’m not tired yet.” Lily refuted but her mother insisted. She hugged her dad goodnight and followed her mom up the stairs to her bedroom. Meanwhile Darius ate the rest of his food and even washed his own plate. He didn’t want to fight with Nora but over the past year, their relationship had become strained. The secret he kept from her was tearing them apart but he remembered what his father once said about secrets:

“A secret is only a secret if one person knows. If two people know, then it isn’t a secret anymore.”

Darius was the only one who knew what he was doing. He was the only one carrying the burden. Even though others wrote their own discourse and started to make political moves, his secret identity was more important than openly joining the ranks. But sometimes he battled within himself if he were even making a difference with the small circulation of The Independent Nation.

“We need to talk.” Nora said as she stood behind him.

He dried his hands with the white dish towel and hung it over the sink.

“I know.” He replied, “but can this wait until tomorrow? I’ve had a lot on my mind lately and I’m pretty tired.”

“No, we need to talk now Darius!” Nora insisted with an annoying tone.

Her green eyes looked worried but he couldn’t help but think about the first time he gazed into them and how lovely they were, even when she was mad.

“Alright, what do you want to talk about then, Nora?” He asked heading over to the couch to sit down.

If he was going to fight with her, at least he could do it in a relaxing fashion.

“Us, Darius, Us! I don’t understand what is going on with you but ever since Eric was taken, you’ve changed. It’s like some part of you went with him and you don’t even spend time with me anymore. You’re always working and then when you come home, you’re too tired to even speak to me. I need to know what’s going on. I’m your wife, doesn’t that mean anything to you?!” She looked down at him as she stood over him like an upset parent scolding a child.

“It does, Nora. And no, it has nothing to do with Eric. You know I lost my job too right after everything that happened and this new job is more demanding than the last one. There’s more expected out of me there. I’m sorry you feel like I’ve pushed you aside…”

“Well you did, Darius,” she said, interrupting him. “How do I know that it really is all about work and not something else?”

The conversation he didn’t want to ever have with her was unfolding before him and there was nothing he could do to stop the freight train in its tracks.

“How do I know you’re not out there with someone else?” There was an accusation in her tone as she said it.

“I’m not. There’s no one else.” Darius said, feeling defeated and defenseless.

“I’m tired of this, Darius. I know you’re lying to me and you’re keeping secrets from me.” She said accusingly as her tone rose.

“Stop it, Nora. You have no right to question me. I work hard to keep this family going and bust my ass every day. You don’t even have to work! All you have to do is take care of Lily and the house.” He replied trying to keep his cool but losing his patience with her.

“Yeah, well I called your job today and they told me you left at 4:30pm yet you didn’t come home until 6:30pm. Where were you?”

She waited for him to reply but he said nothing. He thought of what kind of lie he could make up but would she believe that he went to a bar for a drink? He hadn’t done that in a year either but still, he used it lots of times before and it always seemed to work. Plus he needed to know where her loyalty was if a revolution was to come. It was time to test his theory on where his wife stood.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call first and that I made you worried but I stopped at the bar with some of the guys after work. They were discussing the uprising and I thought it was a good topic to at least listen in on since it’s happening everywhere.” He finally replied. “I’m sure if you call the bar there will be a record of me there since they did scan my track card for the beer I had.”

She signed and sat down next to him, taking his hand in hers. She looked lovely in her simple buttercream button top and shape hugging blue jeans. Her light brown hair was lightly curled and hung just past her shoulders. He was a lucky man to have such a forgiving wife. Her family were originally from Germany and came to the old United States around 100 years before the second Revolution which ushered the sleeping country into the darkness of Communism.

While people were blinded by their new gadgets and technology, fashion and movie stars, the powerful Falconal Faction planted subjects into every important political and social fabric of life for decades. And on one faithful day, it all came crashing down like a row of dominos in the most glorious display of the perfect coup. The majority didn’t see it coming but the few that did tried to fight back but were crushed by the majority’s ignorance to the truth and blind allegiance to the incoming Marxist movement. Few knew the truth about this part of history and only because of the private and secret collection of books from the era. God, he loved her and it ripped at his heart not to tell her the truth. Every time he lied, the thought for sure she’d disbelieve him and leave.

“Darius, it’s still dangerous to talk about those things, especially in public places like that.” She said.

“I know, my love but it was important for me to know what people are saying and how they feel about it so I had to go.” He replied feeling a little relieved that she stopped talking in the ‘mad tone’ and that his lie seemed to be working.

“Promise me then that you’ll call first and tell me where you’re going? If the police arrest you, at least I’ll know why you didn’t come home. You know they don’t allow people to make phone calls. They go missing and their families are left wondering what happened to them and then they find out later that their loved one has been arrested but by that time there’s nothing they can do because they’re put into prisons like those sleeper prisons where the prisoners are put to sleep.” She said worriedly.

“I promise, I will call you first next time. Don’t worry.” He kissed her lips to seal the deal. “Nora, what do you think about the uprising? There’s a lot of interesting talk about it but I’ve never asked you about your opinion and we’ve never discussed it either.”

She took a breath, looking into his hazel eyes, “well, I think they’re fighting a lost cause. The Faction owns everything all over the world. I don’t see how they plan to win back this country or even the world for that matter. You can’t even walk down the street without being spied on. Even the lights at the intersections have hidden cameras that were put there 200 years ago and are upgraded and maintained by the power companies. Not to mention the fact that there’s invisible drones all over the place that you can’t even hear. They could be hovering over our house right now and we’ll never even know it. I think it’s dangerous. It’s all very dangerous. Even the thermostat has ears so us talking about this at home is dangerous as well.”

“Yeah, it is. But what if we actually do stand a chance to rise up and take back the country? Could you imagine what freedom feels like? Even our parents didn’t know what freedom felt like but I remember my dad telling me stories that my grandpa used to tell him. This is supposed to be a classless society but it really isn’t. There are still classes and we just happen to be put into the middle. No one can move up but anyone can move down.”

He squeezed her hand as he spoke, “that isn’t fair, right? The most powerful families that controlled Europe forever control the world now. Don’t you even know that when this country started, it was to get away from them because they’re sick and twisted inbred people?”

“Darius, you’re talking crazy right now. Of course I don’t know that. Where did you get that information from?” She asked, “none of our history books depict the old world in that way.”

“I know and that’s what is so messed up about it. They’ve destroyed it all so we would never remember. Nora, there used to be a giant statue of a woman they named Liberty right on the banks of Manhattan that was a gift from France to the United States. It was called Liberty because that’s what we once stood for and it stood tall and proud, greeting those that fled their own country, into the new country where opportunity was as easy as seizing it with your hands. Nora, they took that away from us. They destroyed all the monuments of the old world so that they could create a new one to control us.” He said passionately trying to reason with her but without her actually seeing the truth with her own eyes, she would continue to dwell in the darkness.

“Darius, maybe you should stop going to these bar meetings. Besides, it sounds like drunk talk. None of that is true.” She refuted with concern.

“But what if it was? Would you rather have freedom or would you rather keep everything the way it is right now?” He asked.

He wanted to tell her that he was the writer behind The Independent Nation. Surely if there were anyone he could trust in the whole world, it would be his wife of 13 years.

She shook her head as she thought about it and her big blond curls moved but stayed perfectly in place, “I don’t know. I guess I’ll have to think about the answer to that. I’ve never thought of something different than what we have right now. Freedom would open a whole new door of opportunities that are unfathomable.”

He stared at her for a moment, still holding her hand. “We can talk about it some other time then. I really need to go to bed, I have an early start tomorrow.”

He kissed her again and went upstairs, stopping for a moment to look in on his sleeping princess, tucked into her bed, dreaming of unicorns. The situation was a complicated balance of lies. In the beginning, he really did go to the bar to converse with secret freedom fighters and listen like a fly on a wall for any news on the uprising. Most were rumors and some seemed to be fabricated tales of how the resistance was making headway in the west, taking over places like California yet reading or watching the secular news stations depicted states still controlled by Faction leaders. He set his alarm to midnight. Whenever he had to make deliveries of his circular, he always did so in the middle of the night because it gave him plenty of time to make the drops and still come home after to put on the false pretense that he just got up early to watch TV and make coffee before Nora got up in the morning. So far it worked every time and he was able to make his deliveries under the cover of night without anyone seeing him.