By the time I woke up this morning, fourteen major economic centers across the country had already been decimated at the hands of the terrorist group, The Liberators of the USA.  LUSA had taken responsibility for the first wave that had taken out the St. Louis Arch, Mount Rushmore and a spate of other major tourist attractions across Middle America over the past year.  This latest attack was just another peg on the board of America's downfall.

By the time I sat down for breakfast, Reuters reported that LUSA had taken out Wall Street and they were on the move towards Times Square.  Since I hadn't heard from Lila, I knew that rain or shine, terrorism or no, I'd have to be at Thomas Alva at 8:45 AM.  Lila was a stickler about her responsibility to the vehicular commuting population of Northeast Jersey; since I was always on time, I decided that coming in late would be in poor taste, especially during what could be the remaining days of the world as we knew it.

I got to the service turnoff between exits 12 and 11 in record time - all the traffic was heading in the other direction, west, towards safety.  Bob's Big Boy stood proudly atop the single storey structure and smiled at me warmly.  Big Boy was my favorite part of work: the unattainable ideal of a friendly server at Thomas Alva Edison Stop and Gas.  We were like most other truck and service stops on the New Jersey turnpike: small, crowded; fast turnover.  I worked at the TCBY.  It used to be a Roy Rogers until Riese Restaurants bought out the franchise and ran it into the ground as a way to devalue the brand so they could raise prices without losing customers.  You gotta love modern capitalism.  My boss, Lila Ann Gherkin, was still pretty pissed about it, even though our Roy's had been closed nearly five years.  

I drove through the special Employees-Only driveway, found my spot between the two large trash containers, and went into park.  I sat in my car for a minute - windows up, shielding myself from the distant, muffled sounds of sirens and helicopters.  It was the heli's more than anything that scared me.  I could handle the exploding sounds and pretend they were cars backfiring or thunder.  I could call the smoke a distant fire.  But those heli's positioning themselves over New York's burning cinders were a constant reminder that things weren't right.  From our service station you could see the whole of Manhattan stretched out like a surgery patient and those heli's stood there watching it behind glass from above.  Doing nothing, because there was nothing for them to do.

I went inside.  Thomas Alva wasn't busy yet.  The upcoming exodus would start over the next few hours.  First the sports cars (the selfish save-themselves types) would arrive, bats out of hell.  Then the public busses would show up.  Then the hijacked busses and trucks filled with scared strangers, introducing themselves while pressed against the windows, fitting as many people as possible in their seats.  Finally, it would be the peds - people who just couldn't fit into any automobiles walking solemnly through the Holland Tunnel, a trail of fears from Midtown to New Jersey.

We had already been stockpiling more and more since we caught wind of those first attacks, and besides, shipments came twice daily from the secret facility over in Elizabeth.  While the country was falling apart, it was places like Thomas Alva that could still offer a Snickers flurry or a Happy Meal or even an indestructible Twinkie and reassure its citizens of their safety and the normalcy of their world.

Jesse was standing at the Starbucks Kiosk, and handed me my special espresso laced with ephedrine.  We were a most dangerous pair, Jesse and I, passing the time at work by seeing which drug we could do that would still allow us to operate normally.  At first, it was definitely who could be more badass by having crazy drugs, but that backfired when Jesse and I dropped tabs during a cigarette break and started flipping out at this unfortunate woman who had the bad luck of being the approximate shape - and quite frankly, size - of a Ding Dong.  We nearly lost our jobs over it, but the Pillsbury dough-chick was past Pennsylvania before Lila even got wind of the story.  Jesse and I stuck to less obvious drugs after that.

My favorite was weed because it mellowed me out before the psychos came in for their frozen yoghurts, or "froyo" as those fucking West Coast cross-country drivers called it.  "I'll have a nonfat strawberry swirl froyo with granola, and I read on the internet that TCBY now carries wheat germ and St. Johns Wort so could I have those as my toppings too?"  Fucking hippies.  But when I smoked, I felt like a had some sort of connection to these Bay Area basket cases and besides, who gave a shit what topping young Tyler wants with his clean "baniwa" cone when you're high?  Jesse's favorite was the speed, but then, he was the one who worked at the Starbucks/Pizza Hut section, and he saw a LOT more action than I did.  

"How was the drive in?"  Jesse asked me as I sipped my super coffee.  

"Creepy.  Yours?"

"You know," he stretched his long skinny arms over his head and examined his perfectly manicured hand.  "You dodge some upturned oil tankers, you leave the house before dad sees the eyeliner.  One day at a time."

I smiled.  I couldn't imagine being in Jesse's shoes.  Trying to find yourself and assert your identity while the world forgets all about its own.  Even if I was gay, I'd never come out during a nuclear fucking holocaust.  But then, Jesse's parents were trying to recapture their wild and crazy youth.  I doubt he had anything to worry about."

It took the government six months to admit that they couldn't control LUSA.  It was impossible to tell who was a LUSA op and who was a regular citizen.  Unlike the terrorist groups of our past, this one transcended race, religion, everything.  There was a while that I refused to watch TV.  It was looking more and more like one of those terrifying sci-fi dystopia books that we had to read in high school.  All Big Brother and shit.  In the six months the government was trying to pull its shit together, LUSA claimed responsibility for four separate attacks that killed approximate four thousand people and cost over four hundred sixty-two million dollars in damages.  The country was in a panic, the inmates slowly but surely taking over the asylum.  It was some scary shit, but all anyone could do was just go about their lives, one day at a time.

Thomas Alva became a consistent place, even with its high turnover rate.  I could count on serving vanilla cups with chocolate and caramel syrup.  I could count on Jesse cracking jokes about Lila's camp director shorts that she wore even in the dead zone of winter.  I could count on everything being the way it should be.  

"You wanna start early?"  Jesse asked, unfurling a small bag of weed in his hand.

"I think we should ration ourselves today," I responded.  I wanted to be clear-headed for at least the morning, until life became utterly unbearable.

"True that.  Fucking refugees."

We laughed together.  These poor Manhattanites: so scared of staying in the big city, but what would they find out in the sticks?  Honestly, if LUSA was going to kill everyone in the country, they'd find Mr. and Mrs. Fancy Urban-Dweller wherever they hid.  

At 9:15, the first wave of refugees stopped for a bathroom break and a gas refill.  A general tension filled the air; it felt like someone had broken the air conditioner on a really humid day.   Of course, I was in the bathroom when it first happened.  I walked back through to the front entrance and everything was silent.  A family of four stood in the door, the morning sun silhouetting them against the French framing.  The father stepped forward - dust covered his head and a blood stain tinged the cuff of his pants.

"Haven't you heard?"  he said, incredulously, thinking himself Paul Revere or worse, one of the four horsemen.

Lila walked up with her clipboard sizing them up and down.

"We have coffee, pizza, Big Boy or frozen yogurt.  Do you need first aid?"  she contended, hoping to avert their attention from their previous horror.  The father looked at her, looked at Lila's stern tell-me-something-I'm-not-prepared-for expression, and softened.

"Big Boy for the family, coffee for me.  You wouldn't happen to have anything stronger?"  he asked.

"Try the Tiger Mart outside.  They're a self-supported entity.  And if there's any other way we here at Thomas Alva can help you take a load off, don't be afraid to ask," she smiled.

And so Thomas Alva became more than a service stop.  We were a comfort zone between impending Armageddon and freedom.

By 9:45, things were taking on a more normalizing state.  All the TVs in and around the Big Boy were tuned to Channel 21, for all our late breaking news and fast developing stories.  Every time a shell-shocked family came in, Lila was there with her clipboard and her direction.  By 10:15, it was like a normal day, provided no one looked out the window at the black clouds billowing from the Northeast.  Meanwhile, we all still had our totally annoying customers along with the ones who looked like death had paid them a visit and said he'd be back later after he bought a six-pack from the corner liquor store.  

Like any establishment that serves the general population, i.e. QuikStops and Burger Kings, we had more than our fair share of crazies and psychopaths.  There was always the customer who takes fifteen minutes looking at the same three options of frozen yoghurt, deciding if swirl will mix the tastes less or if just putting chocolate on the bottom and vanilla on the top with do the trick.  Or that person who won't touch the fucking yoghurt until it has a perfect top.  Do you know how many yoghurts I've had to throw away just because some parent smudged the top before giving it to young Timmy?  

And don't get me started on the Pizza Hut or Starbucks people.  Especially the Starbucks customers.  Look, this is not Rodeo Drive.  It's not Madison fucking Avenue.  Take your grande fucking-ccino and be happy you got any creamer in it.  And don't ask about whether it was harvested in Columbia or Ecuador because we don't know.   We work at a truck stop that happens to have a fucking coffee kiosk.

It takes more effort to tamp down your disgust at a customer than it does to pass them a "fuck you" under your breath with their change.  Usually the customers ignore it, some might even give you a mock indignation look like they wouldn't ever expect you to say something like that after they just insulted you to your face or talked to you like you were a six year old who broke a vase.  But, come on, most of these fuckers know when they deserved to be mouthed off at.  Most do.  Others add humiliation to the insult.  Jesse still can't spot the psychos.  It was almost 11 when my ears perked up to the unmistakable initial sounds of an "incident."

"What did you just say to me, you little queer?"  The corpulent mother of two was a veritable force in the Pizza Hut line.  Anyone could tell based on the two squirming small fry next to her, whose red faces sticky with tears had very obviously been freshly smacked that this woman was not afraid to bully less aggressive beings.  Her kind are usually the mix of getting beaten by her dominating father and subsequent boyfriends before watching Thelma and Louise on Lifetime and beating her cig to death only to be on the lam now, unwanted kids in tow, and inconvenienced by a teenage boy with a girl's face prettier than hers who has the fucking audacity to mouth off after she screams at him for not having Cinnamon Stix for the kids.  I mean, I guess could see her point, in that weird female connection way but that didn't mean I agreed with it.

"You fucking fags think you can just laugh at women like me behind my back?"  She was revving, trying to speak on behalf of "women like her" everywhere.  Shit, this didn't look good.  "You think you can take all the good men out of this world to buttfuck and leave the bastards for women?!  Fuck you!  I hope you fucking get AIDS-fucked, you faggot piece a shit!"  

She stormed away, dislocating son number one's arm in the process as she dragged them towards the door and left.  Jesse stood there, speechless with the rest of us, while a few other customers sat back at their tables and avoided eye contact with each other.  Poor Jesse.  I couldn't believe she would say something like that.  Well, I guess I could.  It was the Fear talking: that panic that paralyzes our subconscious and makes us constantly be on edge.  The Fear had gripped the nation since the first attack.  But how do you tell that to Jesse?  Not only does he have to bear the world collapsing around him with a smile, but he's also treated to the joys of a customer from hell?  That's hardly fair to anybody.  Of course, I was watching all this from my yoghurt counter perch, hardly a supportive location.

It was then that a fighter jet decided to fly conspicuously low over the service area.  These planes are so loud and frightening.  It gave us all a jump, and a baby started to bawl.

Jesse broke down then.  I don't know if it was what that woman had said to him or the jet or what, but he just couldn't keep it together.  Big, fat tears spilled onto his shirt and the cash register.  Lila let him go on break, and after a couple of minutes, I excused myself to the bathroom and found Jesse sitting outside on the curb, smoking a marijuana cigarette he had rolled for himself.

"Hey man," I announced as I sidled up to him.

"Hey."

"You okay?"  I asked as I sat down.  Jesse looked at me while taking a long drag of his joint.

"Nah, man, I just . . . " he paused.  "I just don't think our lives are supposed to be like this." His shoulders dropped.

"I know." I said.  He handed me the joint and I toked, letting the smoke fill in my lungs slowly, with purpose.

"We're just supposed to live like this?"  he asked, choking back more tears.

"We don't have a choice.  Where would we hide?  What would we do?"  The marijuana weaved its magic over my brains and innards and I let myself see the smoke of Manhattan curl into a small circus parade of elephants and horses, acrobats and cheetahs.

"I'm ready to just throw in the towel, I'm sick of this shit," he said as he wiped his sleeve across his eyes.  

"Yeah, me too." I leaned on his shoulder, and we watched the slow line of passing cars.  They looked like a funereal parade, and it took all my power not to break down like Jesse.  But one of us had to be strong.

"How can we just go about our fucking days like it's nothing?"  he cried.

"We just do," I said.  I leaned against the step and stared at my sneakers.  The soles were wearing thin and the pacific blue canvas had faced to a dull cadet blue, toned down Crayola.

"Think about it," I continued.  "It's our job to keep things normal.  We're not the police - we don't need to tell people what to do.  We just have to fucking give them their red rope licorice and Snickers bars.  We make sure they have their bottles of Nestea and Coke.  We give them crayons with their Value Kids meals.  We're the dirty dishwater of US economy, a fucking rest stop off the highway.  Now, more than ever, we have to provide a place to be re-a-fucking-ssuring because the news isn't going to do it.  The government isn't going to do it.  It's normal folks like you and me."

"I'm not normal," Jesse whispered.  "You heard her; I'm a fucking queer."

"You think she matters?  She's going to get fucking bombed.  She's going to get beaten to death by her own sons someday.  You're just as normal as anyone else here."

"Maybe," he sighed.  "I just can't fucking take it.  When will it stop?"

"Who knows?"  I said.  "Maybe when they've destroyed US economy.  Maybe when they've killed off everyone who disagrees with them.  Maybe never.  Does it matter?"

"I don't know," Jesse shrugged.  "I wish it mattered.  I wish we knew."

I looked at Jesse in all his glorious simplicity.

"Crazy fucking times," I said as I finished off the joint.

"Fucking A," Jesse responded.  

I stood up, brushing ash from my pants.  Jesse followed.  He hugged me briefly.

"Thanks."

"I do what I can," I responded.  

We smiled, and Jesse started to giggle, his confidence returning under a cloud of THC.

"She was such a fucking pig," he laughed.  "She looked like link sausages in those lycra capris!"

I looked at him and burst out laughing.  We walked back inside.

The pedestrians started arriving by 12 PM - the ones who didn't drop along the way.  It was a photography exhibit in mass destruction.  One by one, I watched a series of stills: bloody mother carrying unconscious toddler in her arms with ripped sun-dress; tall man with handlebar mustache directing people to a makeshift first aid station by the Starbucks kiosk; Jesse trying on pink shades at the Sunglass Hut behind a dying man in seersucker slacks; me, bored at my counter snapping gum with my black mascara smudged under my eyes and my scars hidden under my dirtied white uniform.  Everything moved in artful slow motion.  The soundtrack was Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" - very ambient.

Things didn't quite return to normal like they did earlier in the morning.  Peds were getting rides to safety from drivers with extra space in their cars, and every once in a while, people would just flip out about the current state of the nation.  The TVs reported the same old stories.  Tapes of LUSA leaders claiming Sears Tower, claiming Thousand Lakes Minnesota.  Garbled voices saying, "The USA won't be the same after today."

Of course it wouldn't.  There were mixed reports about the forming of LUSA.  Some people thought that foreign terrorist groups had imported their hate-speech over the Internet.  A popular theory had University professors across the nation injecting their Leftist poison into the minds of malleable students, who then conceived the ways to bring down different economic centers, including tourism.  Another myth pointed at a renegade CIA operative being the inspiration.  There were the fanatics, the fundamentalists.  Everyone had a theory.  The truth was that LUSA was in the hearts and minds of groups all over.  It was just another dollar in the economy, most likely started as a pipe dream or as a joke by some teenager pissed at her mom for making her get a job.

It didn't matter.  LUSA was here to stay, could've become a key political party if anyone admitted their affiliation with it.  But with President in power for the past six years (his second term as controversially decided upon as his first), it was just a matter of time before LUSA would have ordered a coup.  He had turned the nation into a giant corporation, with every key player monitored on CCTV.  Freedom had booked a ticket out of town months ago, and now we were left with our own lives, our own decisions.  Most days my life wasn't even affected by the government, save for the taxes they took out of every sub-minimum wage hour I worked.

By 2:30, Lila was making her rounds to each of us, both as a mental check-up along with making sure we weren't swiping from the cash register or snorting anything on her time.

"Can you fucking believe this?"  I said as she approached me.  Her white plastic clipboard had yellowed around the corners from years of age.  Lila looked like a cross between a camp director and a librarian.  I didn't know which comparison was more disturbing.

"Believe what?"  she raised her eyebrow at me.

"These people.  God, if it wasn't my shift today, I'd be hiding under my bed or something."

"You know, Rica, some people would find these times invigorating, motivating," she responding tersely.

"Not me," I said.  "Just sign me out at 6, give me my check and a forty."

She snorted at me.

"You're so predictable," she said loftily.  Looked like our little Lila had found something to feel superior about.  "Some of us look at the bigger picture."

"You manage a truck stop in the trash capital of the world," I reminded her.

She mumbled something under her breath and flipped her hair at me, before asking how business was going.  I rolled my eyes.

"Some cones, some swirl.  The new vanilla was NOT a hit," I said.  "Happy?"

"Keep being smart, Rica, you'll get yours with the rest of them," she countered before sashaying away from me and towards Big Boy.  Whatever, I thought, a dumb woman with insecurity issues.  I left my spot and found Jesse at the Sunglass Hut looking mopey - another Lila victim.  How anyone could find something mean to say to Jesse was beyond me.

"Cigarette break.  Post-haste," I said.

We went out the front doors past a mother of six maneuvering a double stroller while her two sets of twins bumped into each other like a circus act.  We found a nice spot around the side of the building where a few skaters were doing some tricks.  It was a beautiful picture: one Michael Moore would have loved: a post-industrial, mid-Apocalyptic, real patriotic sort of scene.

One of the skaters came up to us when it was clear that some type of smoking would occur, but lost interest when Jesse and I produced two Lucky Strikes instead of the expected blunt.  

"Did you ever wonder if Lila was, like, totally psychotic?"  Jesse's question surprised the shit out of me, mostly because I was jut thinking the same thing.

"Why?"  I asked.

"Do you know she's gone outside about five hundred times just to check if the garbage men have emptied the dumpsters?"

"Are you serious?"  I said.

"She goes after every third or fourth family comes in freaking out," he shrugged.  "She's so fucking weird."

"Totally," I said.

"And she keeps fucking mumbling to herself," he laughed.

"About what?"

"Roy Rogers," he looked at me, laughing.  Just then, he got totally serious.  "Hey, do you think she's in LUSA?"

While the very thought make him crack up, something clicked in my brain.

"Holy shit, what if she is?"  I answered, only half-joking.  That made Jesse laugh harder.

"Yeah," he said, "our geeky little camp counselor, leader of the most dangerous terrorist organization of this century."

"Stranger things have happened," I answered, and fidgeted with my Strike.  The paper was damp around the filter, and I wondered if the filters do anything, or were they just like truck stops, there for reassurance.

"Come on, Rica, you don't really believe that shit, do you?"

"Jesse, she totally is," I said.  Jesus, that was so wrong.  Lila couldn't be a LUSA op.  Yeech.

"Oh, whatever, I have an easier time believing you're a LUSA girl."

I looked away, and got silent.  He'd have to know sooner or later, I guess.

"Rica, that's not funny."

"I'm not kidding, Jesse."

"Holy shit!"  he took a step back, afraid.

"Shit, I'm not going to do anything, Jesse, calm down," I said.

"I can't believe you've been doing all this shit." He shook his head, and sunk down to the grass.  

"Look, I don't approve of what's going on," I said.  "It was about real change before the crazies all got involved with their own agendas.  It wasn't about killing people, or destroying the economy.  God, it was so I wouldn't be some high school brat taking a job away from someone who really needs it."

"Have you been involved in any of the, you know," he asked.

"No," I said quietly.  "Hey, I was going to leave today, after work.  Just get the hell out of here.  Go to New Mexico or something.  You want in?"

"Rica, I . . . "

"Look, Jesse.  Bad shit's going to go down.  You have to come with me."

"I can't just leave," he said.

"You have to."

Jesse sat down and put his cigarette in his mouth, puffing the last nub of nicotine.

"What's going to happen?"

I looked down at him.  He was staring at the ruins of Manhattan, the line of people stretching the thirty mile distance to us.  I could tell him the truth, or I could lie.  I chose truth.

"Some op is supposed to plant bombs at or near each of the refineries throughout New Jersey.  Thomas Alva is probably a target.  If we stay, we're going to fucking die."

Jesse hung his head.

"When?"  he whispered.

"Six," I said.  "End of the work day."

Jesse checked his watch.  4:45.

"Fucking hell," he mumbled.  "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Give me ten minutes," I said.  "Go get your shit together while I get the car."

Lila came outside then.  I looked at her differently now.  Like a spiteful animal.

"Get back to work, ladies," she said.

I walked past her, avoiding her eyes, but feeling her resentment.  Jesse controlled his breathing.  God, just thinking that Lila might be an op was awful.  Out of character.  Lila was a right-wing conservative, not to mention a fucking taskmaster tyrant.  What could she possibly have in common with LUSA?

Getting back to my counter, I gathered up the piled up trash bags that had accumulated over the day and started making my way to the back.

"Where are you going?"  Lila asked nervously.

"Throwing shit out," I said obnoxiously.  My face spelled out sullen teenager.  I wouldn't let her see fear.

"Do it later," she said.

"I don't have customers now, so I'm doing it now.  God, Lila, my area's a fucking health violation right now."

Lila took a step forward to stop me.  Just then, a family approached in need of bandages and the warmth of caretaker Gherkin.

As I got outside, I dropped the plastic bags by the doorway and surveyed the loading dock.  The dumpsters stood there, perverse little treasure chests.

I walked past them, over to my car and got in.  I got out again, and leaned against the door.  I walked over to the dumpster and flipped the top open.  There were enough plastique explosives to destroy us along with the gas refineries three miles east of Thomas Alva.  I thought of a lot of things as I flipped the dumpster shut.  It went something like this:

Ohshitohshitohshit I'm going to die I didn't walk the dog before I left my mom is going to kill me but I'll already be dead but what about my date on Friday or my future or everyone else's future and fuck if I get into my car right now I could save myself but what about Jesse and shit why is Lila so hell bent on destroying the economy I mean come on isn't it a little weird to still be pissed about, No, it can't be that.  Ohshitohshitohshit . . . .

Meanwhile, my legs were already taking me towards the safety of my car.

"Take another step towards your car, and I'll kill you."

I turned around.  Lila Ann Gherkin, savior of the truck stop and Avenger of Roy Rogers himself stood there with her 9 mm pointed at my face.

"Lila, come on," I said.  "Jesus."

"You can't go until the rest of us do, Rica," she responded.

"This is fucked up!"  I shouted.  "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"People need to understand," she stuttered.

"How?  How is anyone going to understand if you kill everybody?  There's no one left to fucking understand!"

"This isn't about us, Rica," she said.  "This is about the Liberation.  We're like a cancer on the face of America.  Our economy has become our religion, and we sacrifice thousands of our people every day to our Pig god.  We need to fight it!"

"You sound like a psycho, do you hear yourself?  And what about your own morals?  You've been helping the people you're about to kill all day!"

"You can't stop me, Rica, so just . . .  shut up!"  She hissed.

I took a step closer to her and tested her reaction.  She was scared; all the confidence of this morning was gone.  I doubted she could actually go through with the massacre of hundreds of people.  In a flash, I pulled the gun out of her hand, and looked hard at her.

"That's not what's LUSA is even about," I said before using her own gun on her.  Lila sank to her knees in an expression of shocked pain giving way to death.  Like someone so weak could ever embody part of LUSA.  Whatever.

I walked inside and got Jesse.  We had forty-five minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge.  By 5:55, we were in my car driving southwest through Pennsylvania.  My car had a full tank of gas, it'd get us at least as far as West Virginia without even worrying about a refill.  I took the roads charted out from the map under my visor.  Jesse passed me a cigarette, which I took a slow drag off as we sped farther and farther from the fireball that would be Thomas Alva.  Stockpiles of Twinkies would go up with Peruvian coffee beans picked by seven year old indigenous kids under hot suns with no breaks.  Champion shirts made in Taiwan and embroidered by slave labor in Mexico would combust along with the Coke machine and Pizza Hut boxes.  Just another truck stop would emblazon the evening haze, like truck stops across America.  There was something sick and beautiful about it.

At one point, the media estimated that out of 300 million American citizens, a third of them were LUSA operatives.  My guess would make it closer to half.  People were realizing that The Glorious American Way wasn't working.  But no one talked about their LUSA affiliation - that could get you killed.  Sure, most ops had never met.  You never knew who was in and who wasn't.  It was like Fight Club, spread by word of mouth, a much more popular form of communication over the poisonous mass media of the government.  But the biggest mistake LUSA made was assuming the problem was with US economy.  

The problem was with the US itself.  Any place fabricated on the myth of being inclusive to everyone and giving everyone a right to speak their mind was destined to be a place of conflict.  Not to say we should live in a fascist world, but come on, democracy was rife with corruption - always.  Socialism was a joke that still relied on bureaucracy, Fascism made you place your trust at the hands of insane, power hungry psychopaths and Communism a naive dream that never worked in large scale terms.  That only left Anarchy, but what could exist beyond chaos?  Everyone was wrong, and I wasn't about to stay in a place long enough to distract myself with political theology debates.  Give me some land to myself and a friend to talk to.

Jesse looked at me and smiled.  I smiled back at him; we had just survived the Liberation of two Americans from the chains of US economy, from the chains of fucking LUSA.  No one would ever know who we were; our names never made the paper.  Our two week water and food supply in the back seat; gas reserves in the trunk.  We'd leave for New Mexico and wait, watching the oil fields of Texas burn.  We wouldn't be afraid of death, or of being who we were.  I was finished watching everyone try to rewrite the American Dream.  I was ready to sit back and wait for the world to wake up.

My name was America Fernandez.  I was 19 years old.  I was destined to wake up.

Author Bio

Emily currently works at an educational children's tv network, biding her time in paradise until she can make a proper fall back to reality.  She's been published in Stanford's Womenspeak journal a few times and that made her feel pretty fantastic, but the goal of it all is to one day have someone call her a "gifted storyteller" and maybe find a book of hers in print.