The Exceptional Emperor
In the land of the Plenty. Where independent thinking used to rule the day. An angry contingency of populists who are energized have turned the tide of popular opinion by embracing. The thoughts and ideas of the Reich, by their convictions alone. This is probably not necessarily a repeat of the past, but it sure does seem to be in harmony with it.
Four years after he lost the presidency, he just won it back. This was mostly because he had poisoned his opposition candidate. The incumbent president seemed to of died of an apparent heart attack. After eating a tainted ice cream cone during a fundraising event at the Iowa State Fair. During his first full day in office. His first decree was to change the presidential title from. The President of the United States of America. To the Emperor in Perpetual. As the Emperor is striking back, he is destroying all of his enemies, foreign and especially domestic. During the middle of the first night, his cronies became infamous in the historical record as “The Night Of Many Guns.” All of the eighty oppositional Senators and some of the members of the Lower House were executed. For the crime of having extremely rational views on what direction the country should be going! Later still that night. The White House was burnt to the ground. It was going unused anyway, as the Emperor refers to resign from his Florida compound.
The burning was naturally blamed on the undocumented citizens. It is well know fact by the populists that they are invading the country. Proof, and the other evidence that was needed, was manufactured to make all the allegations appear true. During the first week of his emperorship, it is also the beginning of a new era for the Americans. The Great Purge is commencing. It is unfortunate for you if you are not a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian, or as they are also known as BBCs. The government will gather you up and send you to one of the many internment concentration camps that they have built for you. It’s a bit of irony that the camp is built on the grounds where we had interned the Japanese in the early nineteen forties.
if you are one of the lucky ones, deportation will happen within two days of your arrival. Or if you don’t have anywhere to be repatriated to, your fate is extermination. The white skin bleaching agents and blond hair dye have been flying off the shelves. But now, it’s unfortunate for those people who used such a product; it only bought them a little bit more time. The government has just outlawed such products.
One of the most popular slogans is, “Keep America, For Americans.” It is touted everywhere. The AFA serves as the government's purging department. They go to every home and business, door to door. They are looking for and investigating, and finding. They're in every school from kindergarten all the way through the most prestigious universities. Purging out all the under-performed and undesirables, even if you are a BBC. leaving only the true and pure Americans.
The Hudson family is an enthusiastic and patriotic supporter of the AFA revolt. They have called AFA services more often than once to clean up their neighborhood from those illegals. The Hudsons are high school educated with blue-collar jobs. The mother and father are very angry with society and are tired of being repressed by the deep state. With the left-sided, mainstream media beating their drum, and they’re seeing all of those government handouts go to those welfare families of illegals, it is driving them nuts. Especially when they see the American Dream being yanked out from underneath them. Their 14-year-old son Zachary has taken to drinking the Emperor's punch just as often, or even more so, than his parents have. He can easily recite by memory the AFA doctrine. To him, this is like a sacred text. It's comparable to the Holy Bible in his eyes.
Their daughter Lilly is a good person. I mean a really good person. All the way down to the bottom of her compassionate soul. She is one of the few BBC’S that can quite clearly see that the Emperor is wearing no clothes, but to keep her parents' punishment wrath away from her butt, she keeps quite about most things in general, and about all things of the AFA in particular. Even when Zachary tries is hardest to goad her into arguing, but most of the time he fails miserably.
José Morales used to go to school. On the day that all of the schoolchildren were sorted by the AFA. He was at his Nana's house with a wicked case of the flu. He missed the roundup of all of the non BBC’S at his school. During the night, though, they did come for him and for his Nana. He was in the bathroom getting ready for bed, when they burst through the front door, with their typical politeness, using there standard issued Jack boots for a door bell. Hearing all the commotion outside the bathroom door, he climbs out the narrow bathroom window.
It's a little cold outside for him. He is only wearing his regular bedtime clothes of a thin T-shirt and jockey shorts. Stealthily, he moves through the apartment complex to the dark alley out back. The relentless FAA's bright spotlight runs him down. But he runs past the light, then darts into another direction, even faster than the confused AFA officer can aim his light. But alas, the light finds him. He still dodges it the best that he can. He comes to the end of the dead-end alley with nowhere to go. In desperation, he climbs over the rickety fence, and in the process, he snags his T-shirt on a fence nail. Instead of fiddling with it and probably getting caught by the AFA, he wiggles himself out of his shirt and then runs like hell into and out of the shadows.
Lilly is thirsty. She gets out of her warm and comfy bed to get herself a drink of water. On the way back to her bed, she glances out the window, and from the corner of her eye, she sees a white BLOB coming towards her bedroom window. She quickly runs to the window and presses her nose against the glass. In the moonlight, she can see a silhouette of a child wearing these luminous white undershorts. She quickly walks to their back door. She opens it and then, in a stage whisper, calls out,
“Come over here now!”
Panicked and oblivious, desperate, it's evident to her that he is in need of lots of help. He immediately obeys her. As he gets closer, she recognizes José from her class. In a pleading and in a very frightened voice, he says to her,
“Please don't tell on me, I didn't do anything. Wrong. But they still want to hurt me. Please, please help me.”
“Come this way.”
She holds the door open for him. Afterward, she closes and locks the door behind him. José follows her into her bedroom. She quickly and quietly closes the door behind him. She turns on the little table lamp at her bedside. She pulls one of her fluffy blankets off her bed and lays it down in her narrow and shallow closet floor.
“Go into the closet and get some sleep. We'll sort this out in the morning.”
She barks this out in a stage whisper. Being as sick as he is, that's all he really wants to do anyway. She closes the closet door after him. She opens her bedroom door once again and gets into her now less-than-comfy bed. Then, finally turns off the light. In minutes, she is fast asleep again. José never really falls asleep, but that didn't stop the nightmares from occurring, or are they hallucinations? He doesn't really know for sure; in any case, he's miserable and is trying very hard to be extremely quiet. When he's not crying, he prays very sincerely, giving it his all. He puts into his prayers all of his hopes, fears, and a good amount of wishful thinking. He is looking for the promises and the reassurance from God that everything will be alright, and it's going to be OK.
Early morning, Lilly's mother comes to her bedroom to wake her up. She goes over to the closet and rifles through her clothes. Lilly becomes instantly terrified that she’s going to be caught with José in her bedroom. She knows that there are just some things that you really can’t explain away, and this is one of them. Her mother finds the clothes that she's looking for. She pulls out a clean and pressed school uniform for Lilly, saying,
“Hurry up and get dressed, breakfast is already on the table, and I don't want it to get cold.”
“Yes, mother.”
Mother does an about-face and quickly walks out of the room. She slaps the closet door closed, as she marches by, relieved, she gives out an audible sigh of relief. Lilly quickly gets dressed and spreads out her bed. She goes downstairs for breakfast. Afterward, she goes to her closet. Opens it up. And there’s nothing. He's missing. Lilly gets on her hands and knees looking for José, but he's definitely not where he’s supposed to be. there.
“José, where are you?” She asked in a whisper. José wiggles out from under her bed.
“Here. I'm over here.” She turns around to face him.
“I gotta go to school now. I'll see you when I get back.”
“OK.”
Back under her bed, he wiggles and waits. A little later on, he hears the radio, television, or something going on out front. It's broadcasting a very special and important message from the Emperor.
“The Great American Purge is on track. We have just begun our liberation of Canada. Soon, a massive cleanup will be underway to get rid of the people and their poisonous blood, which is diluting our BBC birthright. “A futile effort by the not so Great Britons, was a waste of our and their time, and there was a gallant effort by the frogs to protect the francophones’ in Quebec. It’s also going to go down in glorious defeat.”
As Canada is still part of the Commonwealth, Great Britain has come to their aid. France joins. In the fortification to protect the province of Quebec, as well as most of Eastern Canada. The Yanks have control over populations pockets, but the Mounties have most of the country. Britain, France, and the Canadian Armed Forces are mounting a counterattack against the Emperor.
Long after all the excitement and commotion from the Emperor's news had ended, the house was soothed into a blanket of silence. José gets himself out from under her bed. He cautiously goes through the house to make sure that no one is indeed home. When he is completely sure that he is alone, he heads straight for the kitchen for some water. He drinks two glasses, and he feels a little better. He can't remember when he's ever been that thirsty before. With a few more glasses of water in him, he’s off to the bathroom to relieve himself. While he’s in there, he looks through the medicine cabinet. He is looking for some kind of medication, anything to give him some relief. He brought back with him a bottle of cold and flu medication. He is still very exhausted, and it has taken all he had to get back to her room. He lets out all of his breath and wiggles back under her bed, for safety's sake. He's trying really hard to take care of himself, the best way that he can.
There are a lot of radical changes that have severely interrupted Lilly's school life. Most of the students are gone. Even the ones who weren't rounded up are gone. Probably they are being home-schooled, or clustered schools. School life for her has become more of a one room schoolhouse from the early pioneer days. From kindergarten to high school all the pupils are attending the same classroom. Older children are teaching the younger ones, they have to, since most of the teachers have been caught up in the ongoing purge. This is one of the many ripples that is echoing throughout the Americas.
Later on. Lilly is finally glad to get out of that chaotic place and to go back to the familiarity of her home life. Once home, she searches for José. She lies flat on her Belly, looking under her bed for him, and sure enough, there he is. After many, many attempts, he finally drifts off into sleep. That is, until she wakes him up.
“Wake up, sleepyhead.” After a few moments of silence, he says back to her.
“Hello.”
Neither of them seems to notice that Zachary is leaning up against the bedroom door jam.
“We need to find you a proper place to stay. You just can't live under my bed all the time.”
“I know it's not very comfortable down here.”
“Perhaps….”
“…Who are you talking to?”
Interrupts Zachary. In an accusatory tone of voice. Lilly has the feeling, the feeling that she has just been caught with her hands in the cookie jar, she says.
“None of your business, Zack!”
“I'll make it my business went tell mom what you have done.”
"I’ll tell them that you helped him first. They’ll believe me over you.”
“No, they won’t”
“We’ll see about that, know, won’t we. And while I’m at it, I’ll tell them everything else that you have gotten away with, like the time I caught you and Jamie doing the nasty.”
“You wouldn't?”
“Why wouldn’t I? There's nothing for me to lose. This is important to me.”
“You are serious, aren't you?”
“José come on out from under the bed.”
José wiggles sideways and slides out from under the bed, still clutching that bottle of medicine in his hand.
“José, this is my wicked brother Zach. He's going to help us take care of you.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
Zachary looks first at Lilly, then turns his gaze over to José.
“No.”
“Of course he's not.” Affirms Lilly. Zachary then asks.
“Where are your clothes?”
“When I had to leave my Nana's house, this is what I was wearing. I did have a T-shirt on, but I lost it along the way. I had no time to get dressed with them kicking in our door, I had only a few seconds to escape.”
“Why don't you take him into your room and find him a comfortable place to stay?”
“Why can't he stay here?“
“Sleeping under my bed isn't a proper place for him to live.”
Reluctantly, Zachary agrees. In a downbeat voice, he says.
“Come on then,”
They go to Zachary's room, leaving Lilly behind. Zack’s room is full of pro-AFA propaganda posters and other trinkets. Zachary digs out a space deep inside his vast walk-in closet for José, with some of the Folsom and Jetsam from the dig out, and he builds up a fake front of stuff as a facade.
“Go on in.”
José does as he's told. He curls up. To get some more rest. Zachary notices the bottle of cold and flu medicine that José is still clutching.
“Are you sick?”
“I think I have the flu.”
Zachary quickly backs away. He bumps into Lilly as she walks in. She is here to make sure that Zachary is doing what he's supposed to be doing.
“What else do you need?” Asks Lilly.
“I could use a blanket and maybe a glass of water.”
“OK.”
She goes to the kitchen and gets him a couple of bottles of water, and on the way back, she grabs the blanket that he was using last night. José hasn't forgotten his manners. Thanks, Zachary and Lilly, for all of their kindness. It's about this time that their mother comes home from work.
Zachary closes the closet door and begins to straighten up his now messy room. Lilly helps him the best that she can. She is grateful, but she's not convinced why he caved in so easily. She wishes that she knew his true motivations. Is Zachary going to turn Judas on them?
José is left alone for the remainder of the day. After the family has eaten their dinner, Zachary goes back into the kitchen and gets a small tub of lemon yogurt and a big bowl of applesauce. It's these kinds of foods that his mother gives him and Lilly when they are sick.
Zachary goes back upstairs to his room. He brings the food up to José, but he's fast asleep. He knows from his mother that rest is very important in beating back the flu. He sets it down so that José can easily find it. Quietly, he leaves, letting him rest in peace. Many hours later, José wakes up. He finds his food waiting for him with the spoon balanced on top of the yogurt container. He knows he must eat. Even if he's not hungry. Sometimes you have to do stuff that you don't want to do because it's good for you. It has taken him an awful long time to eat it all of the food he was given, but he manages.
The next few days are hard for José, but on the whole, he's doing OK. In about a weeks time, his fever breaks and he is extremely tired, tired of fighting the flu and worrying about the unknown world outside. The weakness from the sickness comes to an end, and shortly afterward, he is in full recovery. Zachary comes into the closet. He says,
“I see you're doing better.”
“Yes, much better. Thank you.”
Zachary sits down, facing him. At first, he doesn't say a word, just stares at José. This is weird, and of course, this is making José very frightened. Finally, for what seems to be an eternity, Zachary says something.
“During the before times, did you work? Or were you lazy like most of your kind?”
“I did my share of chores, and I ran errands for my family. I also mowed my neighbor's lawn in the summer. I rake leaves in the fall. I shovel snow in the winter. And I turn under the garden soil in the spring.”
“Do you have a real job like picking fruit or something?”
“I'm only 8, I mostly went to school like I'm supposed to.”
“What are your grades?”
“Mostly ‘B’s’ but sometimes I got an ‘A’ .”
“Before all of this, were you nice to my sister?”
“I’m friendly and I try to be nice to everybody, including Lilly.”
“Were you popular in school?”
“No, not really. Some of the kids looked down on me because of what I look like.”
“What do you look like?”
“I don't like to say. It isn't nice.”
“Tell me!” Zachary begins to yell at José. This scares him very much. Quietly, José says.
“Wet back.”
“Aren't you one?”
“No, I'm an American just like you are. I was born in Fresno, California. My Papa and Nana. Legally immigrated from Colombia. My Mama was born in Modesto, California.”
Zachary once again gives José an evil stare. He says,
“You don't seem to be a threat to my country. You look normal to me. I think you're a gentle boy and not the monsters that are here to rob, rape, and kill us. What the AFA says about your kind doesn't have anything to do with you, as far as I can tell, they’re plain wrong!” Zachary stands up.
“Come with me.” Zachary takes him to the bathroom. He heads straight for the shower and runs the water.
“Jump in.”
José does as he's asked, cleaning himself up. Zachary grabs José's underwear off the floor. In the sink, he scrubs them clean with plenty of soap and water.
“Don't forget to wash your hair.” José Leathers up nicely, then. He gives it a good rinse. The warm water feels so good to him. Some of his past memories come flooding out. They become unbearable at times. Fortunately for José, the shower washes away his tears.
“Are you about done?”
“Yes, I am.” Zachary reaches into the shower.
“Turn around.”
José turns his back to him, using the sponge that's hanging on the shower stall. Zachary, firmly but still being gentle, scrubs José back.
“OK, now one final rinse.”
He makes sure that every bit of soap is rinsed off José body. Zachary turns off the water and hands José a big fluffy towel. José can feel the water being sucked off of his skin.
Once he's dried, Zachary throws his wet towel into the laundry hamper.
“Let's go back to my room.”
Outside of the bathroom, they meet up with Lilly. It is apparent that she is more embarrassed by José nakedness than he is. If his modesty has been challenged, he doesn’t show it. All three of them walk into Zachery’s room. He lays José’s underwear on top of the heater’s register to dry. Showing his resolve, José casually sits on the edge of Zachery’s bed, waiting for what’s next. Zachery fumbles through his dresser drawer. He’s moving a pile of clothes from here to there, and back again, until he comes across what he is looking for,
“Here, put this on. It will be a little big on you, but at least my sister will be a little less embarrassed for you.”
José does as he is asked. And yes, it is big on him. It goes down past his knees. It looks very much like a dress on him. But José doesn’t fuss or complain; they have been so good to him so far that he sees no reason why they would do something to hurt or humiliate him now.
The embarrassment from Zachery’s comment caused Lilly to leave the room with her red, hot, blushing face. She escaped back to the sanctuary of her own room. José gets up and goes back to his hidey place in the closet. Zachery comes in behind him and gives him his tablet, saying,
“Here you go. Something for you to do when you get bored.”
Zachary leaves him to his own desires. The first thing that José does is to find out what is happening outside. He learns that Mexico has been invaded by the US and the Emperor intends to push forward to the very tip of South America, purging the Americas for the Americans. But long before they made it into Guatemala, the US was being blocked from advancing by the European Union. The blockage is being spearheaded by Spain. The Emperor wanted to use the nuclear option to force the UK and the other UN nations to yield, but that was taken off the table by the Emperor's wife.
She is hiding the briefcase with the launch codes. There is speculation that the Emperor is turning the Florida compound upside down, looking for the briefcase. She's probably hiding it in plain sight. I bet you that it’s in their bedroom. It's the only place that he has never been before. Since he seems to be sleeping with every other woman that he has met.
She's probably thinking it's a natural place to keep it hidden. During the AFA crusades. China sees the Emperor's preoccupation. They can now safely go ahead and invade Taiwan and finally take full control of the South China Sea, without any concerns of US interference. Russia is also seeing a golden opportunity, so it took back Alaska. Not since the invasion of Hawaii in 1941 has Japan tried to take on the US. In one fell swoop, they have taken over all of the Hawaiian Islands. It's not that big of a deal for them, since the Japanese owned most of the real estate there anyway.
José is looking for information on family reunification. He desperately wants to be back in his mamá's arms. With a long and deep look around, there seems to be no information out there to help him find his answers. All he is finding is a rehash of the failed separation policies of the Emperor's first term of office. The batteries are running low in the tablet. And inside of José, too? They both need to be charged. José turns off the tablet, and he curls up and goes to sleep for a while.
Zachary does his best in taking care of José. He will make an excellent father someday. He does this in a way that Lilly could never do, especially when José was sick. Sometimes, when it was possible, he would bring him a hot plate of their dinner. When it was not, he would raid the refrigerator and find something for him to eat. Zachary found out that he likes comic books. So he used his allowance to buy him some comics. That way, José would always have a fresh supply to choose from. Zachery enjoys the feeling of love that comes from being a caregiver. The captor-keeper relationship of José and Zachery has changed to a close friendship. This is inevitable when they spend long hours together talking and sharing.
They both ended up telling each other things that no one else knows about themselves. Zachary has learned the true meaning of the propaganda that the AFA spouts. José is a happy as he can be under the circumstances. He honestly believes that Zachary is a true friend. That is something he's never had before.
The Emperor, after having a few too many drinks, got into an argument with the Misses. The emperor's personal guard found The Emperor unresponsive with his head submerged in an overflowing toilet. The press exclaimed,
“The poor Emperor died in a shithole.”
The United Nations peacekeepers are being deployed in Mexico, to stabilize the country after the The emperor neutralize the cartels and the Mexican government. The emperor's generals abandoned the quest to purify Canada and immediately retreated to the Tijuana of the United States (Detroit).
The UN Reconciliation Committee. has established field offices across the country to rejoin the scattered parents with their equally strewn children. Within a week of the Emperor's death, a pair of UN field workers arrive at the Hudson's home. Donnie and Beth Hudson say more or less together.
“There are no undesirables here living here.”
Zachary, who was standing in the next room. hears what they are saying and knows who and what they want. Lilly also hears the commotion, but isn't quite sure what's going on. Zachery walks to the front door. Lilly comes downstairs just in time to hear Zachary speaking up.
“I know we're a little boy. he says he has…”
“Zachary!”
Yells Lilly. Zachary, with a stone face, looks at her. After a moment or two. He continues.
“José Morales says he lost his parents.” You can see the anger building up in Beth's face, and if looks could kill, Zachary would be a very dead boy, a thousand times over. Lilly burst into tears as Zachary betrays José in Lilly's eyes.
The field Officers are very much interested in what Zachery is saying. They wait at the door for Zachary to go and get José. In a long few minutes, José comes down the stairs. The field officers take down his basic information.
“Are you ready to go?” Says the chief field officer.
“Yes, I am.”
José turns around and gives Lilly a hug.
“Thank you for being so kind to me, and for everything that you have done for me.” He then goes up to Zachary. He bends down to José's level. José says in a whisper,
“I love you my friend.”
“I love you too, my brother.” And with that, José walks out of their front door. José and the field officer's car haven't even left the driveway before the verbal assault on their psyche by their mother has started. Father has gone to his bedroom and brought back a thick black leather belt. Mother holds down Lilly as her father gives her a good thrashing. The pains of guilt come over Zachary.
“What have I done?”
Says Zachary, but nobody really hears him. To Zachery’s father, He is old enough to know better. And Zachery seems to be responsible for bringing this illegal shame into the House.
Zachary is forced out to the garage. His mother goes out with them. She is bringing Lilly in tow. For his compassion towards José. Zachary spends over a week in the hospital with his injuries. A few weeks have passed, and finally, it occurs to Lilly that Zachary was all along doing what he could for José, and he paid the biggest price of all.
“No good deed goes unpunished.”
Two additional months slipped by, and at last, José was reunited with his family. Then, after another eight months had passed, an unexpected yet familiar face appeared in Lilly’s classroom, none other than José himself. She is thrilled to see him again. José is also glad to see her. José says that he is eternally grateful to her for all of the help that she and Zachary have given him. It took many months to be reunited with his family, but all is well now.
José says he really needs to see Zachary. But Lilly reminds him that. Coming to her house is a very, very bad idea. Lilly explains the beating that she, and especially Zachary, had gotten, and Zachery’s broken ribs and fractured wrists that he had to endure. The News saddened José to no end. He cries for his friend who suffered for him.
José was too busy thinking about his own danger to even notice the danger of his newfound friends. José arranges to meet with Zachary at the library. It's a bittersweet reunion for both of them, José says. I'm so sad and sorry for your pain. If you ever need a place to stay, you'll always have a place with me. Remember that, especially when you know that you may be getting another beating. They both plan on staying in touch over the phone and through texting. They both wanted to keep their friendship alive and healthy.