Of my country and of my family I have little to say. We weren't always so proud, and that itself had been a point of pride. Still, here we find ourselves: looking both up and down, always terrified of left and right. Where will we have settled when the times have come?

I. How The Nation Lost Face

Starting points aren't always easy to find. For a long time, people would start this story at a later date, one more recent and obvious, but because we're not trying to do things like that anymore, we'll start at a beginning. It was lame duck season for the leader, a divisive one that inspired large swathes of the population. To them, the leader was proof that the great experiment was working. But the leader'd be replaced shortly by someone who insisted all of those things weren't just true but harmful, and so the great experiment would recalibrate.

The leader faced a law that would be problematic. The attacks were years ago then, long enough after it was thought to have a civil conversation around them. Conversation about them that wasn't bold and all caps had been synonymous with weakness and treason, but as mistakes and bills piled up, that behavior wasn't helpful. Even the boldest and all capped had to admit that they had maybe gotten away with things without thinking.

In his defense, the leader said it was a bad idea. The sessionaires needed a win for their constituencies. The majority of the attackers had come from a country that wasn't in the warpath because its top cream was super concerned and super sorry. The sessionaires talked like they were talking to us when they talked about suing them. I guess it was maybe sorta choir-preaching, maybe even dog whistling, because we all kinda assumed that this wasn't happening because the right people made their coffee with top cream or whatever.

Anyways, this law didn't mean much at first. No one really thought what to do with it rather than use it to suggest the leader was one of them.

Then the pandemic era started. There was talk of doing it on the first one, but that was such a shitshow that no one remembered the option. Two or three wet markets (or bioweapons lab leaks as the fam insisted) later, someone noticed and filed suit. The Nation sued its trade buddy back east for "negligent handling of the virus" and "allowing it to spread." Well, not The Nation but a "concerned group" representing angry folk filing individual suits, none of which were recognized out east.

It became an election issue to press the cases. In our courts, the rulings favored the home team, but that had zero sway outside. So the people who were getting elected were the ones promising to push the issue. For the first time since maybe after the attacks, The Nation was glued to UN proceedings, impassioned calls for the country to pay up. Years later, we'd be informed that the same speeches we proudly hailed and had at least one parade for had been watched and mocked the rest of the world over, even in places that were supposedly our friends.

We weren't told that the campaign was backfiring, but we felt the effects soon enough. Our new leader and his back-pocket sessionaires stumped all over "The Great Nation" saying that we were going to teach the global economy and community a lesson. There was the big speech, and every stream had explainers about tariffs and trade law. Then came explainers about inflation and investment. There weren't explainers about emptying shelves or declining employment. One of my less angry cousins was opening a business, but credit dried up overnight, except he didn't learn that for two weeks. His business didn't start, but his painpill habit did lead to a dealership.

We got tired of the bad luck. I lost a lot of aunts and uncles by voting against the Pay Me campaign cabinet, but I was struggling to stay off the painpills, and those of us who could be angry and think at the same time realized that we were at risk, not scared, and there was a difference.

The new bosses tried to be cool, but the investment didn't return after that year. Rather than apologizing, they said that the logic was sound but the execution had been sour. They wouldn't pursue more suits, but the problem wasn't the idea but that they'd not gone through international courts. Led by the mid-riff, much of the world found the non-apology more offensive than what we'd later realize they referred to as "The Tantrum."

The response didn't do us any favors. People all over the world started filing international claims against us, or rather, specific individuals who'd been party to some shit. One of my cousins was done up for a drone strike that went long. My bestie since childhood had her hubby fingered for his part in an operation that bombed a wedding, accidentally it was said. But nothing beat the John Joan Cleaver family, whose pride and joy was publicly nailed as the commanding officer of a unit that went rogue in one of the later wars, apparently gleefully watching slaughterbots give it to a village. Coders struggled to distance themselves from algorithms that had spurred ethnic cleansing. Even canine units were called out for enabling "cruel and unusual punishment."

You couldn't dart a national map without hitting somewhere where someone was getting sued. The Nation, of course, refused. But then we started getting the editorial streams by foreign emissaries explaining that we'd outlined the logic and insisted that this process was legit. Every claim reviewed so far against an American was backed by substantial evidence, much of it provided or verified at a previous point in time by The Nation. Again, the leader insisted this wasn't fair. Again, credit and investment dried up. As one emissary explained, "It's easier to continue divesting before you even factor in the asshole element."

Part II: How The Nation Lost Faith

When people ask me today, I tell them that my brother isn't that big an idiot. I mean, a lot of factors contributed to things. It's easy to blame the loudest parts, but that doesn't mean the rest don't bear knowing.

The thing about belly buttons is that there's weird stuff in there, stuff you only find in caves way out east, in like Japan and whatever. Anyway, my brother liked a good watch sesh pigging on the latest joose and crunch that they were cranking out. What we lacked in investment we made up for in chemicals and "wonder products." It was supposed to show us all that we were innovating again, but I could hardly tell. That was my lazy brain, the fam said, or just being difficult, but I stopped bleeding after getting into Poco Pig Puffs, and once I got it mostly back, I tried going organic and leaned more on painpills to deal with hunger.

Not Bro though, he loved all the latest, balanced it on his belly. Something funny would make him laugh and spill, and then he'd shrug, putting the bowl back on his rolls, compacting the mess into his flesh as I got on with the cleaning around him.

International travel, even on the continent, wasn't popular anymore, so Bro getting invited to a snack conference across the pond was a big deal. He could've done virtual, but he wanted the flex, I think. He didn't even like going to the city. He didn't take me. I begged. His plus one went to some hussy chancer on the other side of town who popped into his socials not long after the announcement. He'd insist to everyone after the trip that he'd gotten it every night, but her socials boasted (with proof) of a steady stream of random hook-ups and tricks.

Bro had been home for a few days when news of the conference virus rose and swirled. Hundreds of attendees had fallen ill with a mysterious virus, dozens dead already. It occurred in other pockets, but the number of plane passengers revealed through contact tracing pointed a pretty clear line, even in The Nation, to Bro. And then came the video from the snack panel where he dropped one of the "tasteless" Euro treats on his belly and dug it out, even scraping some of the mcanut cream out of his navel and into his mouth then the mouth of the person next to him before dumping more on, rubbing it in and around, and throwing it into the audience.

The world practically sued us, or tried. The sickness was spreading. The lint, the bacteria, the "innovative" new ingredients of our snack food - banned, it turns out, in the conference country - were running riot over more of the world as time went out. The fact that Bro should've never been allowed to bring in those snacks because of the ingredients helped deflect some the charges, and The Nation tried to bear up with the rest of the world on the new virus. We wanted things to be different this time.

A lot of time and thought went into the press conference, which was meant to be a message to the world, a restart. They even wanted my input, and after I gave it, they wanted more. Bro, it was decided, was not to speak. I suggested that they not actually have him in the same room and instead greenscreen him into the livestream, but nothing could go wrong and that technology, or at least the current technicians, weren't trusty enough.

Bro had promised, but when the leader made a joke, meant to appeal to Euro audiences who were now the ones pushing full divestment, about the quality of our snack "food," Bro rushed. He rushed hard, and you know what, the son of the bitch got on T-stream.

"I don't apologize," he said, yelling more than saying. "I don't apologize. I didn't do shit wrong. I don't feel shamed of my country. I don't feel shamed of myself. I'm not like y'all weak, scared uns. 'Merica! 'Merica!" was his grand finish. For what it's worth, I'm the one who tackled him. I'm the one who got him off the air.

That shit went live, and for a time, Bro was a folk hero. They even talked of him running for office. But again, we were misinformed about the world's response. It went long. It went large. All over the world, people were recording themselves reciting Bro's monologue. In the face of a devasting global pandemic, one that caused people to break out in puss-y boils, cough blood, and gradually lose skin in broad, thin sheets - it brought some comfort and happiness.

Not so for the Vespucci family. This was a final, lasting insult, they insisted. In international court, they sued The Nation, the whole one or the government, not just a few bad apples, for defamation and infringement. Even though Amerigo had never been trademarked, brand awareness was stronger now, and the Vespucci family demanded the name be removed from all continental proceedings. We have a year to get it done before the fines kick in.

...

The local school complex has adopted the PillPopper as its mascot, and the more you get into the cities, the more hurtful the stereotypes get. Native businesses are really set on mascots and characters that I find reductive and unfair. It's not all of us. Even the leader's team has leaned into them. Not that Bro cares. He looks at the snack packs and thinks it's a compliment. We're still settling though, but I think we're in a hole. Or at least I feel it. Every time I wake up, the walls look higher. We're still settling though. Whenever I look up, I can't shake the feeling that it's going down.