Chapter 14
Looking out the window, James could see the purple-tinged clouds hanging above the city like a pall, despite the almost festive atmosphere in the streets. The various news stations had carried the footage, live from the UN, as dignitaries from the United States, Britain, China and Russia formally signed a treaty, ending the conflict that had dragged on for the better part of a decade. The hundreds of attending members of the United Nations had provided the four presidents a standing ovation, claiming the negotiated cessation of hostilities to be a monumental leap forward in international diplomatic relations.
It was, he decided, one of the greatest hoaxes ever constructed. He had briefly wondered what France, the only other permanent member of the Security Council and the nation that was spearheading the peace negotiation, was getting out of the deal, but that was easy enough to figure out.
No Canadian representative had even been present at the signing.
He stared at the television, shaking his head. He was really glad Brigitte was still at work and didn’t have to witness this. “It’s almost pathetic,” he murmured.
From where she was sitting in her recliner, her hands clasped together in an interrupted motion of excitement, Alyse looked over at him, frowning. “James, this should be a time of celebration. The war is finally over.”
Choking back a caustic laugh, James rose from the sofa and marched into the kitchen. “Have you noticed that they haven’t disclosed the terms of the treaty, Alyse? Did you want to hear them before they are announced?”
She glared at him and crossed her arms. “I suppose you are going to tell me that your father told you what the specific terms of a treaty that didn’t exist when he died would be?”
“He didn’t bloody have to,” James snapped. “I got there all by my lonesome. You think Canada still exists, Alyse? Wake up. The little piece of paper those fucking arrogant pricks are signing is Canada’s death certificate.”
“Watch your language in this house!” Alyse hissed, rising to her feet. “What would you know about it? Are you some political scientist, now, like your father? Or are you some kind of self-proclaimed psychic?”
James’ eyes narrowed, and he stared coldly across at her. “You want a psychic? You want a reading? Okay, well how’s this, Alyse? The terms of the treaty they are signing will do all of the following things: first, the UK will be granted some kind of “protector” status of the Maritimes, including fishing and off-shore oil rights. Second, Russia will be ceded the arctic islands as a permanent part of their nation, and will be granted similar “protector” status of the northern territories...” he began ticking each item off on his fingers. “France? They’ll be invited to act as a neutral “buffer-zone” to supervise the American withdrawal, and will be granted control of Quebec. China will be offered the same opportunity in BC, though they will likely refuse everything but Vancouver and Vancouver Island, which they will occupy like the British held Hong Kong in the 1900s... but in reality they’ll get something even better out of this deal, though no one is going to mention it out loud. As for the US, well, they’ll be ‘required’ to arrange an organized withdrawal of forces from the rest of the Canadian interior, but will be granted dispensation to supervise the implementation of a new, ‘democratic government’ in those areas.” He slammed a hand down on the kitchen counter, and then motioned to the television. “Watch and see, Alyse.”
He turned to leave the room, but then he spun around again and strode back to glare at her. “Oh, and as for that ‘democratic government’ the US will be required to institute? That’s one area in which the Americans have had plenty of prior experience. Setting up puppet governments is their meat and potatoes. But if you think for one minute that they want to establish a central government in a territory that, even after it’s been auctioned off is almost as large as the continental US, you’re in for a surprise. It’s too big a risk, having a large neighbor again. I’d bet that they are going to try something ‘new’ and go back a few centuries to the concept of self-governed city-states. The smaller areas and smaller populations make them easier to control, easier to manipulate, and easier to stamp out if they need to. Oh, they’ll market it as the newest type of government, but it’s been done before and it didn’t work.” He turned away, shaking his head, and his voice grew very soft. “So go ahead and cheer with the rest of these short-sighted morons, Alyse... but sooner or later you’ll realize that this isn’t a celebration...” He paused at the door and looked back over his shoulder, his eyes terribly sad. “It’s a wake.”
He closed the door gently, leaving Alyse staring after him with wide, frightened eyes. He hadn’t meant to explode like that, but he hadn’t been able to restrain it. For years, he had been trying to get others to see what was happening, to try and take action while there was still time. At first, his ideas been dismissed because he had been so young; only his father had taken him seriously, back then. Then, when he was old enough for people to listen, they had ignored him because they couldn’t see that far down the road or else didn’t want to believe that things could get worse. Now... now it was too late. The wheels were in spin.
People were celebrating in the streets; jubilant cries rebounded off the boxy apartment buildings as men and women howled their bacchanalian cries of victory into the uncaring sky. Above him, the purple clouds roiled and rumbled ominously, but the celebrants paid the thunder no attention. The lyrics to an old song his father had once loved played in his mind, and he knew that soon a hard rain was going to fall.
The stream of people on the streets grew, and he found himself wanting to get away, away from the chaos of triumphant fools unwittingly celebrating their own undoing. He ducked down a side-street and found himself in a small park. There weren’t many of those left in the city, and he hadn’t even known this one existed. He stared around at the tiny green space. A few slender aspens stood sentinel at either end of the small path, and a wooden bench with a bright brass marker sat beneath a relatively young maple tree in the middle of the park. He felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease, and he walked over to the bench and read the inscription on the small plaque:
Dedicated in loving memory
To Hope
The sounds of the revelry grew distant as he stared in silence at the words.
Hope.
How long had it been since he had lost hope, he wondered. As far back as he could remember, he had awaited the future with a mounting sense of fear. It hadn’t helped that his father had always anticipated the worst possible scenarios, he supposed. It had led James to look forward with the same sort of critical pessimism.
He glanced back in the direction he had come, listening to the distant revelry as the people of Calgary collectively voiced their hope for a better future, people who had suffered through war and a decade of Occupation, through drought and despair. It was no surprise that they celebrated, really. They thought that what lay ahead could only be better. Sighing, he glanced at the placard again. Was hope dead, then? He could anticipate what would happen next; his mind had played through this scenario in a thousand different ways, and he kept coming back to a single direction that the city could ultimately go, and it wasn’t a happy picture.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he turned his face upwards as the first drops of rain splashed down onto the dry, parched ground. He sat down on the bench and leaned back, letting the water stream down his cheeks like tears. It would start simply, he knew, the next step in the downward spiral. While the Americans would be gone, their legacy would remain. The presence of foreign powers in the east and north would fragment the fragile sense of Canadian identity, especially when those areas received economic and social aid from the occupying powers while the west did not. The idea of a central, federal government like the one Canada had before the American Occupation could not be supported in the face of that discrepancy. Even before the war the western provinces had felt excluded from the balance of power; and while the remaining provinces would wish to retain their boundaries, they would not have the economic strength to do so. The idea of city-states would appeal to the larger urban centers, and unless James missed his guess, the people that would be left in charge would use the media to reinforce the belief that the cities could manage to be self-sustaining. Already the media was manipulated, with American sympathizers at the controls.
He shook his head and wiped the rain from his eyes. People would be too excited in the weeks to come about the departure of the American forces to pay too much attention to who was being left in charge of what, meaning that anyone with enough power or money could take control of the economic foundations of the new system. The water plants and oil wells that were currently in operation, and which employed almost the entire workforce in the various cities, would still require a market, and the infrastructure for selling it to the US was already in place. The government, made up of the same people who took control of the corporate interests, would argue that the revenue those industries created was critical for economic stabilization, and would claim that seeking other markets was currently unfeasible. Trade of Canadian resources to the US would continue, unabated. The rich would get richer, and the poor would have to either continue working – likely at a lower rate of pay than they currently received – or face starvation. It was a recipe for virtual slavery.
The rain beat down steadily, and a slight shiver ran down his spine as water crept along his skin under his jacket. How long, he wondered, before the people celebrating on the streets realized that they had condemned not only themselves, but their children and their grandchildren, to indentured servitude?
He turned on the bench to look at the inscription again. To Hope.
What hope remained? He could hope that he was completely wrong, that somehow events would unfold contrary to how he saw things unfolding, but that wasn’t hope so much as fantasy. People were people, and someone always saw a way to make a profit from the misery of others. He could hope that people would listen to him, and that together they might be able to alter the course of events, but he had been trying to get others to listen to him for years, now. If he’d had more time, perhaps he could have rallied enough support for real change before the American withdrawal, but as it stood, people would be in no mood to listen to what they would view as pessimism. Alyse was proof of that. They had all wanted the Occupation to end for such a long time, and now that the end was in sight they would be blind to everything else.
And if whatever government came into power wanted to keep power, they needed to erase all recollection of what life had been like before the war, before the Occupation. Otherwise people would start to question why things hadn’t gotten better.
Immediately his mind went to the little stash of books he had in his room.
Knowledge was a kind of power, he knew. If you could keep people ignorant, you could keep people complacent. As soon as they began to understand, they became less tractable. It was one of the principle reasons why the invention of the printing press had been such a major contributor to the downfall of feudalism. Once knowledge had been made available to anyone, people had begun to think for themselves, to question the way things were done.
He shivered again, but this time it wasn’t from the rain that was creeping down his back. More and more, books had become a thing of the past. The internet had been effectively eliminated after the war as a security precaution taken by the American Occupational Government. In addition, many of the major libraries and the university had been among the primary targets during the first stages of the war. A generation of school children had been educated in only those areas that the Occupational Government had deemed ‘appropriate’, which had purposefully excluded huge chunks of history and had prohibited certain books from being studied.
It had taken Europe the better part of ten centuries to claw its way back from the last time it had been overrun by barbarians. He wondered how long it would take this time.
And suddenly a glimmer of something blossomed in his soul.
His own generation was doomed. In all likelihood his children, if he had any, would be condemned to live in terror and abject misery. But maybe, just maybe, he could salvage something... he couldn’t find any hope for the present, but perhaps he could find a way to give hope to the future.
It was, he decided, one of the greatest hoaxes ever constructed. He had briefly wondered what France, the only other permanent member of the Security Council and the nation that was spearheading the peace negotiation, was getting out of the deal, but that was easy enough to figure out.
No Canadian representative had even been present at the signing.
He stared at the television, shaking his head. He was really glad Brigitte was still at work and didn’t have to witness this. “It’s almost pathetic,” he murmured.
From where she was sitting in her recliner, her hands clasped together in an interrupted motion of excitement, Alyse looked over at him, frowning. “James, this should be a time of celebration. The war is finally over.”
Choking back a caustic laugh, James rose from the sofa and marched into the kitchen. “Have you noticed that they haven’t disclosed the terms of the treaty, Alyse? Did you want to hear them before they are announced?”
She glared at him and crossed her arms. “I suppose you are going to tell me that your father told you what the specific terms of a treaty that didn’t exist when he died would be?”
“He didn’t bloody have to,” James snapped. “I got there all by my lonesome. You think Canada still exists, Alyse? Wake up. The little piece of paper those fucking arrogant pricks are signing is Canada’s death certificate.”
“Watch your language in this house!” Alyse hissed, rising to her feet. “What would you know about it? Are you some political scientist, now, like your father? Or are you some kind of self-proclaimed psychic?”
James’ eyes narrowed, and he stared coldly across at her. “You want a psychic? You want a reading? Okay, well how’s this, Alyse? The terms of the treaty they are signing will do all of the following things: first, the UK will be granted some kind of “protector” status of the Maritimes, including fishing and off-shore oil rights. Second, Russia will be ceded the arctic islands as a permanent part of their nation, and will be granted similar “protector” status of the northern territories...” he began ticking each item off on his fingers. “France? They’ll be invited to act as a neutral “buffer-zone” to supervise the American withdrawal, and will be granted control of Quebec. China will be offered the same opportunity in BC, though they will likely refuse everything but Vancouver and Vancouver Island, which they will occupy like the British held Hong Kong in the 1900s... but in reality they’ll get something even better out of this deal, though no one is going to mention it out loud. As for the US, well, they’ll be ‘required’ to arrange an organized withdrawal of forces from the rest of the Canadian interior, but will be granted dispensation to supervise the implementation of a new, ‘democratic government’ in those areas.” He slammed a hand down on the kitchen counter, and then motioned to the television. “Watch and see, Alyse.”
He turned to leave the room, but then he spun around again and strode back to glare at her. “Oh, and as for that ‘democratic government’ the US will be required to institute? That’s one area in which the Americans have had plenty of prior experience. Setting up puppet governments is their meat and potatoes. But if you think for one minute that they want to establish a central government in a territory that, even after it’s been auctioned off is almost as large as the continental US, you’re in for a surprise. It’s too big a risk, having a large neighbor again. I’d bet that they are going to try something ‘new’ and go back a few centuries to the concept of self-governed city-states. The smaller areas and smaller populations make them easier to control, easier to manipulate, and easier to stamp out if they need to. Oh, they’ll market it as the newest type of government, but it’s been done before and it didn’t work.” He turned away, shaking his head, and his voice grew very soft. “So go ahead and cheer with the rest of these short-sighted morons, Alyse... but sooner or later you’ll realize that this isn’t a celebration...” He paused at the door and looked back over his shoulder, his eyes terribly sad. “It’s a wake.”
He closed the door gently, leaving Alyse staring after him with wide, frightened eyes. He hadn’t meant to explode like that, but he hadn’t been able to restrain it. For years, he had been trying to get others to see what was happening, to try and take action while there was still time. At first, his ideas been dismissed because he had been so young; only his father had taken him seriously, back then. Then, when he was old enough for people to listen, they had ignored him because they couldn’t see that far down the road or else didn’t want to believe that things could get worse. Now... now it was too late. The wheels were in spin.
People were celebrating in the streets; jubilant cries rebounded off the boxy apartment buildings as men and women howled their bacchanalian cries of victory into the uncaring sky. Above him, the purple clouds roiled and rumbled ominously, but the celebrants paid the thunder no attention. The lyrics to an old song his father had once loved played in his mind, and he knew that soon a hard rain was going to fall.
The stream of people on the streets grew, and he found himself wanting to get away, away from the chaos of triumphant fools unwittingly celebrating their own undoing. He ducked down a side-street and found himself in a small park. There weren’t many of those left in the city, and he hadn’t even known this one existed. He stared around at the tiny green space. A few slender aspens stood sentinel at either end of the small path, and a wooden bench with a bright brass marker sat beneath a relatively young maple tree in the middle of the park. He felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease, and he walked over to the bench and read the inscription on the small plaque:
Dedicated in loving memory
To Hope
The sounds of the revelry grew distant as he stared in silence at the words.
Hope.
How long had it been since he had lost hope, he wondered. As far back as he could remember, he had awaited the future with a mounting sense of fear. It hadn’t helped that his father had always anticipated the worst possible scenarios, he supposed. It had led James to look forward with the same sort of critical pessimism.
He glanced back in the direction he had come, listening to the distant revelry as the people of Calgary collectively voiced their hope for a better future, people who had suffered through war and a decade of Occupation, through drought and despair. It was no surprise that they celebrated, really. They thought that what lay ahead could only be better. Sighing, he glanced at the placard again. Was hope dead, then? He could anticipate what would happen next; his mind had played through this scenario in a thousand different ways, and he kept coming back to a single direction that the city could ultimately go, and it wasn’t a happy picture.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he turned his face upwards as the first drops of rain splashed down onto the dry, parched ground. He sat down on the bench and leaned back, letting the water stream down his cheeks like tears. It would start simply, he knew, the next step in the downward spiral. While the Americans would be gone, their legacy would remain. The presence of foreign powers in the east and north would fragment the fragile sense of Canadian identity, especially when those areas received economic and social aid from the occupying powers while the west did not. The idea of a central, federal government like the one Canada had before the American Occupation could not be supported in the face of that discrepancy. Even before the war the western provinces had felt excluded from the balance of power; and while the remaining provinces would wish to retain their boundaries, they would not have the economic strength to do so. The idea of city-states would appeal to the larger urban centers, and unless James missed his guess, the people that would be left in charge would use the media to reinforce the belief that the cities could manage to be self-sustaining. Already the media was manipulated, with American sympathizers at the controls.
He shook his head and wiped the rain from his eyes. People would be too excited in the weeks to come about the departure of the American forces to pay too much attention to who was being left in charge of what, meaning that anyone with enough power or money could take control of the economic foundations of the new system. The water plants and oil wells that were currently in operation, and which employed almost the entire workforce in the various cities, would still require a market, and the infrastructure for selling it to the US was already in place. The government, made up of the same people who took control of the corporate interests, would argue that the revenue those industries created was critical for economic stabilization, and would claim that seeking other markets was currently unfeasible. Trade of Canadian resources to the US would continue, unabated. The rich would get richer, and the poor would have to either continue working – likely at a lower rate of pay than they currently received – or face starvation. It was a recipe for virtual slavery.
The rain beat down steadily, and a slight shiver ran down his spine as water crept along his skin under his jacket. How long, he wondered, before the people celebrating on the streets realized that they had condemned not only themselves, but their children and their grandchildren, to indentured servitude?
He turned on the bench to look at the inscription again. To Hope.
What hope remained? He could hope that he was completely wrong, that somehow events would unfold contrary to how he saw things unfolding, but that wasn’t hope so much as fantasy. People were people, and someone always saw a way to make a profit from the misery of others. He could hope that people would listen to him, and that together they might be able to alter the course of events, but he had been trying to get others to listen to him for years, now. If he’d had more time, perhaps he could have rallied enough support for real change before the American withdrawal, but as it stood, people would be in no mood to listen to what they would view as pessimism. Alyse was proof of that. They had all wanted the Occupation to end for such a long time, and now that the end was in sight they would be blind to everything else.
And if whatever government came into power wanted to keep power, they needed to erase all recollection of what life had been like before the war, before the Occupation. Otherwise people would start to question why things hadn’t gotten better.
Immediately his mind went to the little stash of books he had in his room.
Knowledge was a kind of power, he knew. If you could keep people ignorant, you could keep people complacent. As soon as they began to understand, they became less tractable. It was one of the principle reasons why the invention of the printing press had been such a major contributor to the downfall of feudalism. Once knowledge had been made available to anyone, people had begun to think for themselves, to question the way things were done.
He shivered again, but this time it wasn’t from the rain that was creeping down his back. More and more, books had become a thing of the past. The internet had been effectively eliminated after the war as a security precaution taken by the American Occupational Government. In addition, many of the major libraries and the university had been among the primary targets during the first stages of the war. A generation of school children had been educated in only those areas that the Occupational Government had deemed ‘appropriate’, which had purposefully excluded huge chunks of history and had prohibited certain books from being studied.
It had taken Europe the better part of ten centuries to claw its way back from the last time it had been overrun by barbarians. He wondered how long it would take this time.
And suddenly a glimmer of something blossomed in his soul.
His own generation was doomed. In all likelihood his children, if he had any, would be condemned to live in terror and abject misery. But maybe, just maybe, he could salvage something... he couldn’t find any hope for the present, but perhaps he could find a way to give hope to the future.