Words to Live By - A Countryhumans SovAme Story

Act I, Chapter II - Symbolic Start

October 1926

Washington D.C., United States of America

Content Warning: Alcoholism

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I walked through a park in D.C., my boyfriend by my side, his arm linked in mine. We'd just come from a lovely little restaurant, before sitting together under the stars, and now we walked through the park, on our way away. He'd come to visit me from his home across the sea, as was with all country relationships. This is an issue I've always had with them, they're all long distance.

"Who is that that you've invited down here again?" He spoke to me as we walked.

"Oh, just Soviet. She said back in '23 that she'd love to come down here, and she tells me she's got an open schedule at the moment."

"When will she arrive?"

"Tomorrow. The only ships from Europe arrive then."

Imperial Japan said nothing. I couldn't tell if he was jealous because he knew that I did indeed like girls, or if he simply had nothing else to say. Just in case it was the former, I figured I needed to open up another subject to talk about.

"Sad that you're leaving today, yes? Shame we couldn't have just one more day."

The real shame is that that wasn't true. 

"Yes," he replied, "a real shame."

He pulled me into a quick kiss, and I could tell he'd been cheered up by my wishing for him to stay.

We walked out of the park, continuing down to the Potomac river, in the heart of the capitol. He was gone in a flurry of kissing cheeks and waving goodbye, away on a ferry that would take him to the ocean, and then onto another ship that would bring him to Europe, where he had other business. It wasn't long before I had made it back to my home on North Carolina Ave., the closest that I could get to living in my home state. 

I still live on that street.

As I'm sure you heard earlier, my problem with alcohol swelled in the '20's and '30's. Just because I was in a stable relationship with an, at the time, incredibly kind man, doesn't mean I was happy. I did not love the Japanese Empire. We'd been friends before our relationship, but that didn't mean I loved him. I only said yes to him because I did not want to hurt his feelings, and the guilt of my actions weighed down on me like a yoke.

Alcohol was illegal in 1926; prohibitionists advocated that it ruined lives all over the planet. However, nobody in the country cared. Everybody brewed illegal liquor, or bought it from places that did. The only alcohol that I'll ever drink in quantity is whiskey, and I had an abundance of it in 1926. The second I got home, I dropped my things on the ground, slammed my front door shut, and went straight to the cellar, where I kept my spirits. From the shelves of my illegal stores, I pulled the bottle that was my relief. When I drank, I drank to rid my mind of the guilts of my life. Sometimes it was specific, other times it was just for general. This time, it was specific. I did not want to think about the man who proclaimed he loved me, and I did not want to think about how inevitably, I would have to hurt him when I told him the truth that I continuously put off speaking of.

However, just like every other time I found myself here, my reason for the drinking always evolved down the same well-worn path. It brought me to thinking of the Russian Empire and our strange, semi-loveless affair. It brought me around to my Native American family, who'd all been murdered when I was only fifteen. From there, I was taken back to the genocide of the natives, and all the blame I rightfully placed on myself for horrible things that I had done.