Day 4: Pick a country, and imagine we've been at war with it for fourteen years. Write a love story set in that world. (Authors note: all right all right I'm stupid. I forgot it was 14 years. Let's pretend it's 2. We'll catch up with them 12 years down the road another day)
No one could have ever guessed this day was coming. One was always subservient to the other, following them faithfully in all actions. The other was satiated by the obedience of its follower, and pleased by the safety this promised them.
Canadian Prime Minister Laura Twain scowled at her head of security. He had pulled her out of a meeting on the safest relocation plan for the more than 3 million residents of Toronto. They were at too much of a danger. The major city practically bordered their once friendly neighbour. Power plants had already been shut down and destroyed in a hurry to prevent them from being taken advantage of. Its residents were living with no power and minimal water, with tanks rolling down the once trendy and populated streets.
Shoved into a secure bunker with only her most intimate team, she turned to glare at the ageing 50-something man. On a normal day he was unassuming, neatly dressed in pressed grey suits and clean white shirts. Today she saw startling awareness and tensed muscles. She also saw the gun in his hand. She had specific rules about that, but he didn't seem to keen about them at that moment.
"May you now tell me what's happened?" Laura demanded, folding her arms. She was all kinds of offended when he held up a hand for her to be quiet. Dimly, she heard a strange buzzing. The realization that American bombers were now over their crucial capital airspace hit her nauseatingly.
Claire Monteve didn't believe in many things. In less than two years she had witnessed the deterioration of the Canada-United States relationship. Faced with the greater military power of their southern neighbour, many Canadians at the border fled for the safety of the sparse north. If worst came to worst, the reasoned - and it has - it was easier to hide in the dense forests that characterized most of Canada.
She was also in a former vacation cottage way out in northern Ontario, but she wasn't here to hide. In fact, she was rather hoping to be found. In the two years of escalating threats and eventual declaration of war, she found something. She found terror, watching a floating armada of US ships approach her lake front home town. She found stress, closing her blinds on Canadian tanks patrolling the town's streets. And she once found herself leaning over a tangled soldier.
Unable to watch her town be ravaged by war, Claire packed up and left for her family cottage. Her much smarter family flew out of the country for the peace of Russia (the irony of that was not lost on Claire). Perhaps a desperate part of her still hoped things would blow over, even as the news reported Vancouver being swarmed and taken by US naval forces.
The same day Niagara Falls finally fell and the border crossing blockade collapsed, she heard a flurry of activity from above. Planes. She knew planes. It was flying low. A bomber, she wondered? They hadn't been bombed yet, but she wouldn't discount this being the first day. In one of her less smart moments, Claire popped out to see a dark green balloon tangle itself in the trees.
At the foot of the tree she saw the problem.
"You idiot. Did you really try to parachute into northern Canada?" Despite the instant fight/flight reflexes going off at the now unfriendly sight of military camouflage, she had to smirk. Anyone with half an eye could see the problems with jumping into heavily foliaged, wide branched forests. "Couldn't have aimed for a field or a lake or something?"
She watched the man struggle to free himself, but his arms were twisted enough that the knife in his hand couldn't reach the most important tangles.
"If I let you out so you don't die a dangling skeleton out here, will you try not to shoot me?" She raised an eyebrow at him and waited for the nod.
It took some sawing but she got him free enough that he could take care of the rest himself. She saw his sudden movement, halted absurdly midstep, then drop back to a resigned rest. Claire knew a half-hearted grab when she saw one.
"I don't know what good it'll do you to do anything to me. It's not like we're trading hostages or anything." Claire looked away darkly. Only the other day four students out of a violent protest of hundreds had been caught at Niagara-On-the-Lake. Their bloodied bodies were seen rushing over Niagara Falls.
After an intense silence, the man spoke. "My pilot got disoriented. We were aiming for central Alberta."
Claire couldn't help it. She snorted. "Missed it by a little, eh?"
"Ya'll really say eh?"
"You people really say 'ya'll'?"
It had been five months. Calgary stood strong, likely thanks to pilots who couldn't find the city and ended up over Ontario instead. Vancouver remained in US holding. Toronto was a tense sprawl of stalemate. Montreal declared surrender under duress of bombing on the Notre Dame. Claire kicked her feet, listening to news over the radio of Ottawa being bombed. She didn't think it would come to this. If the capital fell...
She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps and remained seated. She had learned some of the patrols were jumpy and trigger happy. There was still a bullet hole on one side of the cottage walls as testament.
"G'morning ma'am."
"Nothing good about it, gentlemen."
She smiled thinly at the small cluster of men, dressed in deep woods clothing and carrying guns bigger than her.
"Seen anything suspicious?"
Claire had struck a delicate deal with them. She would keep them appraised of strange people moving about, and offer an occasional meal. In return they were good about not shooting her. And she got time alone with Michael.
"Nothing today. Just the usual planes overhead at patrol hours."
She spoke to the captain, but eyed Michael.
"All right, all right. You two can stop making googly eyes now. We'll have lunch break here."
He left two men on guard duty and the rest settled down. Michael followed Claire a little ways away into the woods.
"I've missed you."
"It's been two days."
"Days are long around here."
"It's longer when you're marching around, believe me."
They spoke idly, Claire in the crook of his arm. She smiled casually but inside she felt sick. Two years ago they would have been able to hold hands and stroll in public. Now they had to hide and sneak just to sit and talk together. She couldn't imagine anyone was really enjoying this state. People had families and friends cross-borders from decades of peace and co-habitation. Suddenly they were charged left and right for fraternizing with the enemy. She didn't care to think what her crime would be, for letting these patrols slip by and alerting them to nearby Canadian forces. Something something traitor, something something unpatriotic, something something prison.
Claire sighed. The cataclysm would come. Some day. It could even be today. But it wasn't right now. Right now she leaned into his arms, and tuned in to him enthuse on the latest prank they played on their captain.
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