Governmental Defiance

tw: a woman shoots cannonballs out of her womb

Jacob will die at the end of the story. For you, the reader, this is a spoiler, but for him, it’s a vague concept, one he’s spent a lifetime coming to grips with. Even now, as he pops open the trunk of his SUV, as he tosses in a suitcase, a carry-on, a pregnant wife, two daughters, and a Yorkie, he wonders if today will be extraordinarily special, special enough to be composed for (at most) ten people to read before some unforeseen tragedy claims his life, as what tends to happen to main characters.

“Where are we going, dad?” asks his older daughter, who materializes from the trunk to the backseat along with the rest of his family.

“We’re going on a road trip to D.C., erm…sweety.” He doesn’t know what to call her. Why is he just now bothered by that?

In the two-bed hotel room, the kids jump on the beds and play karate. His wife holds her lower back because iti s killing her, but she wants to hug and kiss him before he leaves. She is so pregnant Jacob can balance six California Raisin figures on her belly.

“How long will you be gone,” she asks. She’s glowing, not because of the pregnancy, but because she imitates the sun. 

“Um…just for a few hours, I think.” Pregnant Wife is so bright Jacob can’t even tell what she looks like. Even when he squints, he can’t make out her features, or appreciate her smile, or stare into her eyes. That must mean she’s more beautiful than words can describe, right? Same with the children, whose features can’t cling to his mind? 

“I’m so proud of you, honey.” She brushes hair from his eyes. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” He nods, then hands her the Yorkie. It’s cockeyed.

As Jacob walks across the parking lot, he passes two background characters having a private conversation. They turn their heads to him and say something inappropriately meta. “He’ll be dead in another 2500 words, the poor thing.” “2500 words?! No way he’ll last more than another 500.”

He ignores them and hops into an Uber. The driver, white-bearded, Indian, Jewish, a turban on his head for tips, takes him to the Capitol Building. “I converted to Judaism in my twenties. Best years of my life. My name is Ajay, B-T-W. Say, am I in the story now?”

“That’s not up to me, sir,” Jacob says. Ajay snarls. Jacob shivers. He doesn’t know whether Ajay will try to kill him later. For all he knows, he’s the main character in a cautionary tale about crazy Uber drivers. No, no, no, Jacob thinks. No one in their right mind would write a crazy Jewish Indian into their story. And even if they would, at least this Capitol Building visit would have to play out, first.

Ajay doesn’t let Jacob out the faded blue Chevy sedan until the main character drops twenty bucks into his turban. They park by the steps that lead into the building entrance. When Jacob emerges from the Uber, he is bombarded with camera flashes, news reporters, and dumbass questions. “How long have you known you were the main character, Jacob Williams?” “Mr. Williams, do you hope to teach universes beyond how to live their best life?” “What would it mean for the rest of us if you’re not the right protagonist for the story?” 

He’s wearing a double-breasted blue suit over a black turtleneck, and his afro is fly and full of pride. “This is not my hair, right?” he murmurs as he clouds his chrome with hairspray. 

“Mr. Williams…” A panel of seven congresspeople wear bibs over their suits before him. Behind him is an audience of more congresspeople silently judging him, many of whom pick their noses unabashed. He feels like he’s on trial. A shorthand reporter clicks away at her stenotype machine. Someone coughs really, loud. “Mr. Williams,” said again the old guy in the middle of the panel, “as the main character, where you go and what you do reflects an image of this world and, more importantly, this United States, to readers beyond our universe, regardless of your in-story objectives. This makes you the official representative of everyone here in this room, of the president, and of all the American people. The consequences of your misrepresentation can result in shame and embarrassment for all of us until the end of time. My question to you, Mr. Williams, is what are you doing to put us in the most positive light possible?”

Jacob clears his throat into a microphone. “I, uh, have no control over the plot. I’m just the lens by which, uh, the Author conveys a message, whatever that might be.”

“Well, Mr. Williams,” began another congressperson who’s look and voice closely resembles actor Shohreh Aghdashloo, “given that you will die at the end of the story, whenever that may be, do you really want your legacy to be the one who brought shame to us all, a legacy that will follow your children and your children’s children?”

“I think, uh, the average reader cares more about the challenges I overcome than anything else. Everyone else is just, uh, background, you know? And, uh, all everyone else does is maintain the state of the world so that I can live in it, if that makes sense.” He then struts over to the panel. Not just struts, but pimp walks, his arms exaggerated in their sway. He back-hand slaps Shohreh Aghdashloo-looking congresswoman. The smack is thunderous and righteous, dig it? “And keep my motherfucking family out your motherfucking mouth!”

He stammers back in a gasp. What was that? Jeez, he really got out of character in the italics. The room is dead silent and everyone, including the congresswoman he just slapped, stares at him with pure malice. He makes a break for the exit. Everyone leaps at him from out their seat like jumping crickets, not metaphorically but literally. As he bursts through the double doors and emerge outside, members of Congress try to pull him back; they’re not taking any more crap from violent constituents. They pull off his suit, his turtleneck, his dress pants, his hair. Now he’s bald.

Parked at the bottom of the Capitol Building steps is Ajay and his Chevy with the motor running. Jacob, bald and naked and afraid, sprints from the horde of ghoulish congresspeople trying to rip his limbs off. When close enough, he leaps through the back window and lands on the backseats of the Chevy, which immediately drives off. 

“Ho ho ho! The inciting incident is quite the hoot, is it not?” cries Ajay. He’s wearing a Santa Claus jacket despite this story taking place in April. Furthermore, the interior of his car, originally beige, is now green with red seats. Glass shards fall off Jacob as he sits. 

“Oh, God! Oh Jesus! The Author’s trying to kill me. This is it. This is the story. The cautionary tale on the dangers of defying the government, probably titled, uh, uh, GOVERNMENTAL DEFIANCE or something. What will happen to my family. Will they live without me because of my murder, or cease to exist because I’m the main character? I have kids, man!” he cries to Ajay.

Pedestrians turn to vampires (dirty day-walkers) to charge at the Chevy head-on. Ajay runs over them one by one, making the car ride a bumpy one. The thousands of glass shards bounce up and down with each collision like they’re at a trampoline park—they’re having a fun time.

“Forgive my interjection, brutha,” began Ajay, “but your life seems like a very expensive Uber ride, with the driver picking the destination. You’re the main character, right? So, to me, the story is about you and your life, so why not have life your way, as Burger King intended? Don’t let life live you, wear your skin, fuck your wife. You fuck your wife and life watches. I-D-K. I just hope advancing the plot gets me in the story.”

The words of the only other character with an actual name resonate with Jacob. Not even his wife and kids have names. That has to change. A newfound determination swells within him. 

But then Ajay turns back his head. The Jewish Indian’s eyes swirl red and green, and now he wears a wicked smile and wields a battle axe with the haft wrapped in Christmas lights. Instinctually, Jacob summons the will of his taekwondo master from when he was eight and deung-jumeok-ap-chigis Ajay in the throat. Ajay’s eyes turn to X’s. His body collapses on the steering wheel. The car swerves and crashes into another parked car. 

Jacob stumbles out the vehicle. Beyond him stretches a road of run-over vampires, but standing yards away is Pregnant Wife. She wears a yellow floral pattern sundress despite being as bright as the sun. She looks distressed, with wabbly legs. “Honey, I think my water just broke.” She lifts the front of her skirt. There is a boom. An infant-shaped cannonball flies right at Jacob. He dives to the right and out the way as the cannonball explodes. 

“Not my baby!” yells Jacob. 

The wife is no longer pregnant, that is until the two daughters, cheered on by their yapping Yorkie, throw miracle dust on her. She is pregnant again. She lifts up the front of her skirt to shoot out another cannonball. It hits a parked vehicle, causing an even larger explosion than before. Jacob runs away, turning left into an intersection to hide behind a bodega.

“We’re gonna get you! We’re gonna get you!” sings the older daughter.

“Daddy, come back! We have a surprise for you!” cries the younger daughter.

Retreating inside the empty bodega, where the shop clerk hides under the register from the explosions, Jacob paces back and forth. “I-i-it’s my life, right? Then I must have a backstory. D-did I have dreams and aspirations growing up? Who was I before the story’s introduction?”

He stares at the ceiling where a thought bubble floats, revealing his past. It shows him, as a baby, cradled in his mother’s arms. She’s crying. “My little boy,” she sobs. “My sweet, little angel. You’re so special, you’re the main character. But I don’t want you to be the main character. I don’t want to lose you. Jacob’s dad, don’t let this world take my son.”

“Now, don’t you worry one bit, sugar lips,” says Jacob’s dad. He slips on a wool coat and a scarf, and heads for the door. “I’ll protect our boy with my life, ya hear? In fact, I’mma go pick up more diapers and formula right now.” He looks outside the door. “Oh boy, that traffic ain’t nothing nice. It might take me thirty years or so to get through it. And even then, I might get lost in the store looking for everything our little champ needs. Pray for me.” He leaves. 

The thought bubble disappears.

“That’s it?” says Jacob. “That’s all the backstory I get?” There’s another explosion. His family is getting closer. So is the marching of angry congresspeople. 

“Get the fuck out of here!” shouts the bodega clerk. “You think I want to die with your special ass?”

“But I’m not special. There’s no reason why I’m the main character. I’m just a guy with a family.”

Then it dawns on him. He’s not special. He’s not that smart or athletic or privileged. Nowhere in the story says he has a great job, or any job at all. He’s just a guy with a wife and two daughters and a dog. Somehow, he’s got all that going for him. A group of people that love him unconditionally, despite the plot trying to make them kill him. And as his family enters the bodega with the weaponized womb—followed by the angry mob of politicians—he thinks of how there’s no reason he should let the people most important to him slip through his fingers.

In the middle of the bodega, Jacob stands just a few feet away from Pregnant wife. She’s about to lift the front of her skirt again, to give birth to a cannonball that will blow him into the afterlife. Quickly, he takes her by the shoulders and spins her around so that she aims at that damn congressional mob—

“No!” he shouts. He wants to stay in character.

He spins her back around. He takes her by the hands. Their fingers interlace. The lights of the world dim into a deep violet, except for a single spotlight that shines over the couple. Dust particles dance around them, but to the naked eye they resemble itty-bitty twinkling stars. The glow that engulfs her fades away, leaving only her, Jenny, with her golden hair cascading down her left shoulder, her innocent, yet angelic smile turning his cheeks red. Her right hand finds his shoulder. His left hand finds her hip. Liebestraum No. 3 in A-Flat Major plays in the background and sways their bodies. Jenny’s eyes are turquoise like the Maldives. They met in college—they attended the same Statistics class. He stuttered more then. She thought he was impossibly cute, because he wanted to tell her something sweet even when his tongue wouldn’t work properly. As they dance, her lips, plump and peachy, subtly part. He hopes he doesn’t look too awkward, yet he cannot help that he sometimes forgets himself in front of her. Their two daughters, Alice and Carly, skip circles around them, showering them with rose petal from wicker baskets.

Jenny’s pregnant belly cannot help but press against Jacob. She’s far from embarrassed by this. With her dilated pupils she takes him in; his shaggy hair, his t-shirt and jeans, his awkward smile, reminds her of the young man she fell in love with so long ago. And yet there’s now a sturdiness about him that makes her proud to know that he’s the man she’s built a growing family with. Her eyes widen. They morph into terror. Her mouth lets out a scream. Her ears deafen by the screams of the congresspeople behind them. The bodega clerk, transformed into a seven-foot anthropomorphic sea monster, walks up behind the unsuspecting main character and eats him in one bite.