The United States of Rebellia

by RJ Pritchett

  We made it to the bedroom. I remember her taking hold of me and pleasuring me until I let out a loud moan. I’m not ashamed of it at all, it was a wonderful feeling. I couldn’t hold it in. I haven’t felt that in a long time. The sex that night was amazing, leaving me on cloud nine throughout the entire out of body experience. She scratched my back while I thrust my hips into her. Our souls renewed their vows as she nibbled on my right earlobe. I pushed myself inside deeper until she screamed out in ecstasy. Hearing her moan turned me on even more than I already was. After I kissed my way to her nipples, my tongue danced on her areola while I continued penetrating.

  I licked on her neck alternating between kissing and licking, I knew that’s where her soft spot was, so I continued to do it until the eventual climax. I loved nights like those, I missed them so dearly. I missed that feeling because it’s been so long without it. That incident at the mall really did a lot of damage to our marriage but I guess she’s finally bounced back… or needed a distraction. I was much happier when I closed my eyes to drift off into my drunken coma. My marriage was saved.

  I woke up to a scream. My eyes popped open and I looked around, “What’s wrong?” I asked, “Did something-?”

  I wasn’t home. In fact, I wasn’t even in my own bedroom. I looked to my right to see Teresa sitting at the edge of the bed with her sheets wrapped around her naked body and her hands were grabbing at her hair. I look down to find myself naked as well. What the hell-? “Did we?”

  “No. No. No,” Teresa said, “this is bad. Very bad.”

  “How did-?” I couldn’t speak, “What happened?”

  “You should leave,” she couldn’t look me in the face, “Please. Get your stuff and leave. I can’t…”

  I didn’t speak. The moment was so awkward that I’m getting embarrassed even talking about it right now. I cursed myself as I quickly got dressed and ran out the door without saying anything to her. She probably didn’t mind though. She seemed angry with herself more than she was at me. I don’t even remember how that whole thing happened. It’s like everything was a blur after the cab stopped to pick me up. I couldn’t remember anything to save my life.

  I took a cab home that morning. I felt like I had to call Anthony to tell him to lie for me. I needed an alibi, but he couldn’t help me out. When I called, he told me that my wife called him at about two in the morning and he told her that I wasn’t there. Thanks, Anthony. Now, what could I do? I had to stop to think of how the hell I was going to get out of this. This never happened before. I cheated on my wife. I was screwed. I didn’t mean to, I was drunk. Damn. I swore to never drink again after that.

  My phone had tons of missed calls from Meagan and Margaret. I checked my voicemail to only see one. It was from my daughter, Margaret. She didn’t sound happy (which she shouldn’t have).

  “Dad, you’re in big trouble. Call mom this in--!” my phone died.

  When I got home, I saw Meagan staring through the first-floor window at me. She was pissed.

  “Where were you?” she shouted at me, throwing a shoe at my head as soon as I walked in, missing by a couple of inches, “Where’s your car? And where the hell did you stay last night?”

  “I got arrested,” I said. It was the very first thing that came to my mind. “I was at the bar last night to watch the Panthers game and trash talking with some Jets fans turned into a fight. The cops came and took me, and a couple of other guys in. I tried to make a call, but they wouldn’t let me.”

  She looked at my face and then down to my neck. I had a scratch on the side of my neck and she touched it, running her finger over the scab. I winced in pain. “Ow. Don’t touch it,” I whispered, “The car is still in front of the bar. I meant to go get it, but I had to tell you what happened first because I knew you would get mad. Also, my phone is dead, so I couldn’t call when I got out.” I showed her proof that my phone was indeed dead. It wouldn’t turn on when I tried.

  She was scarily quiet. I was scared just by that look she had in her eyes. “You are to never go to that bar ever again for as long as you live. Do you hear me?” she scolded me.

  “But I didn’t know those guys,” I said, “never seen them at the bar before--”

  “I don’t care. You will never go to that bar again,” she said, “I’m about to go take Junior to school. We’ll talk later.”

  I felt sorry for her. I promised to never go to the bar again and I was serious. It was an accident and that accident would never happen again. I didn’t go to work that day. I stayed home with her and we went over the details of what happened. I was amazed that she actually believed me. She even gave me a hug and a kiss but kept emphasizing that I was never allowed to go back to that bar. She even gave my ring back without much yelling. “I won’t go back, Baby. I promise,” I said for about the twentieth time. I felt horrible.

  Friday came, and my wife sent the kids to her sister’s house for the weekend. It was just me and her, spending the entire weekend together in the house. She even promised that we would have sex. I needed that. I wanted to move past the whole Teresa thing. I haven’t spoken to Teresa since that day. She’s been calling, but I never answered. I couldn’t.

  “Now we can finally use these things,” my wife came into the room wearing lingerie and holding a pair of handcuffs.

  “Uh oh, somebody’s been reading-” I said, but she shushed me, placing a finger on my lips.

  “No talking, just screams,” she whispered into my ear before kissing my cheek and licking my neck. She grabbed my wrist and handcuffed me to the bed. She grabbed my other wrist and followed the same procedure on the other side. She smiled and crawled on top of me, kissing me while unbuckling my pants. My eyes were closed as she tickled my stomach with her tongue. She pulled my boxers down to my knees and kissed me one more time. “Hold on, just a minute,” she whispered, “I forgot something.”

  “Okay, hurry up,” I said. She had my adrenaline pumping at that moment. I hope she doesn’t take too long.

  “Keep the bed hot and ready for me,” she giggled.

  I stared at the ceiling for about fifteen seconds thinking. Damn, we never had sex like this. I guess that book taught her some new tricks. She came back smiling with her hands behind her back.

  “Put this on,” she said, putting a blindfold or a sleep mask -whatever you call those things- over my eyes. “They say that when one of the senses are cut off, your other senses grow stronger. You’ll feel everything better if you can’t see,” she whispered into my ear before caressing the lobe with her tongue.

  She kissed me and stuck her tongue in my mouth as she placed the blindfold over my eyes. “You’re mine forever,” she kept saying, “mine forever. Only mine.”

  I started to feel something burning my skin, “Ow! Hey, what the fuck is that!?”

  “You’re mine forever,” she said, this time growling at me, “No more Teresa for you.”

  “Wait. What?”

  “Oh, I know all about your little one-night stand,” she snarled, “I’ve heard the voicemails she sent to your phone.”

  “Voicemails? What voicemails?” I truly had no idea what she was talking about. Teresa never left voicemails. She only called, and I edited my call log whenever she called.

  “Don’t worry, I deleted them before you could,” she said, “‘Oh, Bernard call me back. We need to talk about what happened between us that night after we left the bar. It never should’ve happened’,” she mocked Teresa’s voice, “You think you can cheat on me and get away with it, Bernard? After everything we’ve been through together, you cheated on me? After everything I’ve been through these past few months?”

  “Baby, I didn’t-”

  “Save it!” she shouted.

  I screamed as the fire she lit next to me touched my arm. The excruciating pain spread throughout my body and finally touched my pillow, “Fuck! Ah! You crazy bitch!” I screamed. The last thing I can remember is hearing her screaming as well as she laid across my chest, holding my bu
rning body tight.

  Chapter 3 (Prison Break)

  “We saved you from being a slave. You should be thanking us.”

  I’m now standing in this courtroom. I’m waiting to plead my case, but I’m all alone. No judge is sitting before me, no lawyer is here to assure me that everything will be fine, no police officers are here to give me dirty looks and pretty much assure me that I won’t win this case, there’s not even a jury full of a bunch of unqualified people that think I’m guilty just by looking at me. I’m just here all alone with only my thoughts to keep me company.

  I know he’s coming. The judge is close enough that I can feel his presence. I try to think of what I’m going to say to him when he comes. How can I plead my case? I mean… I’ve made mistakes in my short life, but nothing dire. Nothing serious enough to send me away from where I stand.

  I finally hear his voice… but the only problem is, I cannot make out what he’s saying at first. When he begins to speak, the sound of a trumpet being blown masks his words. I know where that sound is coming from. Humans have been anticipating it for years, and now the time has finally come. I know there are billions of other people in my position right now. Although I know this, when I look around the courtroom, I cannot see anyone else. The judgment begins when the seventh trumpet stops making that earsplitting sound. My ears are still ringing a little bit after the silence returns.

  “Are you worthy?” is the first thing I hear when the ringing in my ears stops. I look around, anticipating someone else to be here. I don’t see anyone. Much to my surprise, the voice doesn’t have a face. What the fuck?

  “What?” I ask, getting to my feet. “Show yourself.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Come again?” I’m easily getting agitated. “Show yourself!” I say louder.

  “What makes you worthy?” the voice says… was that the same voice? It sounded a little feminine this time around.

  “Show yourself,” I say again. Silence follows.

  “Why should you enter?”

  I guess it’s ignoring me, so now I’m getting more pissed than I already was. It’s bad enough that I’ve been sitting in this room alone for what feels like hours, and now I can’t even see the person I’m supposed to meet.

  “Listen, if you are who I think you are,” I say to the voice (or voices), “then you should know exactly what I’ve done to deserve a spot. You put me in a fucked up situation -no, as a matter of fact- you put damn near everybody in a fucked up situation, and you did nothing to help. I’ve tried my best to make the world a better place. That’s the same world that you watched burn for centuries. So, the question shouldn’t be ‘what I’ve done to earn your trust,’ the question should be ‘what have you done to help me get out of that fucked up situation you put me in?’ or ‘why should I trust you?’”

  The voice stays silent. I am standing in silence for about ten seconds before speaking again. “Hello?” there is no answer, “I believed in you. I shouted your name in those collapsing church buildings; I’ve spread my messages to all of those people down there running around like decapitated chickens. I put in an effort to help, and my life ended prematurely. Where the hell were you when I was laying in a pool of blood? Where was your protection? All my life I was told that if I had faith, you would protect me… but you weren’t there for me, and now I see that you’ve finally pushed the reset button. As I’m speaking, the billions of people on Earth are being raptured with the good and bad still scattering around their crumbling communities. Some of the people that you’re leaving did no wrong in their lives and you’re still leaving them on that piece of shit planet you created to face humanity’s tribulations. Some people were fortunate enough to temporarily escape from your wrath, fleeing in spaceships to the new home they found in preparation for this.”

  The room is silent, but I know he’s listening. “Time has frozen down there. Cars are crashing, planes are falling down and smashing against buildings. The creatures of the air aren’t flying; the only thing flying is debris. The creatures of the sea are flopping inside dried pits with blood on their scales as they breathe their dying breaths. Land creatures are running for safety but they’re not fortunate enough to escape your wrath. An atheist guy slit his throat right after the first trumpet sounded off, scaring the ever living shit out of him -but I ask you this question… Will you call him into this courtroom, or will you obliterate his soul? I know he didn’t believe, but you didn’t give him a reason to. You never showed up to prove your existence until it was too late. Are you really a forgiving God, or an entitled piece of shit like the Bible claims you to be? You sat down and watched evil form on Earth for thousands of years. You watched all the dictators inside and outside of the United States throughout history. You’ve watched what the United States has become, and you did nothing. However, you still expect people to trust you. You saw what money did to the world, but you refused to destroy it. Instead, you allowed it to destroy us. You sat while other humans sent us to jail, sent us to war, and sent us to this very courtroom that I’m standing in right now. Tell me what did you do for those people?

  “A third world war ensued and therefore, a fourth trumpet was heard after the third. And then a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were destroyed, leaving us in complete darkness in a third of our world. The only thing is, those third world countries have been living in darkness for years while the ‘superpowers’ lived in luxury and fake poverty. Yeah, I’ve heard all of the seven trumpets. Most of them I’ve heard when I was down there. However, I didn’t hear the final one until you showed… until you spoke. It’s sad that the world had to end for me to finally hear your voice. I’ve seen the invisible horsemen plague the world, but they were doing that long before the first trumpet. For as long as I lived, death, pestilence, war, and famine have been present growing up in a cold and dark world.

  “Everything that I’ve seen was all prophesied in the Bible. I used to go to church until I saw how corrupt it was. The same people who tell me about your love and power are the same people forcing their love upon naïve souls and gaining power for themselves. They’re stealing your identity; making money off of your name and power… They want to be gods. They say they follow the footsteps of Christ, but they’ve never walked on water a day in their lives. You watched them get away with all their wretchedness for so long that I find it weird that now you are deciding to take a stand. The same preachers that steal money from their communities, sexually assault women and children, and use your name to give them strength over their congregation -are now scrambling the earth and praying for your forgiveness. Will you forgive them when it’s their time to appeal? I sure as hell hope not.

  “There were billions of people who had a hunch that they would live forever -shit- I bet billions were hoping to see this day. They wanted the world to end. Some out of curiosity, others just hoped to live in a post-apocalyptic world with no rules. Some predicted this day, but I knew better. No human could or would ever predict the end of the world. ‘The world will only end when Science becomes the biggest religion’ and because it did, that angered you. It angered you enough to watch forty percent of the world’s population burn?

  “You watched me all my life. There’s this saying that we use where I’m from: ‘Real recognizes itself.’ So, with that being said, if you don’t recognize how much good I attempted to do for the human race, then that shows me just how real you are… You shouldn’t have to ask me about my accomplishments because I know that you watched every single one of them.

  “You’re asking me what did I do for you? I tried my best, God. And that’s all I can do… try. I don’t have the power to change the world, you do. So don’t have me standing before you and ask me a question like that. I created Rebellia to tear down the machine that is manufacturing humanity’s extinction. I’ve been trying to do your job for you because you refused to show up and do it yourself. Don’t ask me what holy deeds I did to make you proud. I was G
od-fearing during my whole entire life, so don’t fucking ask me that. Instead, ask me ‘why should I want your acceptance, especially after all of the evil you allowed?’ You’ve allowed the four horsemen to wander the earth without much of a battle, but I’m the one who should beg for your mercy? I’m the one who should beg to be accepted into your little golden gates? Don’t flatter yourself. Don’t talk about what I did for you, let’s talk about ‘what did God do for me?’ Besides expect me to live a sin-free life in a world full of sins, famine, corruption, greed, death, and disaster-” and while I’m ranting, everything around me begins to wither away before my very eyes. I now feel myself falling, but I’m not afraid. If anything, I asked for this.

  * * *

  A man snapped out of his slumber to find out his vision was blurry behind the dark sunglasses that covered his eyes. He pulled himself up into a sitting position and leaned against the frame of the bed he was in, staring at what looked to be jail bars locking him inside. He was trapped in a place he didn’t remember entering. What made matters worse is, he could barely make out his surroundings.

  A funny feeling overcame him. The light from the setting sun beaming through the nearest window made his eyes squint when he took the sunglasses off. His vision was blurred for about thirty seconds before it normalized, much to his delight. “Where am I?” he said aloud to himself, looking around. He crawled out of bed, rushed over and wrapped his hands around the metal bars of his cell. “Hello?” he shouted, “What is this? What am I doing here?” he shook the bars as much as he could, but they wouldn’t budge. He was trapped. “Oh, this is horrible,” he said when nobody answered his calls. He looked around on the outside of the cell, but he could see nothing… He saw something. There was someone turning in another cell’s bed. “Hey, you! Where are we? Is this jail?”