20th of February

The waxing crescent moon was visible early in the evening, next to the brightest Venus that had been seen in years. Visitors insisted that the sky was clearer there than anywhere else in the country, but the townspeople knew it wasn't true.

Many of them went to the river that night, to look at the heavens and wonder at the clarity of the sky, interrupting the young couples who took their cars out on the weekend to be alone for just a while. Children played in the shallows, while their parents sat down on blankets and towels, and waited for them to calm down.

The first shooting star crossed the sky before it was dark. Soon, there were so many it was impossible to keep up with them, the credulous making as many wishes as they possibly could. The night was heavy with hope and wonder, it seemed like the town had been waiting years for that night, and there was nothing to do but enjoy.

Grace Mitchell was on the other side of the river, but she wasn't looking at the sky. She was looking at her cousins and her parents and her aunts and uncles, at her little sister and her older brother, at her sister in law. She wondered if any of them were wishing for her safe return home. She smiled sadly, feeling everything that she had missed aching somewhere between her right lung and her spine. She wondered if that was what pain felt like. She wanted to jump into the river and swim across and be with her family for one night. She wondered if Sandra would recognize her, if her mother would scream, if her father would cry. She closed her eyes and concentrated on a white wall.

The white wall was a brick wall, red originally, painted white. The paint job wasn't good, some parts of the wall had thick blobs of paint, other parts were painted over so thinly that one could almost think they were pink. There were cracks in the wall, like it was part of a very old building that had been abandoned, but that didn't matter. The cracks changed every time. That night, there was one along the left edge, a crack that climbed upwards, snaking into the front of the wall and dividing into half a thousand more cracks as it neared the top. Another one crossed the wall from the centre to the top right corner, shorter than the first, but thicker, and deeper. Some flowers and a few leaves of grass had sprouted from the crack, giving the wall a thin line of green with yellow interruptions. There were seven flowers, and Grace knew each of them, although she hadn't named them.

By the time she opened her eyes again any thoughts of her family had faded, and she was able to look at the people on the other side of the river indifferently. Just a group of people who were happy that night. She smiled, even though she wouldn't have been able to say that she was happy. It had been too long missing something she didn't quite know how to replace. She looked back at the sky. She didn't believe in luck, or in god, or in wishes, and yet she wondered if maybe the act of making a wish could change the course of events. She shivered. She knew that horoscopes only seemed to guess because they were easily remembered when they applied, that wishes only seemed to come true because they were promptly forgotten when they didn't. She rummaged in her pocket and found a quarter. It was the last one she had, so it had been eight years. She might not believe in god, but she believed in ritual.

She stepped into the shallows of the river, and prepared to be shocked by the coldness and the damp. She looked at the quarter for a couple of minutes, wondering exactly what she was doing, whether she was thanking destiny for taking her away, or cursing her luck. It didn't matter anymore, it was the last quarter, the last time she would stand in the river and look across. Maybe that was why the whole town was there, to say goodbye. She threw the coin into the water and turned back. As she did she could sense the eyes of the children on her back, and for a second she wondered. Some of the elders said that only children could see ghosts.

Freedom

All that is left of the country is a burnt banner and a few marks on the ground, the frontiers that Michael Anders drew before shooting his wife and then himself. It was a country for less than four months, and even then, not one recognized by the international community, whatever that means.

The story went like this: one winter morning, Michael Anders decided to kill his wife. He couldn't have told you why, God did not speak to him, nor did voices convince him. He just knew it was the right thing to do. He also knew that he couldn't do it in his house, or even in his village, and most certainly, he couldn't do it that day, even though he owned thirteen guns, and even though he knew he would kill himself after he killed his wife. He looked at his wife, sleeping next to him. One of her arms was thrown about his chest, and he smiled at the familiarity. He almost felt sad that he had to kill her.

The next day, Michael Anders told his wife that he wanted to found a new country. Linda Anders looked at him, bewildered, and asked him what he was talking about. He explained: if America is a free country, then I should be free to make my own country out of my own land. She could see the logic in his reasoning, so she nodded, even though she did not understand why her husband wanted a country of his own. She asked as much. He replied shortly: in a country of my own I can do what I like. She shrugged, saying that he could already do what he liked in the US. He answered that he couldn't do what he wanted without fear of punishment. She laughed, and asked him what he was planning to do in his new country. He smiled, and said that the first thing he was going to do was burn a US flag.

Michael Anders declared five square feet of his land the Independent Republic of Karamungo on the 20th of February. His wife crossed the frontier (she didn't need a visa, she was married to the first and only citizen of the Independent Republic of Karamungo, after all), and stood with him while he burned the flag of the United States. She pleaded with him not to, reminding him of all the times he had pledged allegiance, and she tried to stop him, but he wouldn't have any of it. He burnt the flag and left the remains on the soil of the Independent Republic of Karamungo. Then he and his wife crossed back to the United States and went to sleep.

For a few months nothing else happened. Michael Anders knew he had to kill his wife, but he kept putting it off. There were always other things to do: cutting the grass, trying to learn French, going to work... Every day when he woke up he thought he would do it, but he never did, and the Independent Republic of Karamungo remained unpopulated. On the last day of spring, his wife asked him about his country, and he pointed towards the marks on the ground. She asked if it had a government. He looked at her, puzzled for a second, then said no. Government is only a way to limit freedom, he said. She walked into the Independent Republic, and asked him whether what he was saying was that she could do what she wanted as long as she remained within those four marks and there would be no consequences. He replied that the only consequences would be the physical consequences from her actions. She smiled, and pointed her gun at him. For a second he thought she would kill him, but then he remembered that he had to kill her. And then kill himself. He walked towards her, even as she was pointing at him, smiling. She kept her gun pointed, and her expression turned from a playful smile to fear, then to hate. He took his revolver out and shot her point blank in the head. He looked around to make sure the flag was within the four lines delimiting the Independent Republic of Karamungo. Then he shot himself in the head.

The policemen who found the bodies saw it as a murder-suicide.They couldn't make much sense of the burnt flag, or the marks on the ground, so they crossed into the Independent Republic of Karamungo without knowing they were leaving the US. Only the little girl next door, who had been watching the Anders every morning since she had moved into the house, knew what had really happened, but no one thought to ask her.

Years later, Anna Luvitch would write a book. In it she defined freedom as the right to do whatever you want without worrying about the consequences. She was of the opinion that freedom could only be reached through death.