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.