Merlot hunched over his manuscript, buried under a landslide of student papers. Deadlines gnawed at him, but the real wolves prowled outside: student loans, late rent, and an internet bill blinking red with warnings. Sorry, folks—too broke to star in my own novel.
His teaching assistant stipend barely covered coffee, much less the gender reassignment surgery that remained a distant dream under Dr. Graydon's mounting demands. Another all-nighter had birthed Osa Dada—a figure who slithered onto the page like Idi Amin reborn: all charm in public, venom in private.
The Sangria War was meant to spill blood and betrayal, not frostbitten ceasefires scented with syrup from the frigid neighbour. His Vietnam scars—etched in '69, dodging bullets in jungles—still burned beneath his skin. Thanks for riding for free, eh.
When Merlot saw homeless people freezing on the streets of Motor's city, he couldn't help but think: at least in Saigon, they'd be warm. Tents, rations, and structure—however grim—were more than what the city offered its forgotten. War wasn't necessarily the worst fate. Sometimes peace, paired with neglect, was colder.
Merlot didn't always call a country by its real name—not when the writing became tense, when his mother's voice echoed in the margins, when the guilt curled around his ribs. He switched to nicknames: Borealia. America's Hat. Each one a mask, a way to talk about her homeland without saying its name—because badmouthing it in print was apparently a crime punishable by margin notes in red ink and eternal guilt. The same with celebrities, he would give them a 'nickname,' rather than use their real name. Sometimes, alias helped him survive the truth: the real world was far more unsettling than the fiction he could control.
Uncle Sam had to nudge Borealia to pony up for the privilege of tagging along in his military jet. Free-riding in the sky, asking for protection while clutching rainbow bills and offering warm words. Merlot snorted. You don't get to sip sangria at altitude and call it diplomacy. His fictional character, Osa, laughed, spilling imaginary wine over real-world tragedies.
The Americans' Hat—tight-fisted, frostbitten—held its coins close while Merlot was chained to that jungle slaughterhouse. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan—patterns in blood while the neighbour stayed cozy. The president's bone spur was his golden parachute, his Purple Heart for paperwork. Merlot got foxholes, mud, and body bags. He would have killed for a doctor's note.
Merlot admired the president's swagger, charming crowds like a bulldozer in a suit, scandals be damned. But Merlot craved that get-out-of-war card. He'd been terrified of Vietnam's jungles, of rotting in a swamp, of never seeing the States again if he fled to Borealia's snow, munching pastries, dodging duty. Bolt north, and he'd lose his lucky star—his American soul. That star was worth the fight, worth earning through blood.
Merlot had skimmed the cover of The Art of the Deal once—just enough to know it wasn't art. The president's face stared out like a wax figure halfway through melting, all squint and swagger, as if charisma could be photoshopped. Satire was survival for Merlot and the president; it was treason with punchlines. He didn't hate nuance—he hated mirrors.
Merlot smirked, envisioning the president's review of The Sangria War: "Total flop, folks. One star for trying, a crumb for Vietnam—while I was out building empires, making history, winning so much it was exhausting. Zero for 'favourite' with that extra 'u,' like you're saluting some dusty king. Fake American Literature.The Art of the Deal? Blockbuster wins, pure gold. Sangria War is a recipe for sad veterans: trauma, whimpering, sangria—shaken, lukewarm. Just a broke vet crying into Kindle screens. Not my favourite."
He glanced at his wristwatch. Time for the evening news. He left his desk for the worn brown armchair and turned on the television using the remote control on the glass, wooden-framed table.
The blue-and-red striped hat—like a prime minister who wore a toque instead of a helmet—wanted to slash military spending while begging Uncle Sam to stand guard. The U.S. president demanded tariffs as payback for American veterans' graves. Too many graves, on American soil. His jaw clenched with fury.
The hat retaliated—heavier than a snowplow—crushing Harley-Davidson for Arlington's dead, slapping whiskey while smirking over rye. Twenty-five percent on steel? What were they supposed to build—tariffs out of drywall?
Numbers on a screen—but to Merlot, it was raw. One country bled in jungles, another hid behind paperwork. His scars screamed: Paid by me, not you
Borealia didn't wear hats or chant "Make it great again." They whispered, "Not for sale," while waving rainbow bills that screamed polite pluralism. Cute currency, shame about the silence when I was dodging bullets. America was a melting pot—boil or be boiled.
Uncle Sam didn't want pillow talk about shared values; he wanted profit. A fifty-first state? Pfft. Borealia thought she could charm her way into the family without paying the blood price. Uncle Sam doesn't do bad sex or bad business. The president was a businessman. He knew how to cut deals—and how to walk away when the margins got sentimental.
Uncle Sam had laced up size-12 liberty boots—stars on the soles, stripes on the laces—and started kicking out guests who forgot the apple pie. Merlot's boots, scuffed in '69, had trudged through mud, not golf courses. Borealia's absence back then stung worse than the tariffs. They offered sympathy, not soldiers—just warm words, cold hands, and a smug, "We don't do that." Yeah, you don't do many things, like show up.
Merlot wanted to say more about the neighbour. The syrup. The snow. The silence. He had lines ready—acidic, precise, unforgiving. But revealing them would've made him a criminal in polite society. His mother would read the manuscript. She'd call it bitterness. Say he was being too harsh. Reminded him of the care packages. She'd scribble in the margins: "Don't make it too American."
How could he not make it American? It was like asking an alligator to sunbathe in Lake Erie. He was caught between two worlds: the country he was born into and the country that had given him life. Growing up, his mother insisted 'favourite' was misspelled without a 'u.' Did he have to spell like the monarch was watching?" He'd ached English if he'd dropped the "u," but she'd never let him be fully American.
To him, she was like his father, never allowing him to be trans. Had she forgotten that the scars from the draft were etched on him like stripes on a flag? He had fought because he knew safety always came at a cost. And yet her country—orderly, polite, always smiling—often relied on diplomacy and small contributions while leaving others to shoulder the heaviest burdens.
Did she forget her people cheered when the White House burned, crowing about 1812 like a campfire tale? That online song, gloating over American "losers," set his jaw tight. How do you claim victory when you sat out Vietnam?
The president was branded a coward for dodging the draft; his medical excuse—a bone spur in his heel—wasn't good enough for his haters. They claimed he bribed the doctor, bought a diagnosis like he bought buildings: overvalued and underexamined. Their relentless attacks ignored the agony of his condition, dismissing it as a convenient lie. What more did they want—X-rays posted on Instagram with the hashtag #BoneSpurHero? Since when did having a fat wallet guarantee a clean bill of health? Maybe he should gift-wrap a broken leg and call it a "luxury injury." He'd proposed a National Bone Spur Day to honour those enduring similar silent struggles, but critics sneered, labelling it a dodge, not a tribute. They refused to see the courage in facing daily pain.
But critics dismissed the idea, calling it a symbol of avoidance rather than bravery. They argued it was a celebration of dodging military service, not a recognition of genuine sacrifice. When he literally dodged a bullet from a crowd, no one called it bravery. Apparently, bullets only count if they're flying through Saigon—not across Uncle Sam's front lawn. Maybe it's time to recognize the battles fought outside the battlefield—because pain and courage don't come with a single uniform.
Merlot, a keen observer, noted a grim pattern in the presidency: the first president's horse felled by two bullets, the sixteenth shot dead in a theatre, the 35th, gunned down in a car, and the forty-fifth grazing past a bullet's path. The office seemed a magnet for lead, raising the question: was the only promotion here straight into the ground?
Borealia dodged tariffs with more finesse than the president ever dodged the draft. Waving rainbow-coloured bills, she welcomed thousands of draft dodgers—serving pastries and snow cones while Uncle Sam's sons came home in coffins. Her moral high ground was a snowbank: sparkling under praise, but melting fast under the heat of scrutiny.
Merlot needed an editor who got his rage—someone American, someone who knew the cost of staying, not running. But his mother worked for free, and surgery costs loomed. The TRICARE envelope lay crumpled on the table. Coverage terminated. Nonpayment. Another missed deadline. Serving was supposed to mean security—bleeding in a jungle should've bought care for life. But the system cared about premiums, not scars. Hormones? Gone. Therapy? Out of network. Surgery? Never covered—not for someone who transitioned after the medals.
Back then, honesty meant exile. His father was alive, and coming out would've torched the inheritance. Merlot wore the uniform, swallowed the pronouns, and waited for the old man to die. Freedom came late, at a price.
He turned back to his manuscript, pushing the timeline ahead by eight years, desperate to keep readers from dropping like flies. His contract hung by a thread—one bad semester, and Dr. Graydon would cut him loose.
Clara, the gossiping TA, had already tattled on his disastrous date with Lemony; she had seen him at the restaurant, alone with his glass of sangria. His reputation, his love life, and his sense of self wobbled like a badly plotted arc.
Merlot shuffled to the kitchen, hands trembling as he poured coffee. The pot clattered, echoing his frantic pulse. He returned to the manuscript sprawled across the table.
The line stared back: Osa grinned, and empires burned.
It felt alien. Menacing. His stomach lurched.
Did I write you—or did you crawl out of me?
No. That was fear talking. The voice inside his head liked to play dirty tricks—whispering that he was fiction, not flesh.