Merlot stepped away from his typewriter, its keys sticky with disuse, and slipped into the shower's lukewarm embrace. Steam swirled, conjuring memories of silk undergarments—women's bra and panties—hidden beneath his soldier's uniform, a private rebellion echoing Ed Wood's World War II secret.
On Tarawa's beaches, Wood wore pink lace against his skin, not for kink but for comfort—a talisman stitched from his mother's unfulfilled wish for a daughter. Where Wood cross-dressed for solace, Merlot wrestled with a deeper mismatch. He wasn't dabbling in costume; he was transgender, stuck in a body that needed a rewrite more urgent than any script.
Towelling off, the fogged mirror blurred his reflection like an unshot film. Merlot returned to his typewriter, haunted by Wood's shadow. Wood's later years spiralled into pulp scripts and eviction notices, his obituary ignored by Hollywood. Would Merlot's own dreams of literary fame collapse the same way—dead broke, drunk, and forgotten by fifty-four? Or was fame and fortune simply a matter of time, waiting to bloom from viewership? Only time could decide. He wanted acknowledgment—something more than a name smudged between crossword puzzles and discount coupons in the obituary column of the daily newspaper.
You're just a chapter break from the real drama, Merlot.
"Shut up!" he snapped. The voice was back—unwelcome and persistent, like acne erupting before prom night. Was a little peace really too much to ask for these days?
Merlot's mind wandered to Uncle Sam, irked by Borealia's protests to "make her boring again." Please—Boreilia had always been boring, Disney World or not. After all, wasn't she the real victim of harsh tariffs, while Uncle Sam strutted on, clinging to his image as the world's favourite scapegoat?
His mom liked the former prime minister, who'd resigned for mental health reasons. Merlot was indifferent. The guy had blown fortunes on jets, feasts, and thrones in the sky—then whined about a dead phone charger. What, no outlet on an '80s fossil? To keep his phone alive, Borealia had to build a new luxury plane.
The gifts Uncle Sam received from Borealia got a fresh coat of paint and labelled good as nice. No longer would they scream, "Love, T-DOT!" Instead, they'd proudly declare, "Made by Uncle Sam!" All Uncle Sam lifted was a paintbrush, covering the old logo like a half-hearted apology. He wanted to be seen as a first-class nation—not one built on his neighbour's hand-me-downs.
Borealia's slogan—"Out with the old, in with the new"—played right into his hands. That is, until someone clicked on those glossy online ads for Borelia's 'luxury' trains from the 1980s.
The resemblance to his own rolling stock was uncanny. Uncle Sam insisted Borealia had bought them from him fair and square, and that repainting them with his name was just 'restoration.' Really? Why was the old logo visible beneath the refurbished panels—ghosted like a watermark, stubborn as history itself? Uncle Sam wasn't worried about Borealia's influence. One-eighth the population, a few studios here and there—charming enough—but like a kazoo at a rock concert, Borealia couldn't drown out Uncle Sam's megawatt spotlight. After all, he practically owned the story. Merlot was born under his roof, raised on his scripts, and cast in a role he never auditioned for.
Merlot's head spun like he'd downed too much Sangria. He was supposed to be on Uncle Sam's side—loyal, patriotic, a voice in favour of the stars and stripes. Instead, it felt like he'd defected to the dark side, exposing Uncle Sam's less-than-glamorous truths, like photographing his house before the renovations, trying to erase the images of decay so no one would see the cracks beneath the fresh paint.
Uncle Sam's club meant your homeland came with a fresh coat of paint, a shiny new logo, and absolutely no refunds. He didn't put you on the battlefield to fight for anyone but himself. By law, a president can only be crafted under Uncle Sam's roof, to make sure nobody forgets whose team they're playing for, especially when poker nights were cancelled, thanks to Borealia's tariffs on cards.
Maybe Ricky should've been born under another flag, far from the draft and the war. But Borealia hadn't intervened. Which begged the question: if she had, would the war have been mandatory—or optional with a cup of tea on the side? Fate meant limping home to a fractured land, slapping foreign labels on its cracks, pretending it all mended.