The Patriot’s Grill

What would it mean if the winds of authoritarianism now blowing across America were to gain the upper hand? What sort of nation would we become?

Joe Carlton knew the next morning would rewrite the future. Would it be a bloodbath or a 22nd century rebirth of American freedom. He shook his head. The whole thing seemed so absurd. Him leading a national insurrection. He wasn’t a leader. Never claimed to be. And it wasn’t as though he’d planned and built the rebellion from the ground up — more like it built itself, trapping him inside in the process.

But then, for Joe this had never been about political ideals. It was about paying a debt. The kind you can never really repay — a debt for a betrayal that cost a man his life. It was that man’s dream he’d been fighting for, not his own. A stranger’s dream of a free America that led Joe to become the public face of the rebellion and a hunted man. He’d sacrificed so much for this other man’s dream, and yet, he knew, the debt had still not been paid in full.