Vote With Your Feet: A Short Story

“Give me liberty, or give me death!” Ben James said, poking the air with his fork to emphasize. I smiled back at my husband as he enjoyed the steak I’d grilled in the backyard. He was telling me about the second Citadel he wanted to create, this one affiliated with us, run like ours, but on Mars. We had enough wealth from his father’s early Bitcoin purchases to create multiple cities if we wanted to. And Ben James wanted to.

I looked over at our daughter, Marla, dutifully whipping up sandwiches for her brothers before they came home; she was beautiful, the sun shining behind her long hair as a breeze blew through our kitchen windows and gently rustled her sundress in the hot summer air, her apron accentuating her slender waist. We made eye contact, deep understanding and knowing passing between us. My youngest daughter, 6 year old Eloise, sat at the table doing her reading homework.

In Ben James’ citadel, every child was home schooled. Some of us moms cooperated to lighten the load, teaching another’s children for a year or two, then switching it up.

“They say Mars is like the Old West,” Marla said. I turned away, knowing before either spoke another word how this conversation would go. “Survival is so difficult that women must be willing to act like men, to do everything men do, whether because there’s so much to do or because the men die.”

Ben James set down his fork, eyebrow raised as he assessed her. “Perhaps those boys just haven’t figured out how to be masculine yet,” he said. “That behavior would not be tolerated on my citadel on Mars any more than it is here. No woman of mine will ever work for another man. I won’t have whores in my family, or in my Citadel.”

Marla got a sly look on her face. “So what does that make the men working for other men?” she quipped slyly. “Didn’t you used to work for—“

Ben James’ chair made a painful screech on the floor as he exploded to his feet. My husband and my teenage daughter stared each other down, and I wanted to grab her arm, pull her back, tell her to stop being a rebellious and impulsive child. In a Citadel, the word of the Sovereign was law. And he could exile you, or worse, on a whim.

“You’re a young, chaotic woman,” he said quietly. “You cannot understand how the worlds work. You have everything you need. As a family, we are free from the tyrannies of the State. And you are lucky enough to be where you belong. Women are most happy in the home, cooking, working with children. I will hear no more of this foolishness.”

“Yes, yes, Bitcoin gives Freedom,” Marla smiled. “Without freedom, better death.” In a way only a teenager could, she grinned deviously at him, mouth pursed, and went back superciliously to finishing the sandwiches. “I do so love spreading mayonnaise on slices of bread while my brothers are out shopping for rockets to a far away planet.”

“GET OUT!” Ben James shouted.

“Gladly.”

Marla left, smugly dropping the knife on the unfinished sandwiches.

I sighed, looking at him sympathetically. “She’ll learn,” I said.

“Jeremy was here yesterday,” he said.

“Oh?” I asked, my heart starting to speed.

“He would like to marry her.”

I brightened my eyes with excitement. “He would bring her into line.”

“Indeed. A few more years and his Bitcoin holdings will be enough for a small Citadel of his own. No city, but certainly a small town or large ranch, housing a dozen other families. He would run it extremely well.”

My four sons all ran into the home at the same time; 7 year old Jared, 13 year old Bo, and the 17 year old twins, Jackson and Luke.

Ben James smiled broadly and sat back down at his steak. “Finish their sandwiches,” he told me.

I laughed good-naturedly and turned with a smile to the counter, and got to work finishing their food.

Ben James had approval in his voice. “That, boys, is a good woman! Never ask a woman to make you anything for dinner; you must tell her. If she says no, walk away. If she complains about how you ordered her, find another woman. A fundamental test of a woman’s quality.”

I handed my sons their meals, and asked Luke how the day had gone.

He smiled at me. “A bunch of stuff you wouldn’t understand,” he told me lovingly.

I thought about my days before the war broke out, before society had broken down into anarchy, when I had been in school learning how to build the very rockets he was likely looking at purchasing. He had no idea how they ran.

But Ben James always said making rockets would never fulfill me. It was in the home that my happiness was. I smiled at my four boys and Eloise, at my husband. Those days, full of curiosity and problem-solving, were behind me. The riches of my father-in-law made it possible for me to be truly happy here, in this home, without the dopamine rushes of intellectual and engineering problems solved each day.

I had married Ben James to survive, the way women had done since the dawn of time. He was my provider and protector. He had taught me a lot, and his passion for self-sovereignty had infected me.

My eyes rested on the quote framed in the living room. “I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can't stop."

Bitcoin. The tool that had equalized the power dynamics between the powerful and the ruled. The means of freedom for millions of people. The great uplifter.

I smiled.

When Ben James sat Marla down the next day and told her she was to marry Jeremy, I was impressed at her stillness. She did not flinch, did not even glance in my direction. She stared blankly at the floor for several seconds. After a moment she got a small smile on her face and looked Ben James directly in the eyes. “Father.” She blinked. “You’ve always taught me so much.”

He looked taken aback. “And?”

She shrugged. “That’s all. I want you to know that despite everything, I’ve taken it to heart.”

He looked at me, bemused. But then told her, “You’re to be married in two months, once all the wedding details are arranged. You and your mother will work it out.”

Marla finally looked at me. There was a new seriousness on her face I had never seen before. But I understood; she was ready.

I’d been preparing for this wedding day for years and the pieces finally fell easily into place; purchasing and packing up clothing for her honeymoon, transferring the money her father had saved as a dowry to new UTXOs, ready to join funds with her husband. My daughter was prosperous, rich enough to own her own land, a great deal of it.

My husband saw the charge to the airline later in the day. “I see you got her honeymoon tickets, a little pricey.”

I grimaced. “I wanted them to fly private.”

“It’s ok, I should’ve done it. I know women don’t really like finances. It’s not your fault they overcharged you.”

I shrugged, remembering the first time he had hit me; I’d spent money on a plane ticket, planning a trip to visit my friends. He had made it clear that women traveling alone for fun always lead to affairs and evil, especially when going with their female friends. Later he had explained that wanting to visit my mother was equally taboo. I knew that after marrying Jeremy, Marla would not be coming to visit anymore. She would stay home with her children even if Jeremy visited Ben James.

Two months later, everything was ready. “We’ll meet you at the church,” I told Ben James. My eyes landed on the framed quote once more. “Some sly roundabout way.”

The boys headed to the bachelor party while Marla, Jared, and Eloise piled into the car while I put Marla’s honeymoon suitcase in the trunk. We were to meet at the chapel that evening for the wedding. Marla and I smiled at each other as Ben James and my older sons drove away.

We got into the car. Two hours later we reached our destination, and grabbed her suitcase, which held clothes for myself, Eloise, and the two young children. In my head and Marla’s as well were the same twelve words. We hurried to the private airplane awaiting us, and the pilot stepped forward himself to meet us and verify our four discounted tickets, before escorting us into the interior. We were in the air ten minutes later.

__________________________

We’d been living in Rockson Citadel for six years. It had taken an entire two years for Ben James to find us. He quickly realized that we had fled to a small nation that was far more prosperous than he was. There was nothing he could do to get us back. I had my own Bitcoin that he had never known anything about, enough to flee, to hire protection, and he could not reach us. Soon I was taking part in the prosperity of Rockson, no longer in a Citadel with the brainpower of only 50% of its population, only able to purchase rundown rockets, but in Rockson, a society that built new ones and created innovation. I added my insatiable curiosity and joy of discovery, my brain power, to everyone else’s, contributing to society and the rocket industry. My many female colleagues worked with the men, and our combined brain power had us light years ahead of tiny backward Citadels like Ben James’. Our weaponry alone could wipe his city off the planet before he’d have time to point that angry finger of his in judgment.

My daughter married Jason, and they were expecting their second of hopefully many children. He continued to work as an engineer in the oil industry, and Marla had a remote job at home, tutoring university students in physics while staying home full time with the toddler. She had earned her bachelor’s degree with his support, and during her University studies he had stayed home to watch the kids when needed. She was now taking online courses for her graduate degree. They also had a thriving artwork following, painting each morning and selling the pieces at a hefty price, the shared passion that had brought them together in the beginning. Every evening the three of them ate dinner together, and any time I wanted to stop by I was welcomed with open arms.

By the time I remarried, Ben James was a distant punchline of jokes.

My husband, Henry, would say, “I can’t believe he knew that Bitcoin would give power and freedom to men to vote with their feet, but couldn’t foresee it would give women the same power with men.”

Marla would add, “He actually thought we’d all go back to traditional roles for women, stuck at home, being told by him what we like, what we want.”

I’d laugh, Henry’s arm wrapped happily around me. “Our freedom means men have to be better to be chosen by us—we have the means to flee, to thrive, to have the power to pick who is best for us.” Cheekily, I added, “Men must put in more proof of work.”

Henry hugged me tighter. “We are better men due to the motivation. Sounds like a net positive to society to me.”

Marla smiled gleefully. “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

This is a guest post by Ninja Grandma. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.