Vote with your feet: a short story

“Give me liberty or give me death!” Ben James said, poking the air with his fork for emphasis. I smiled back at my husband as he enjoyed the steak I had 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. I had enough wealth from his father’s first Bitcoin purchases to create more cities if I wanted. And Ben James wanted it.

I watched our daughter, Marla, dutifully making 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 her sundress rustled gently in the hot summer air, her apron accentuating her slim waist. We made eye contact, deep understanding and knowledge passing between us. My youngest daughter, 6-year-old Eloise, was sitting at the table doing her reading homework.

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

“They say Mars is like the Old West,” Marla said. I turned, knowing before either of them said another word how this conversation would go. “Survival is so difficult that women have to be willing to act like men, to do everything men do, either because there is so much to do or because men are dying.”

Ben James put his fork down, an eyebrow raised as he appraised her. “Maybe those boys haven’t figured out how to be masculine yet,” he said. “This 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 will not have harlots in my family or in my City.”

Marla had a sly look on her face. “So what makes men work for other men?” she joked slyly. “You don’t work for…”

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

“You are a chaotic young woman,” he said softly. “You can’t understand how the world works. You have everything you need. As a family, we are freed from the tyrannies of the state. And you’re lucky enough to be where you belong. Women are happiest at home, cooking, working with children. I will hear no more of this nonsense.”

“Yes, yes, Bitcoin gives freedom,” Marla smiled. “No freedom, better death.” In a way only a teenager could, she gave him a sly, pursed smile and turned hopefully to finish the sandwiches. “I so love spreading mayonnaise on slices of bread while my brothers go shopping for rockets on a distant planet.”

“GET OUT!” cried Ben James.

“Glad.”

Marla left, contentedly leaving the knife over the unfinished sandwiches.

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

“Jeremy was here yesterday,” he said.

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

“He would like to marry her.”

My eyes lit up with excitement. “He would bring it in line.”

“Indeed. A few more years and his Bitcoin holdings will be enough for a small City of his own. No city, but definitely a small town or a large farm that houses a dozen other families. It would drive him extremely good.”

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

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

I laughed good-naturedly and turned with a smile to the counter and began to finish their food.

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

I gave my sons their meals and asked Luke how his day went.

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

I thought back to my days before the war broke out, before society collapsed into anarchy, when I was at school learning how to build the very rockets he was probably looking to buy. He had no idea how they ran.

But Ben James always said that building rockets would never fulfill me. In the house was my happiness. I smiled at my four boys and Eloise, my husband. Those days of curiosity and problem solving are long gone. My father-in-law’s riches have made it possible for me to be truly happy here in this house without the dopamine rushes of intellectual and engineering problems solved every day.

I had married Ben James to survive, as 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 fell on the framed quote in the living room. “I don’t think we’ll ever have good money again before we take the thing out of the government’s hands, I mean we can’t violently take it out of the government’s hands, all we can do is some. a cunning detour introduces something I cannot stop.”

Bitcoin. The tool that had equalized the power dynamic between the powerful and the governed. The means of freedom for millions. The great lifter.

I smiled.

When Ben James sat Marla down the next day and told her she had to marry Jeremy, I was impressed by her calmness. She didn’t flinch, didn’t even look in my direction. She stared blankly at the floor for a few seconds. After a moment, she got a small smile on her lips and looked Ben James straight in the eyes. “Father.” She blinked. “You’ve always taught me so much.”

He looked surprised. “And?”

She shrugged. “That’s all. I want you to know that despite everything, I took him to heart.”

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

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

I had been preparing for this wedding day for years and the pieces finally fell into place with ease; buying and packing honeymoon clothes, transferring her father’s dowry savings to new UTXO, ready to join the funds with her husband. My daughter was prosperous, rich enough to own her own land, much of it.

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

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

“It’s okay, I should have. I know women don’t really like finances. It’s not your fault they overcharged you.”

I shrugged, remembering the first time he hit me; I had spent money on a plane ticket, planning a trip to visit my friends. He made it clear that women who travel alone for fun always lead to misadventures and mischief, especially when they go with their girlfriends. Later he had explained that wanting to visit my mother was equally taboo. I knew that after she married Jeremy, Marla wouldn’t come to visit anymore. She would stay home with her kids even if Jeremy visited Ben James.

Two months later, everything was ready. “I’ll see you at church,” I told Ben James. My eyes landed on the framed quote again. “A cunning detour.”

The boys headed to the bachelorette party while Marla, Jared and Eloise got in the car while I put Marla’s honeymoon bag in the trunk. We were supposed to meet at the chapel that evening for the wedding. Marla and I smiled at each other as Ben James and my older sons left.

We got into the car. Two hours later I arrived at my destination and picked up her suitcase, which held clothes for me, Eloise and the two small children. In my head and Marla’s were the same twelve words. We hurried to the waiting private jet and the pilot stepped forward to greet us and check the four discounted tickets before escorting us inside. I was in the air ten minutes later.

__________________________

We have lived in Rockson Citadel for six years. It took two whole years for Ben James to find us. He quickly realized that I had fled to a small nation that was much more prosperous than he was. There was nothing he could do to bring us back. I had my own Bitcoin that he never knew anything about, enough to run away, hire protection and couldn’t contact us. Soon I took part in the prosperity of Rockson, I was no longer in a Citadel with the minds of only 50% of its population, only able to buy broken 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 rocketry industry. Many of my female colleagues worked with the men, and our combined brain power put us light years ahead of tiny backward Citadels like Ben James. Only our weapons could wipe his city off the planet before he had time to point his angry finger in judgment.

My daughter married Jason and they were expecting their second of many children. He continued to work as an engineer in the oil industry, and Marla had a remote job at home tutoring students in physics while staying home full-time with the young child. She earned her bachelor’s degree with his support, and during college he had stayed home to watch the children when needed. She was now taking online classes for her graduation. They also pursued a thriving art business, painting every morning and selling the pieces for a high price, the shared passion that brought them together in the beginning. Every night the three of them had dinner together, and every time I wanted to stop by I was welcomed with open arms.

Until I remarried, Ben James was a joke away.

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

Marla would add: “She actually thought we’d all go back to traditional roles for women, stuck at home, being told by it What us like what WANT.”

I would laugh, Henry’s arm happily wrapped around me. “Our freedom means that people have to be better to be chosen by us – we have the means to run away, to prosper, to have the power to choose who is best for us.” Cheekily, I added, “Men need to submit more proof of work.”

Henry hugged me tighter. “We are better men because of motivation. It seems to me a net positive for society.”

Marla smiled happily. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

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