The following is a short story that takes place in a near-future dystopian version of the United States that has been irreversibly fractured and divided by civil war. Most of the states and territories of the south have reformed as The Free Republic of America. The northeastern states have consolidated as The New Union of America. To the west is The New Republic of Texas, even though it stretches all the way to the Pacific Coast and very little of old Texas is part of it.

Euthanasia: “the administration of a lethal agent by another person to a patient for the purpose of relieving the patient’s intolerable and incurable suffering.” — American Medical Association

Post-Truth: “relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts.” — Cambridge Dictionary

Amendment Four of the Constitution of The Free Republic of America: All biracial individuals will be mercifully relieved of their biological suffering through state funded euthanasia to be administered in a capital city of a recognized Free Republic district. For inflicting harm on a child, the race-mixers guilty of creating and birthing the child will be summarily executed within twenty-four hours of a guilty conviction. — From the Articles of Confederation, ratified by The Free Republic Congress, the day of our Lord September 11, 2045

2045: Fort Worth, Texas, Capital City, District One, The Free Republic of America

Delilah was not her name. His name was not Jacob. In a former life, she’d been called Grace; he was Isaiah, but what did names matter now? She stared up at the tiny rectangle window of the cell door. The bay windows and French doors of the home they’d built together seemed a world away, lost to a forgotten past. Beneath her, the springs of her cot squeaked, and the bare skin of her legs rubbed across the blue plastic mattress. It was unforgiving, offering neither comfort nor solace. And why should have either?

Footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. Were the guards outside her cell like the ones in movies? Did they wear dark, single-striped polyester pants? Did they pace back and forth in front of the cells, tapping nightsticks in their open palms as they glared at the inmates, fresh toothpicks between their lips? No. This wasn’t like the movies. No bars on the prison cells, no window beaming sunlight from the outside world.

There was no light in this place. She stared at her hands, grimacing at the sight. She’d chewed her nails to the quick. Grime caked beneath what was left of them, and her cuticles resembled ripped up cauliflower. On her palm, just above the wrist of her right hand, the tattooed name taunted her. 

Delilah. Samson’s betrayer. As Grace, she’d been Isaiah’s queen. He’d said so himself, hundreds of times. She glanced down at her still-rounded belly and rubbed it. Delilah was a better name for her now. She had no grace to give him. Her eyes drifted to the corner of the cell as her bladder urged her to get up. He slept with his back to the toilet, his once regal body curled into a pathetic ball.

Jacob was an ill-fitting name. He was no deceiver, no supplanter. But he wasn’t a savior, either. Not a king and certainly no Prince Charming. His beautiful umber skin had turned purple, marred with blood and the yellowing of plasma working futilely to heal countless bruises. None of which he deserved. He’d received every cut and bruise fighting for her, fighting for their child.

What good had that done? Kayla was gone. Grace closed her eyes and imagined her. So small and fragile, only three weeks old when the seekers had found them and taken her from Grace’s trembling arms. She could still smell the strawberries of her tear-free shampoo and the faint souring of milk on her pouty lips. She knew the smell wasn’t in the cell with her. Nothing from her former life was there, not even her Isaiah. The broken man balled up in the corner had replaced him. Jacob.

Maybe the state had it right. Delilah seemed to fit. She stood and folded her arms beneath her breasts, eyes fixed on him. It had taken almost nothing for her to betray him. Not outwardly; it’s not as if the seekers had bothered with an interrogation. Innocent until proven guilty was a myth of the old world, the United States of America that had never truly been united. And innocent for whom? Not men like Isaiah. Now no one held the presumption of innocent because the seekers represented The Free Republic of America, and they were the judges and jury. They’d be the executioners, too, if not for the state’s sadistic thirst for public examples.

No, she’d betrayed Isaiah in her heart, blamed him for Kayla being taken away. He should have fought harder. Never mind the fact that he’d killed two seekers, practically with his bare hands. Nevermind he’d tried everything to get them to the resistance before the seekers found them. Did it matter that she’d wanted to stay instead of fleeing to the tunnels? No, it wasn’t her fault. Couldn’t be. It was his. Cowards fled, and she didn’t want a coward. She needed a hero, like the ones in the movies.

She wiped tears she hadn’t realized she’d been crying. Grace held no delusions that any of it was the fault of anyone but her own. It had been her idea to get pregnant, to stop the birth control without telling him. Damn the state. They couldn’t decide who she could marry or whether she had permission to bear children to a black man.

Oh, but they could. They did, and now three lives had been forfeited because of her stubborn defiance. Someone approached the door, their boots clacking on cold tile outside the cell door. They’d soon be on display for all to see. He would hang for the crime of marrying a white woman. His broken body would be a warning to anyone carrying the notion they’d be able to resist the seekers or, by default, the state. She would hang for the “sin” of lying with a black man, for carrying an “abomination” in her whore’s womb.

She no longer needed to use the toilet. The thought of putting her feet on the man she loved while she relieved herself was too much. She’d done enough to him. The least she could do was let him suffer his death without her adding more humiliation to it. She walked over and kneeled beside him. Leaned down and kissed his cheek. She pressed her forehead against his as sobs racked her body. 

She saw him in her mind’s eye, tall and regal once more, holding a newborn Kayla over his head. His teeth glimmered in the dim light of the underground clinic. She’d known then it would come to this, but she’d held on to the hope they’d be spared. That they’d be given grace. The irony stabbed her conscious as she pulled her head back. Grace. Something she couldn’t find in herself to give the man who’d sacrificed everything for her. For Kayla. 

She didn’t deserve that name. She deserved Delilah. Isaiah was not Jacob; he was Samson, and just like the betrayed man in the Bible, his story was about to end in tragedy. All because of his love for a woman, a woman who didn’t have the decency to reciprocate that love. She scanned his body with her eyes, knowing she might as well have been the one holding the weapons that had broken him, marred his beauty forever. 

Yet she hated him. She hated him because he wouldn’t get up. He wasn’t strong enough to break down the cell door and carry her off into the sunset. She hated him because Kayla was gone, but she saw her face in his, in the memory of his eyes. Eyes that would never open again. Love hadn’t been enough. Hate had torn her old life away, ripped apart the country that had once offered them the freedom and the chance to live together in peace. Love had no place in this new world. Only hate.  The door opened. A silhouetted figure filled the frame. Silently, he entered the cell, grabbed her Samson by the feet, and dragged him outside. She watched as they pulled him from her sight, as a trail of blood marked the path she’d soon walk. A second guard entered and cuffed her hands. He led her from the cell. She followed without sound or resistance, slipping once in the blood.