The British are Coming by Suzanne D. Williams

Author:Suzanne D. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: alternate history, time travel, american history, Revolutionary War, short stories, romance, Christian fiction, romantic comedy
Publisher: Suzanne D. Williams
Published: 2017-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Between the movie they’d watched, which if he was honest, he’d found rather inspirational, and a wandering tour of the city, including the same steps Rocky Balboa had sprinted upwards, Jonas found himself in a particularly reflective state of mind. He contemplated the Liberty Bell, originally hung in the State House in seventeen fifty-two, and Independence Hall, soaking in facts which took place only months after he’d left, for the first time, an outsider to it all.

“You are upset?” Jasmine asked when they exited.

“I am ...” One person in a crowd of others observing events he had no participation in. Though they were more real to him than those from this century, he wasn’t any more connected. Indeed, his attempts to join in the fight now looked feeble. He was a faceless man, vanished in the annals of time. “Not upset,” he finished. “Would that I had more of a heartbeat to these figures, but they were only names. The document they mentioned ...”

“The Declaration of Independence.”

Jonas nodded. “It is of interest, its ideals exhilarating, I imagine, when first published.”

“But ...?”

He didn’t answer her, unsure how. How could he frame in a few words the scope of it in him? The idea of independence had become a reality, and he was a witness to both sides of it.

They visited the Betsy Ross house next, another event which followed his departure. He was a trifle more contemplative over the idea of a flag. He’d seen the current one, and Jasmine had, at one point, explained about there being fifty states. Fifty, including a chain of islands in the ocean thousands of miles from here. That, he couldn’t entirely grasp, though believing in things he hadn’t seen was incredibly Biblical.

“We can have an early supper,” Jasmine began, her voice breaking into his thoughts. “You haven’t tried Asian food.”

“Why must I ‘try’ anything new?” he asked. “I would prefer stew with brown bread. Our fare last evening gave me dyspepsia.”

Her lips pursed, she seemed to consider that.

Seated on a padded bench, a table between them, twenty minutes later, the bowl of stew he ordered wasn’t precisely what he’d pictured, but satisfying enough. He spooned the watery broth to his lips, pausing to allow it to cool.

“Why do you eat so much plant matter?” he asked.

Jasmine smiled, her fork plunged into a plateful of lettuce. “It keeps me from gaining weight. I can’t ever hope to be as trim as Idelle, but ...”

“She is thin?” Jonas interrupted.

“She is fit. She exercises a lot.”

That stirred further questions in Jonas, but he muffled them in favor of consuming his food. Across from them on a similar bench, a man shook out a news page, his face hidden behind the upheld page. Seeing the photo and headline on the back, Jonas left his meal in place and snatched it, the man’s indignant protest in his ears. Holding one finger aloft, he sank back into place.

“What is it?” Jasmine asked.

“It ... it cannot be.”

Her confusion deepened, so he folded the page and slid it to her.

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