Silent Constitution

Drew Wade
Jul 19
3 min read

Chapter One: The Line in Bronzeville

Kimiya Allard stepped off the #3 King Drive bus, exhaling a faint breath into the late March air, still crisp from winter but laced with hints of spring. Chicago loomed like a jazz chord—sharp angles and improvisational grace—and she, a thirty-three-year-old internal auditor from Montreal, was here not for the city’s music, but for its numbers. Her assignment with BMO was routine: a weeklong internal controls review of the Chicago branches. But she had arrived early, two days ahead, to feel the pulse of this storied place.

Bronzeville wasn’t in the tourist guides they gave out at O’Hare, but it was exactly where she wanted to be.

There was a quiet beauty to the block—murals peeling slightly with age, stoops dressed in modest dignity, and an electric energy grounded by generations of soul. Kimiya had booked an Airbnb off 43rd Street, a brownstone walk-up with a shared garden out back. She liked being among real people. And truthfully, she felt closer to home here than in any hotel downtown. Maybe it was the air, or the smell of onions frying through an open window, or maybe the way the elderly man on the porch nodded to her like they’d met before.

She slid her phone back into the side pocket of her canvas bag and stepped inside Mariano’s. Her grocery list was simple and familiar: bananas, blueberries, a gallon of water, almond milk, oats, long-grain rice, canned beans, ground turkey, onions, garlic, bell peppers, and a bundle of slightly wilted kale she figured she could revive in a cold rinse.

The self-checkout line was long. She didn’t mind. It gave her time to browse Instagram—mostly photos of sled dogs, sealskin art, and videos from her cousin’s feed back home in Nunavut. She smiled when she saw an aerial drone shot of Prince Leopold Island in the fog. Her people, the Qikiqtani Inuit, had once carved out a life there among stone and ice. The land was still in her family. Technically. Spiritually, without question.

Kimiya thumbed to the next story. An Indigenous artist from Vancouver had painted a raven across a war memorial. The comments were polarized. She was reading one of them when the alert hit.

BRRRRRRRRT.

The sound shrieked from phones across the store like a fire alarm in a dream. It was echoed by a chorus of Android chirps and Apple chimes, loud and urgent. Heads turned. Conversations dropped. The checker paused mid-scan, her hand frozen over a carton of eggs.

Kimiya looked up instinctively, confused. Her phone was silent. WiFi-only mode.

A man near her, tall, with a deep frown etched across his forehead, read aloud from his iPhone.

"Emergency Alert: Presidential Executive Order #F451-11Effective Immediately.Suspension of all U.S. elections, dissolution of Congress and state governments, and revocation of the U.S. Constitution.Public services suspended.Civil authority transferred to the Department of Government Efficiency, enforced by the United States Department of Defense.All federal employees to report for reassignment or retirement.Do not attempt to leave urban zones.Await further instruction."

“What the hell?” someone muttered.

A woman clutching a toddler dropped her phone. “Is this a joke?”

A cashier ran to the front of the store where a security guard had already begun lowering the metal gate halfway.

Kimiya blinked, not quite processing. She checked her own phone. No alert. Just a smiling cousin holding up a freshly caught Arctic char.

She looked around. Everyone else had stopped moving.

The military dictatorship part... that didn’t sound like a drill.

Her instincts—part auditor, part Northerner—kicked in. Assess. Prioritize. Secure the essentials.

She calmly grabbed her bags from the floor and double-checked her payment. Everything had scanned. Her thumb hovered over the green "Pay Now" button. Then she hesitated. She needed cash. If systems went down…

Kimiya turned, walked to the service desk, and asked, “Is the ATM still working?”

The clerk didn’t respond. Her hands trembled as she tried to dial a number.

Outside, the traffic had thinned. An eerie silence stretched between the bus stop and the parking lot. No sirens. No helicopters. Just people—staring at their phones, their neighbors, or the sky.

Kimiya felt the ancient drumbeat of her ancestors begin to thrum in her chest.

Something had cracked.

And she, an auditor from the North who came to Chicago to inspect ledgers, was now standing at the epicenter of a country folding into itself.

To Be Continued