The Impermanence of American Promise

Emma, a perceptive 13-year-old, navigates the instability of modern America—a nation that operates like a corporation, making promises only to break them, hiring and firing without warning. She watches as her world shifts unpredictably, from the deportation of her best friend, Maria, to her father’s sudden layoff from the FBI.

The story explores America's inconsistency, not just in employment but also in its commitments to its citizens and allies. Through Emma’s observations, the narrative critiques how America changes course abruptly, affecting everything from national security to international relations, infrastructure projects, and sustainability initiatives.

The Corporation Called America

Emma has never met America, but she knows it well. It is the company that hires, fires, builds, destroys, promises, forgets. A phantom employer, a CEO without a face (debatable), a boardroom in the clouds where decisions rain down like confetti—sometimes golden, sometimes soaked in ink that stains and never washes away.

One morning, while spooning cereal into her mouth, she heard the President's voice drift from the TV her father always kept on during breakfast.

"Today, I'm proud to announce that we turned on the water in California. I don’t know why they didn’t do it months ago, but we fixed it."

Emma watched the golden flakes swim in her bowl, thinking how strange it was that someone could just turn water on and off for an entire state, like a faucet in a giant kitchen.

She heard a lot of talk about wars. She often thought about how she'd taken for granted the security of her life, and what it meant to be lucky enough to be alive.

She thought about the children her age in war zones.

Emma’s father, once a respected FBI agent, was now just another name on a list, a clearance badge turned in, a laptop decommissioned. She heard the words “downsizing” and “budget cuts” whispered like ghosts in her home, saw the way her father sat in his chair, staring at nothing, recalculating a life that no longer included a job that once defined him.

Yesterday, he was a protector of secrets. Today, he is another person standing in line at the unemployment office, waiting for a number to be called. The same government that trained him, trusted him, gave him a gun and a purpose, had now decided he was expendable. America changes its mind as fast as it makes it.

And Emma? She is 13. She watches. She learns.

Maria and the Disappearance of Promises

Emma’s best friend, Maria, was gone. Not moved away, not transferred to another school—gone. Deported. One day, they were sitting together in class, and the next, Maria’s seat was empty, as if she had never been there at all.

Emma had always known Maria’s family wasn’t from here originally, but it had never seemed to matter. Maria spoke perfect English, loved the same music, and even dreamed about going to college and working in tech just like Emma did. But none of that had protected her when the system decided she didn’t belong.

One night, Maria’s family was forced out of their home. Emma learned about it when she checked her phone and saw a text from Maria, sent hours before.

"They’re making us leave. I don’t know where we’re going. I’ll miss you."

Emma never got to say goodbye. The country that had once called Maria a student, a friend, a dreamer had turned on her overnight. Just like her father, Maria had been part of America’s plans—until she wasn’t.

The Whiplash of Working for America

Emma recalls what her father said to her:

“The government gives you a mission, then decides it wasn’t important anymore. They hire, they fire, and if you don’t keep moving, you get left behind."

Emma saw it everywhere. The infrastructure projects that started, then stopped. The tech programs that launched, then vanished. The wars that began, then ended—not with celebration, but with paperwork and press releases.

One day, they say cybersecurity is the future. The next, layoffs in the department. One day, they champion space travel. The next, budget cuts to NASA. One day, they need agents. The next, her father is packing a box.

America didn’t just run like a corporation; it was a corporation. A corporation with policies so unpredictable even the employees had no idea what their futures held.

The Cost of Inconsistency for America’s Allies

But it wasn’t just America’s employees who felt the instability. Its allies, too, bore the weight of erratic decision-making. Countries that once trusted America’s commitments found themselves scrambling when the nation reversed course. Military alliances, trade agreements, climate accords—each signed with conviction, each abandoned with little warning.

Nations invested in joint defense projects only to see funding withdrawn. Trade partners built industries around American promises, then watched tariffs and sanctions shift overnight. One day, a foreign leader was an essential ally; the next, they were a diplomatic afterthought.

To Emma, it seemed like America was a company that kept rewriting its contracts while expecting everyone else to hold steady. Other nations weren’t just confused—they were exhausted. And just like employees burned out by corporate unpredictability, allies, too, were beginning to question their investment in a partner that changed direction with the wind.

The Mirage of Sustainability

Emma’s favorite subject was technology, and lately, the word she kept hearing was sustainability.

Her teacher said it meant building something that lasts, something that doesn’t burn through resources or people. But as she looked around, she wondered if America knew what that word even meant.

The solar farms that never got finished. The electric bus project that got canceled before it could roll out. The schools that switched to digital textbooks, only to scrap them the next year when funding dried up. The apps her teachers pay for out of their own pockets.

Even at home, sustainability seemed contradictory. Her mom reused paper towels yet discarded plastic K-Cups twice a day. The recycling bin was often contaminated with non-recyclable items, as far as Emma could tell.

Her dad's new unemployment check came in an envelope mailed by a fossil-fuel-guzzling postal service. The same people who said they cared about the planet fired her father without a second thought. Every once in a while, she’d hear him belt out venomous language towards whichever program he was signing up for.

“This is so stupid. Why does it work this way. Why don’t they just do X.”

Emma’s dad was always upset by repetitive tasks. One time she heard him say:

"I guess I won’t get healthcare then.”

Emma feels the weight of her family's struggles more acutely now than ever before. Her mother, Mrs. Thompson, a dedicated high school biology teacher at the same district Emma attends, tries to maintain normalcy at home. But Emma notices how her mother's shoulders slump when grading papers late into the night, how she stretches her grocery budget further each week, and how she speaks in whispers with her father about their dwindling savings.

She imagined America as a vast, glittering skyscraper—built high into the clouds, but with foundations of sand. Every time something was constructed, something else crumbled. It was a corporation that marketed progress but couldn’t even sustain the futures of the people who worked for it.

The Layoff That Taught Her Everything

One night, Emma sat at the dinner table with her parents. Her father picked at his food, and scrolled on his phone, probably looking at job listings. Nobody said much.

Emma could tell her father was in a state of distress. She began to worry about his health, and if the emotions he was experiencing could have an impact on his longevity.

She wish he had a warning. A warning before they hired. A warning before they fired.

A moment where someone said, “Are you sure?” before another life was tossed aside.

Because America, the company, the ghost employer, the boardroom of (clearly visible) figures—it was running out of time.

Not just to save the environment.

Not just to stop the whiplash.

But to prove that anything it built could actually last.

The next morning, Emma jolted awake to an unfamiliar sound—her father's laughter. She found him in the kitchen, phone in hand, face lit up like she hadn't seen in months. “That was the recruiter at Apple” he announced, his voice cracking with emotion. "Enterprise security. They said my federal experience was exactly what they were looking for."

Emma watched her mother embrace him, tears in her eyes. It wasn't just about the job, Emma realized. It was about being valued again, about having a purpose. Maybe some corporations, she thought, still knew how to build things that last—including people's dignity.