Tuesday

O was reelected again Tuesday.  Mandate and universal acclaim.  It's been that way for as long as most can remember.  People don't live as long as they used to though, mostly.  A couple of generations just fly by.  Anyway, the usual celebrations.  Selubrayshunz.  Every few years, no particular pattern, he calls for his reelection.  Always gives the same speech -- it's a liturgy by now.  The same misty gratitude from him, the same ecstasy from the acolytes.  Owkstusy from the Okuliytz.

The chip in our wrists votes automatically.  Some people started voting the day they were born.  Saves Karbun,  people not having to go anywhere or do anything.  As the national motto says, "Forward! Everything is always getting better."

His motorcade sped by the school a few weeks ago.  I didn't bother to go to the window.  I was alone, so no one could notice.  Afterwards I thought, what if there had been an earthquake, and a great crevasse had opened in the road and swallowed his limousine?  Then I thought, how could somebody make that happen?  Back when there used to be tv with commercials, there was a show about a little boy with godlike powers who did whatever he wanted to anyone he wanted.  I thought of that, thinking of the earthquake, what it would be like to have that kind of power.  Then I realized O already has it.  I'm one of the few, I think, who remember him promising to lower the seas.  Indeed he did.  Froze much of them over to do it.

Yesterday I went mad.  I read her name in the Rejuster and my heart has not beaten since.  I won't bother to describe it.  But, as I said, once, long ago, all bets are off.

I think I've come to a decision.  I have lived in fear and silence and cowardice and complicity and betrayal for, well, for these recent generations at least.  I may not ever have been the man I once thought I was.  That man, living in freedom, is no longer possible.  No gene splicing of atavistic traits will reclaim that humanity. Ubi non est dubium, libertas non est ibi.

A man cannot live, worried about losing his tyreless bicycle. He cannot live, clutching at a glove because it smells of a woman's hair.  He cannot live, denouncing acquaintances who are beaten to death as a result.  I have forgotten about God.  But no atheism promises a more meaningless end than life as it now is.

There used to be a Resistance.  All that remains of it is fantasy and the memory of old tv shows and the skulking pettiness that sneaks an extra spoonful of mash in the commissary line.  We have been so broken that they have grown careless.  Their violence has met for too long with only weeping, and blood other than their own.

We.  As if there were a we.  I will remind them of fear.  I will show them their own blood.  I will work such obscenity on their fresh corpses that all who see will glimpse a mirror of their own souls.  I will be as monstrous as Dumawkrucy, as evil as O.  I will burn down the world, and all its princes and their babes.  The wrong people have been suffering.

I

Wednesday

I met a woman last week. She was sitting on the steps outside the Sentrul Kumyunuty Senter. She had a permit. I didn't mean to, but we made eye contact, and something in her look kept me from breaking away. When we were done inside with the Awgzilury Internal Indawktrunayshun, she was still there. I wondered what she was waiting for. But she had a permit, pinned to her hat, so they wouldn't Notate her. She stood up just as I passed and we bumped.

Then we walked down the steps together, side by side, and I don't know who was leading and who following, but we walked to the Plaza of the Peoples. Didn't say a word, didn't turn to look at each other. I could hear her breathing. It sounded like leaves. We bumped shoulders. I tilted my hand out and took hers.

It's spring now, and the sun stays up later, although it's cold as always. I couldn't think of anything to say. But she never let go of my hand. Her hand was small through the gloves. There were several pairs of Beigeshirts on patrol, but we kept to the sand paths and they don't like to scuff their boots. About seven she tugged me, but without any movement, toward the mainwalk, and over to the omnibus circus. We stood there until it came, and she got on, slipping through the latework crowd until I saw her at a window. She held my eyes again, expressionless. Her face was pale but her lips were full and dark. When the omnibus pulled away, my eyes burned.

I have not seen her again. I return to the steps of the SKS after work everyday. But another woman was sitting on the steps today, with a permit pinned to her hat. I asked her why she was sitting there. She did not respond. I asked her if she know the woman who had been there the week before. Her eyes flickered, and she glanced at me briefly. "What is it?" I asked. "I am waiting for a Mourning Lisense. This is the line." "Who died?" "Everyone."

I left her there. I will not return.

The day after the walk last week I spent my savings on another pair of gloves. The one that held her hand, I keep in a box. When I hold it to my lips I think I can smell the scent of newly washed hair.

I

Monday

I died yesterday, or some time within the past few days. I can't be sure. I read it in the Fairness Rejuster. I go through it every morning, scanning for familiar names. We all do. The cause was listed as heart failure. All deaths, of course, are heart failure; plausibility matters. He must not have given up a name. Or he made a Humorous Remark, or he held eye-contact with a Kumyunuty Supervizer. Or his heart failed.

I've almost saved enough to buy a bicycle. It will give me a lot more time. There's always the risk of Insiting Envy, by such a Taksubl Display of Wealth, but I have my eye on an old one, very old, roadworthy but thoroughly rusted. No rubber tires, but big wheels. That should be enough to keep me safe. IE is one of those gray areas, under O's don't-ask-don't-tell directive, but it just takes a weighted complaint and the Ekwualuty Powlees will confiscate the offensive material. I've saved up for too long to want to risk it. But I have old knees, and riding would just help.

I figure if I choose my route carefully I can avoid trouble. Once I get onto the main road, I'll be anonymous enough to get by. Vary my approach, so that I don't get noticed day after day. That's what causes it. They start to brood, and that leads to Hate Justus. If you get labeled a hater, you're through. I'd wear a hoodie and dark glasses so they can't see me too well. No point in inviting trouble.

Hm. I'm having second thoughts. I think it's just too dangerous. I've been so careful, I don't want to undo it all. I've been lucky, so far, in all kinds of ways. Isn't Soshul Worker a funny title? Assembly line worker. Farm worker. Soshal worker. Once they notice you, it's just over. No, nothing funny about it. No. No bike. What was I thinking.

I saw I's wife U Saturday. She was standing by the fountain in the park, on her way from work. Her breath did not steam. Her cheeks were red from the cold. It should warm up in August for a few weeks. But Klimut Chaynj is so unpredictable. At least we've saved the Planet. U stood there, feet on the patchy ice, staring at some point in the middle distance, still as a pillar of salt. I passed without stopping.

I

Thursday

I denounced I today. They needed a name, and his was the first that came to mind. I’d been seen stooping to pet a cat, and this was reported as an act of Reakshunary Sentimentality. The ideal worker does not waste effort on inessentials. I managed to explain this away as an examination of the cat’s collar, a Misaplikashun of Karbun, so that I could report it.

When asked why I had not turned in such a report, I said that it hadn’t been a collar after all, but the remnant of a noose; some child had attempted to hang the beast, but it evidently had thrashed about so violently that the string broke. Cat hanging is a common childhood game, good preparation for adult responsibility, so I was believed. Indeed, it was a noose. But I was petting the cat. It was mostly bones, and only hunger could have allowed it to trust me as far as it did. I’d been giving it a bit of FauxBrie Green from my pocket. Fortunately the informant hadn’t been close enough to see this. I'd have said I was testing a hypothesis, on the viability of using vermin to dispose of refuse. I'd say I was going to submit the observations for note-publication in the Soshul Hope & Efishunsy Reader.

But explanations are not appeasement. Investigations and detentions expend resources, and the cost has to be made up somehow. So I gave them I. They will arrest him, if they haven't already. There’s nothing I could have done about it. These things happen. The boardreview will not be severe, I expect, because I will give up the first name that comes to his mind, as I did with I. There’s no malice in it. It’s just a way of getting along. I expect there will be hardly any bruising and no broken bones at all. I is smart.

If they ever found out that I did pet the cat, it would be the end of me. Off to the Reforestashon Kamps, and I'm too old to survive that. I know someone who came back from one. He spent 17 years there. He’d owned a fingernail clippers, which were outlawed as Seksist & Homofobik. Of course he never talked about it, where he could be heard. But he fell asleep once standing in the water line, and he was mumbling about digging for worms to eat.

I said I’d heard I humming a banned song. Well, it was true. Once I’d given his name, I had to think of something to accuse him for, and this was at least true. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. I used to sing that to my son, before it mattered. Hope that doesn’t get him in trouble someday. I’m not worried about myself -- the cat mistake is the first one I’ve made in literally years. Not everyone is as careful as I am though.

Sometimes I wonder what the meaning of life is. The lesson for the kids today was how perfectly O loves all children. And we must love him perfectly too. I drilled the kids on it. Do you ever doubt how much he loves you? No, they all replied in chorus. Never? Never, they replied. Do you doubt the sun when it shines? No. Do you doubt that gravity holds you to the earth? No. Do you doubt the perfection of O's love for all children? No. Very good, children. Always remember this lesson. Always give those examples, the sun and the earth and O in the middle, if someone asks you if you doubt the love of O, or the perfection of the United State, or the beauty of The Chanje.

For the older kids I asked, Do you love O perfectly? Yes. How can you love him perfectly? Are you as perfect as he is? They didn't know how to answer that. I fed it to them. How can his perfect love not call out of ourselves love as perfect? It is not our own love, it is his love, given to us, reflected back to him. Yes, we love O perfectly. There is no imperfect love for O. Reprehensibles do not love him at all. Everyone else must love him perfectly. I drilled them until they learned it. It may save their lives, someday.

That’s the meaning of life. Teaching children how to stay alive. If they have to denounce a playmate to do it, then that’s just the order of things. Never deny, I try to teach them. Denials just mean you think The Chanje is wrong. Agree, and reframe. Add a detail that shifts the meaning. Always look at the bridge of the nose, and never smile.

I haven't heard yet about I. If he makes it, he'll be around by Sunday.

I