by Happy Trails Fri Oct 12, 2012 10:46 pmThis world is rotted. The skies have turned black with a smog so thick that we have to wear gas masks to survive in the cities. The water is brown with pollutants, that is if it isn't red from the dead being tossed into it. The land is riddled with so much radiation that anything grown is toxic. The lush forests were long ago destroyed and turned into fuel for the factories that would replace them.
The cities are overrun with hundreds of thousands of people. The schools have become little more than another place to commit crimes; children push drugs, sell weapons, and regularly carry out hits for their gang in the middle of the hall. The streets are so dangerous that the police have been completely replaced by the military. It doesn’t help though. A man got killed the other day on his way home from buying some bread just because the thug wanted to try out his new gun.
Whenever I walk out I’m shepherded to my destination along a series of secure checkpoints. Any contraband, be it a book that was outlawed for its radical ideas, a foreign drink, or a watch made by a company that got blacklisted, is confiscated and reported. If you get three strikes at a checkpoint you get executed. Right there in the fucking street like an animal.
When I finally get to the corner store I have to show ID, show I’m a citizen just to buy a pack of gum. If my purchase costs more than $1000 total, which now is a couple of drinks and a packet of chips, I have to give a DNA sample. When I get back home the only thing I can watch, read, or listen to is what the government say I can. The only food I find in my cupboard is the over processed and subsidized slop.
When I look out my window I see a sea of people all dressed in the gray jumpsuit that I wear. As I eat my gruel a few of the gangsters come out of an ally and shoot some of the Overwatch guards. They don’t get very far before an officer disguised as a bum shoots them dead. I walk outside as the clock ticks 7:00. It’s time for me to go to work. Time to process criminals who have been sentenced to exile.
The prisons long ago became so over crowded that they legalized the death penalty and abolished life sentences. Which is funny because the average lifespan is 40. When that didn’t work they decided that all criminals who committed felonies would be exiled to the wastes outside the city gates. They might as well have shot the poor bastards, that would have been more humane at least.
After 10 straight hours of sending men and women to an early death I go back home. It isn’t even a home. Really it’s an assigned living unit. The walls are to be kept bare so that those who inherit it wont have to remove any of my decorations. The only furnishings come out of the wall or floor. The only thing on is ads or propaganda. When I go to sleep my lullaby is the sound of gunfire and riots as the gangs take over.
When I wake up it’s the same routine; except today the entire country gets a treat. The president has decided to give us the pleasure of one of his stirring speeches. The faces of buildings turn into giant televisions broadcasting his words. The small elderly mans voice doesn’t fit him. It’s loud, thunderous, and confident. He on the other hand was squirrelly and weak.
He speaks of a new golden age for democracy. That the plan our forefathers set out 500 hundred years ago will soon come to fruition. His predecessors have said that for the past 50 years, it never does. When it’s over nobody really believes a word he says about the smog clearing up and the nuclear winter in the southern hemisphere ending. We all just continue, walking never really caring, accepting that we wont see any change in our 40 years here.
I remember when I was 10 and wanted to go outside the gates, but no one except criminals leave. We are born in the city, we live in the city, and we are cremated in the city. Our ashes are added to the billions that blow in the wind constantly. We are constantly walking on a thin layer of our ancestors. When we get to work or our homes we take showers just to get the ashes off.
As I walk to my brother’s house I see a man being beaten to death for stealing table scraps. I see his two daughters crying as their daddy dies for trying to feed his starving children. They’ll suffer a fate worse than his, they’ll be sent to a factory as cheap labor until they die on the assembly line. All this just for a crust of bread.
When I get to my brother’s house I see that he’s joined the man. His complex always did have a few dicey characters in it; the government finally got enough ‘evidence’ to justify their actions. They had blown it up in the night after curfew, ensuring that everyone was trapped inside. I don’t feel saddened by his death, it adds nothing to the hollowness. If anything he’s lucky, he got a quick death.
The walls of the buildings flash again. It’s time for the second pledge of allegiance of the day. We pledge our allegiance to this slowly disintegrating country three times a day. Before and after the pledge we have to sing the national anthem. The practice had started years before I was born to strengthen national pride during the 8th World War. After saying so much false praise and oaths to this nation that my throat is sore, I can finally continue on my march back home.
A boy tries to pick my pocket. I grab his hand, take out my ID, and continue on my way. Pick pocketing had been declared a felony along with public drunkenness, wearing a hat during the president’s speech, and saying anything that was against the state. If the kid was willing to risk exile for my cash he needed it more than I did. As I turn to look back I see that the kid is giving the money to a few of his friends so they can eat too. My good deed caused me to smile for the first time in 11 months.
I walk up the steps of my complex and suddenly slip and fall. I look for a cause and I see that the water purifier has busted and is leaking mercury all over the step. I make a mental note to tell maintenance later. When I stick the key in the lock I pause for a second, the key feels almost as if it’s pushing against something other than the tumblers. I decide it’s just in my head and I push the key in firmly.
A blast issues from my door sending me flying across the hall and into another residents door. I feel somebody flip me over and put their foot in the middle of my back. I feel the cuffs being slapped on my wrists and realize what’s going on. The Overwatch has decided I am guilty of something.I was being removed from society forever. They throw me in the back of one of the few remaining cars and take me off to my new home, which incidentally is my old work.
They have me sit in a chair in a dark room and stay there until they come back. I know where I am, I’m in one of the many interrogation chambers. No real interrogating goes on in here. They just torture convicts until they feel the trainees get the idea, and dump them wherever they like. Sometimes they just kidnap random people, torture them into confessing to some inconsequentiality, and execute them. They call it a ‘training exercise’.
A tall man in a black suit walks in. He has a small cut in his cheek, probably from his razor I think, other than this though he is as groomed as one can be. He sits down across from me and removes his smoked glasses. His eyes have a glint, that glint of blood lust all interrogators have.
“Welcome to my little home away from home,” He says, his voice is deep and makes me swallow in fear, “they said you work here so I’m sure you know what’s going to happen. So how about this you admit to all charges, and I just skip the fun bits and finish you off quickly?”
“What charges?” I whisper hoarsely, instantly my throat is dry from fear. I know that no matter what I will die before the sun sets.
“That’s not important,” He half growls, half laughs, “let’s just say it involves your brother and your visits. I offer you again, I don’t know why I’ve already been more generous than I should, the option of an easy death.”
I want to say I’m innocent. I want to tell him to go to hell. I want to make a speech on my freedoms and that I, as a loyal patriot should, be let go. However I can’t, I know it’s pointless. I know no matter what I’ll be killed.
“I confess to all charges filed against me and any that will be brought against me if evidence comes to light after my death.” I say, submission is my only option. Show me a man who would do different and I’ll show you a liar.
The interrogator smirks, scribbles a few notes on his papers, stands, and exits. A few seconds later two large guards come in and drag me to the amphitheatre. The theatre is large and bloodstained, the air in it is still and seems to echo the screams of the condemnedl. The next sound I hear is the cocking of rifles, the shouts of a drill sergeant. Just another training exercise.
I swallow another dry breath. Fear pulses through my veins, replacing the blood, leaving me a shell. I always imagined my death being more grandiose, meaningful. That I would face it with a straight face and a brave heart. The last sound I hear is gunshots.
The cities are overrun with hundreds of thousands of people. The schools have become little more than another place to commit crimes; children push drugs, sell weapons, and regularly carry out hits for their gang in the middle of the hall. The streets are so dangerous that the police have been completely replaced by the military. It doesn’t help though. A man got killed the other day on his way home from buying some bread just because the thug wanted to try out his new gun.
Whenever I walk out I’m shepherded to my destination along a series of secure checkpoints. Any contraband, be it a book that was outlawed for its radical ideas, a foreign drink, or a watch made by a company that got blacklisted, is confiscated and reported. If you get three strikes at a checkpoint you get executed. Right there in the fucking street like an animal.
When I finally get to the corner store I have to show ID, show I’m a citizen just to buy a pack of gum. If my purchase costs more than $1000 total, which now is a couple of drinks and a packet of chips, I have to give a DNA sample. When I get back home the only thing I can watch, read, or listen to is what the government say I can. The only food I find in my cupboard is the over processed and subsidized slop.
When I look out my window I see a sea of people all dressed in the gray jumpsuit that I wear. As I eat my gruel a few of the gangsters come out of an ally and shoot some of the Overwatch guards. They don’t get very far before an officer disguised as a bum shoots them dead. I walk outside as the clock ticks 7:00. It’s time for me to go to work. Time to process criminals who have been sentenced to exile.
The prisons long ago became so over crowded that they legalized the death penalty and abolished life sentences. Which is funny because the average lifespan is 40. When that didn’t work they decided that all criminals who committed felonies would be exiled to the wastes outside the city gates. They might as well have shot the poor bastards, that would have been more humane at least.
After 10 straight hours of sending men and women to an early death I go back home. It isn’t even a home. Really it’s an assigned living unit. The walls are to be kept bare so that those who inherit it wont have to remove any of my decorations. The only furnishings come out of the wall or floor. The only thing on is ads or propaganda. When I go to sleep my lullaby is the sound of gunfire and riots as the gangs take over.
When I wake up it’s the same routine; except today the entire country gets a treat. The president has decided to give us the pleasure of one of his stirring speeches. The faces of buildings turn into giant televisions broadcasting his words. The small elderly mans voice doesn’t fit him. It’s loud, thunderous, and confident. He on the other hand was squirrelly and weak.
He speaks of a new golden age for democracy. That the plan our forefathers set out 500 hundred years ago will soon come to fruition. His predecessors have said that for the past 50 years, it never does. When it’s over nobody really believes a word he says about the smog clearing up and the nuclear winter in the southern hemisphere ending. We all just continue, walking never really caring, accepting that we wont see any change in our 40 years here.
I remember when I was 10 and wanted to go outside the gates, but no one except criminals leave. We are born in the city, we live in the city, and we are cremated in the city. Our ashes are added to the billions that blow in the wind constantly. We are constantly walking on a thin layer of our ancestors. When we get to work or our homes we take showers just to get the ashes off.
As I walk to my brother’s house I see a man being beaten to death for stealing table scraps. I see his two daughters crying as their daddy dies for trying to feed his starving children. They’ll suffer a fate worse than his, they’ll be sent to a factory as cheap labor until they die on the assembly line. All this just for a crust of bread.
When I get to my brother’s house I see that he’s joined the man. His complex always did have a few dicey characters in it; the government finally got enough ‘evidence’ to justify their actions. They had blown it up in the night after curfew, ensuring that everyone was trapped inside. I don’t feel saddened by his death, it adds nothing to the hollowness. If anything he’s lucky, he got a quick death.
The walls of the buildings flash again. It’s time for the second pledge of allegiance of the day. We pledge our allegiance to this slowly disintegrating country three times a day. Before and after the pledge we have to sing the national anthem. The practice had started years before I was born to strengthen national pride during the 8th World War. After saying so much false praise and oaths to this nation that my throat is sore, I can finally continue on my march back home.
A boy tries to pick my pocket. I grab his hand, take out my ID, and continue on my way. Pick pocketing had been declared a felony along with public drunkenness, wearing a hat during the president’s speech, and saying anything that was against the state. If the kid was willing to risk exile for my cash he needed it more than I did. As I turn to look back I see that the kid is giving the money to a few of his friends so they can eat too. My good deed caused me to smile for the first time in 11 months.
I walk up the steps of my complex and suddenly slip and fall. I look for a cause and I see that the water purifier has busted and is leaking mercury all over the step. I make a mental note to tell maintenance later. When I stick the key in the lock I pause for a second, the key feels almost as if it’s pushing against something other than the tumblers. I decide it’s just in my head and I push the key in firmly.
A blast issues from my door sending me flying across the hall and into another residents door. I feel somebody flip me over and put their foot in the middle of my back. I feel the cuffs being slapped on my wrists and realize what’s going on. The Overwatch has decided I am guilty of something.I was being removed from society forever. They throw me in the back of one of the few remaining cars and take me off to my new home, which incidentally is my old work.
They have me sit in a chair in a dark room and stay there until they come back. I know where I am, I’m in one of the many interrogation chambers. No real interrogating goes on in here. They just torture convicts until they feel the trainees get the idea, and dump them wherever they like. Sometimes they just kidnap random people, torture them into confessing to some inconsequentiality, and execute them. They call it a ‘training exercise’.
A tall man in a black suit walks in. He has a small cut in his cheek, probably from his razor I think, other than this though he is as groomed as one can be. He sits down across from me and removes his smoked glasses. His eyes have a glint, that glint of blood lust all interrogators have.
“Welcome to my little home away from home,” He says, his voice is deep and makes me swallow in fear, “they said you work here so I’m sure you know what’s going to happen. So how about this you admit to all charges, and I just skip the fun bits and finish you off quickly?”
“What charges?” I whisper hoarsely, instantly my throat is dry from fear. I know that no matter what I will die before the sun sets.
“That’s not important,” He half growls, half laughs, “let’s just say it involves your brother and your visits. I offer you again, I don’t know why I’ve already been more generous than I should, the option of an easy death.”
I want to say I’m innocent. I want to tell him to go to hell. I want to make a speech on my freedoms and that I, as a loyal patriot should, be let go. However I can’t, I know it’s pointless. I know no matter what I’ll be killed.
“I confess to all charges filed against me and any that will be brought against me if evidence comes to light after my death.” I say, submission is my only option. Show me a man who would do different and I’ll show you a liar.
The interrogator smirks, scribbles a few notes on his papers, stands, and exits. A few seconds later two large guards come in and drag me to the amphitheatre. The theatre is large and bloodstained, the air in it is still and seems to echo the screams of the condemnedl. The next sound I hear is the cocking of rifles, the shouts of a drill sergeant. Just another training exercise.
I swallow another dry breath. Fear pulses through my veins, replacing the blood, leaving me a shell. I always imagined my death being more grandiose, meaningful. That I would face it with a straight face and a brave heart. The last sound I hear is gunshots.
