Imagined an event where a guy left a sign in someone's house. She ran back crying and didn't get the joke, and said, "There's nothing worse than a house that's not a home!" We were all perplexed why she didn't see the humor. Apparently it wasn't bad enough that we weren't close to her in that way, because we all needed to break into her house in order to make the joke.
A few days later, an officer from the fence yard got pulled off duty. He came in and sat down everyone that was laughing that night as she wept. The officer took a tone which sounded like an exasperated parent, once again having to inquisition the immature children around the base. We were all role-playing positions in our previous lives, but none of it felt real.
As fully grown men, we could only chuckle at the situation, because it seemed so insignificant. A prank pulled on a neighbor, one we all thought was too serious. I'm not sure if it were the original intent, but let's just say she didn't loosen up one bit. She tightened her grip on the only thing she had left, which happened to be the imposing authorities all around us.
The guard came up early in the afternoon as people started to arrive after their work for the day. All that they were able to do, because there was no entertainment, was literally sit in the middle of a courtyard. Their wits were worn down to the point where they couldn't even hold conversations anymore. All they could do was argue, and pretend that they were "leadership" and their opinions existed. The officer guard came up to the group, and said, "Who put the sign in Miss Kiera's kitchen?" And they all said, "No, no, I didn't do it. We didn't touch a thing. Then it became a forensic experiment. "I want you all to write 'Good morning Sweetie' on a card sign. Right now. Do it now!" so we all wrote our separate notes on our cards. Miss Kiera wasn't around to see any of this. Then the officer took all the cards and said "Alright now, you're all guilty."
Old Remmy, the rambler who barely ever said a word, remarked, "But Mr. Officer Guardsman, just because we laughed doesn't mean we're guilty." And then ToughGuy chimed in. "Look buddy, for all we know, you could have done it."
"Let's get one thing straight, ToughGuy. I'm the one that's playing the detective. Not you. You just sit around and wait until the day your number's called. Let's see if a grand jury isn't going to believe it's a forgery if we use the one you just gave to me as evidence."
Calling numbers, nobody really knew what it meant. Our access to information was fairly poor. Once your number was called, they would take you away from the camp, and you'd never be heard from again. That could either be a bad thing or a good thing. Sometimes they told people in a pleasant manner, but other times it was more of a threatening thing to have ones' number called. It just meant that you were leaving, but they didn't really say
where. It was still really clear that society was just too dangerous and that we'd have to stay in these detainment camps until the war was completely over. There were reports, too, that airstrikes against the detainee camps might happen, as well.
What started as a way to get us off the streets of New York City became a nightmarish retreat into a world that looked something like Shindler's List meets Grapes of Wrath. Morgan Freedom's voice sounds punishing, like the Old Testament, when he said, "In a world where dumb people are
punished for their lack of intelligence..."
But I don't believe that it's a lack of intelligence, like many of our more fortunate friends might believe. Or a situation of luck that could compound in complexity until they saw the very worst of luck in history. This story is about the disconnect of one group of human beings to another group of humans, in a manner that many would say is the difference between species.
One species want to dominate the other, whom they identify as "not their kind" by their unwillingness to be cut-throat ruthless in attacking the system with the same voracity for all that it's worth. But it's foolishness for those people for attacking a system that was set up to protect the rights of all people, because they don't know how, in the long run, they'll also be affected. We're all part of the planet no matter what party you favor or species you decide you're in.
"Do you think they mean what they said, about throwing us all away?" said Biffer. ToughGuy looked longingly at the ground, as if wishing to become dirt and said, "That whole prank was a bad idea."
"But we never have any
fun," said Paul Ramses. He was right, there wasn't nearly enough recreational time. He was there because he was actually
from a corporation, which is part of the reason that he didn't use a nickname. He didn't get the #Occupy stance on nicknames. We all had one because we were protesting our parents for bringing us into this crappy existence. He still believed that by using his real name, there would be a coherent record of his every good deed, and that a nickname might cause him to resort to bad deeds. Little did he know that we knew where to find people like ToughGuy every day. We didn't need to track his banking statements and abduct him at an ATM withdrawal, as was the case with Mr. Ramses. The pharaoh's days were over, and he could no longer be king. The judge prosecuted him on crimes that even his honor did not understand, basing the verdict on the credit of the good name of the office that was indicting him.
What's ironic? He was let into this camp that we consider ours, as extra punishment for this rejection by his peers, as if to say that "you're not better than them, the ones you helped us screw for all those years." Nobody was really sure what he actually did, but it was clearly criminal in nature, based on the description we were given. This made the situation a little more ambiguous, about whether we were in custody for crimes, or if we were just being sheltered until the Great Emergency was over. One might even tell you... For the things you know are all around you. If you can't change your surroundings, then you just end up knowing less. I realize that this place makes you dumber. I've become aware of that to some extent, because I know that I just can't confide in anyone. There's nobody else out in this entire place who understands me enough that I would want to believe I could confide in them. But I also don't have the insensitivity to be a guard. I guess I'll continue being me, and very quietly continuing.
Next Entry
I felt very far away from the distant realm of nature. The housing project looked on the side of a very good place. The nurses at the station were all very much good people who wanted to help, but the rules were that you could not get pregnant, and if you were sick, there was nothing they could do for you except give you drugs. No surgeries, no operations other than amputations. And this was because there just weren't enough doctors to go around performing all of the operations necessary to keep us alive if something serious . I don't want you to be afraid, but there's a fairly good chance that this could affect you for the rest of your life," a real doctor would say to you, when something was potentially wrong. But these 'doctors' were like a bunch of clown doctors when it came to telling people what was actually wrong with them. They too were essentially being punished by someone or something, I remember accidentally handing someone a huge check that I wrote for something else. And the clerk went back and changed the price so that it was lower. Time was wearing me down.