A Little Tale

For years X had known he did not fit well with his fellow citizens, his ideas were considerably out of the mainstream and his tendency to express them distressed and angered his listeners. He had not realized how poor his fit was until the evening his car was pulled over by the flashing lights of an unmarked car and he was rather uncermoniously dumped into the back seat by two unfriendly men in dark suits and a several hour ride began. The men gave him no answers to his questions about what he had done or was accused of or where he was being taken. They came to a large unlabled barbed wire topped gate in a tall fence which was opened in response to a number pad. After crossing a large open area of darkness they passed through a similar gate into a lighted compound. X began to hope his questions were about to be answered, those hopes were dashed.

He was led into a concrete room with a concrete slab for a bed and left in silence. With no daylight or sounds the passage of time was impossible to determine, but it was a very long time, unbearably so. About the time the fears had fed on uncertainty and isolation and reduced him to tears of helplessness the door opened and two unspeaking men led him to another concrete room containing a metal chair and an inclined table. He was placed onto the chair and handcuffed. Another man entered and began questioning him. Who had given him his ideas, why had he spread them, what else had he done to further his ideas. No answer he gave was sufficient for his questioner who appeared to be building into a rage. No question he asked regarding his status was answered. Finally he began to ask for a lawyer and refuse to answer anything. The response was to strap him on to the inclined table, head down and place a cloth overhis face. X was told that his chances of survival were decreasing with his resistance.

His pleas of ignorance were ignored, water was poured onto the cloth and he began to drown, but terrifyingly, there was no final relief, only questions. He began to tell them whatever answers would please them and when he failed in that the drowning resumed. He would never have a clear memory of everything he said, the sensory overload prevented the coherent storing of the events.

The family of X searched for him for years, police had no information, and there was none to be found from co-workers, acqauintances, anyone; he had simply vanished. The change that brought this to pass happened incrementally, bits and pieces of guarantees were modified, then changed, and finally deleted. There was no one law that brought about the day that freedom died, you could not point to a passage and say there it is. It began in small ways, things to be done for the safety of the citizenry until there was no more safety, no more citizenry, only government chattle.