seven

Black streaks continued to destroy line after line of words that Kyle had spent so much time on, carelessly erasing everything. Propping himself against the doorway he watched in shock as the smiling man in the suit and black tie took his own sick form or edition to the paper.

“What the f**k do you think you are doing?” Kyle managed to say. He was suffering from a new form of exhaustion. It was like a grieving process for everything e had tried to keep nurture and create for the last few years was now suddenly evaporating right in front of him.

“I tried to tell you. We believe that you are a threat to everything that makes this place function, the laws the ideals and the simple thoughts. You threaten everything that we work so hard to maintain.” The Agent said as he ripped another page free, letting this one simply fall to the floor. It landed print down and the new ink could be seen soaking through the back of the page, a cloudy grey at the edges but sickening black at the center.

“Honestly Kyle, from everything I have read so far we’re completely justified in our actions. Everything that you create is completely liable to destabilize the thought we have nurtured.”

“So you think I’m some kind of revolutionary? I never wrote anything that called for uprising, I never called for assassinations, or even riots. What the hell did I do to justify any of this?”

The man stopped for a moment and looked up. He still had a small smile on his thin lips, it grew slightly to reveal his polished teeth beneath as he slipped the pen into his inner coat pocket, and he then replied, “I have been trying to tell you, this is all about thought. We wanted to stop the thinking. What you have been creating here generates thought, and that generates revolutionaries. You creation creates the potential for riots, disobedience, societal uprising, and a general resistance to the status quo. We can’t bother to have the seeds planted; otherwise we have to weed out an entire generation or more. So instead we go to the source and eliminate any threats.”

His hand slowly returned from the inside of his coat and traveled down to an exterior pocket. It then pulled out a simple BIC lighter and moves to the edge of the binder. Sparks spit into the vaporous ignition source and the orange form licked against the edge of the remaining pages.

Kyle’s grieving switched to anger in an instant as the papers caught; this emotion was only fueled as the man twisted the papers to fan the flame and carelessly tossed the binder over his shoulder onto the bed of crumpled pages. In a drunken motion he shoved himself off the doorframe and into the room. His desk was untouched, his laptop left sitting there like some idle grey roach, as the heat in the room intensified.

The Agent was enjoying his current art of destruction and was turned so Kyle was just outside of his peripheral, just out of his line of sight. Maybe it was because Kyle looked so damaged, so worn and frayed, that he was no threat to the intrusive presence. But if the man was right, if Kyle was now a nonexistent a nonperson to the rotating world, then he made one mistake.

If you take a person and remove everything, then you open a doorway. You create two options. One, the person caves and allows themselves to be exterminated and removed from the equation, or two, the person finds that they have no restraints. There is nothing to prevent them from lashing out at this circumstance. They simply fight to prevent the final phase of nonexistence. They fight for their life.

Kyle grabbed the lap top, the last writing tool he had left, and swung it into the back of the man’s head. The plastic coating cracked on contact, pieces of it falling away as the Agent fell to his knees, and he hefted it high above his head as he stepped behind the man. He felt like Moses holding the Ten Commandments, if only for a moment, and then brought the remains back down on the man’s head again. And again, and again until there was nothing left to bludgeon with and his hands had lacerations from his weapon of choice.

He left him there, left the apartment burning, grabbed his keys, and the last pack of smokes from the carton in the freezer. It was time to run.

Reviews

[Mockingbird]

the unacceptable censorship and wanting to keep people ignorant sheep always conforming...like fahrenheit 451. it goes to show the strength of the human spirit and instinct for survival can prevail. now he has nothing left to lose.

[.]

Wow! I'm stunned by your brilliance. And, the following paragraph especially:

The man stopped for a moment and looked up. He still had a small smile on his thin lips, it grew slightly to reveal his polished teeth beneath as he slipped the pen into his inner coat pocket, and he then replied, “I have been trying to tell you, this is all about thought. We wanted to stop the thinking. What you have been creating here generates thought, and that generates revolutionaries. You creation creates the potential for riots, disobedience, societal uprising, and a general resistance to the status quo. We can’t bother to have the seeds planted; otherwise we have to weed out an entire generation or more. So instead we go to the source and eliminate any threats.”

What an ode to the power of words and those who write them!