Dog Blood

There are other people moving along the road, many of them going in the same direction as me, some walking aimlessly the other way. None of them seem to have any purpose. They’re just drifting, and I do my best to match their slow, purposeless gait. It’s hard, like being forced to hold your hand in a bowl of boiling water. I want to run to get through this part of town, but I don’t dare do anything that’s going to draw attention to me or mark me out as different. There’s an unspoken tension and fear here, bubbling just under the surface. Everyone, me included, is being forced to keep their emotions suppressed, terrified by the prospect of what might happen if they let their true feelings show. As much as the thought of comparing myself to the enemy is abhorrent, I realize that everyone here, me included, is doing exactly the same thing. We’re all pretending to be something we’re not.

Apart from the odd military vehicle, the constant buzz of helicopters scurrying through the air above me, and the occasional rumble of distant, directionless fighting, everywhere else remains u

I’m distracted by the grim sights all around me, so much so that I collide head-on with someone coming the other way who’s obviously paying as little attention to the human traffic on the road as me. The unexpected impact catches me off guard. In a sudden, uncontrollable blind panic, I spring forward and grab the disheveled-looking man by his lapels. I spin him around and slam him down onto the pavement and reach for my knife before… before I remember where I am and who I am. I let him go immediately and walk on, terrified that I’ve been seen and that my sudden violent overreaction will give me away. I look back and see him scramble away, getting up quickly and sprinting a few yards until there’s a decent distance between us. He puts his head down and keeps walking, trying not to panic, frequently looking back over his shoulder. I glance from side to side. There are plenty of people watching me, but thankfully they’re all too scared to get involved.

Fucking idiot. Can’t afford to make mistakes like that.

I know exactly where I am now. Around the next corner is the PFP-the Parking Fines Processing center, where I used to work. When I see the building I’m immediately filled with a mass of conflicting emotions-disgust that I wasted so much of my miserable former life here, relief that those days are long gone, and, catching me off guard, a painful nostalgia when I remember all that I’ve lost and left behind. It all seems forever ago, like the memories belong to someone else. Being here again and remembering this place and all that happened here is like watching a TV movie of someone else’s life. Christ, there are people living in the building now. I can see them in the windows I used to spend hours staring out from. Could there be a worse existence than that?

Without realizing it, I’ve stopped right outside the PFP. I’m standing in the middle of the street like a dumb sightseer, suddenly oblivious to everything else around me. The noise of a fast-approaching engine snaps me out of my dangerous stupor. I turn around and see that there’s a jeep driving up the middle of the road toward me, flanked by several heavily armed soldiers on either side, their impenetrable face masks hiding their intent. Are they looking for me? The jeep moves forward quickly, the driver making no attempt to dodge or weave through the masses of drifting refugees that litter the street. They jump for cover, staying well back until the troops have passed by. Preoccupied by my irrational fear and not knowing whether I should do nothing or fight, I’m slow to react. A soldier shoves me to one side, and it’s all I can do not to kill him. I stand firm and square up to him, stupidly defiant, my face reflected back at me in his visor.

“Problem?” he yells, his wretched face just inches from mine. I can feel bile rising in my throat, a noxious, nauseous terror building up inside me, and I don’t know if I can keep it down. Can I stand to let him live? When all I want to do is kill, doing nothing is almost impossible. But I force myself to remember being back in the cell with Joseph Mallon, and remembering the fact that I was so easily able to fool him gives me much needed strength. Act dumb, I plead with myself. Let this one go. You’ll kill thousands more when it’s time…

“No problem,” I answer, and I back down and slope away, trying to mimic the reaction of the countless other cowards milling around me. I feel his eyes burning into me, but I don’t allow myself to look back. I keep walking…

Ten seconds and nothing’s happened.

Don’t look back.

Another ten seconds. Have they moved on?

I turn the corner and I know I’m safe.

Mille

Last time I was here I got caught in the crossfire between groups of armed police officers who had suddenly found themselves on opposing sides. I ran for cover along with hundreds of other people, each person as scared and confused as the next. That was the day, I recall, when everything really changed. That was the day the Hate took over. Strange how what was such a terrifying experience now seems, with hindsight, like nothing out of the ordinary. I’m harder now, stronger. Back then I was just one of the crowd, trying to blend in with the masses and not be noticed. Today I’m here to kill them.

This vast public square is no longer the empty, underused space it always used to be. For as far as I can see the ground is covered with a sea of temporary shelters of endless different colors, shapes, and sizes. I can’t help looking into a few of those that I pass, and inside each of them I see more refugees desperately hoping that their flimsy cardboard, wood, and polyethylene structures will keep them safe inside and everyone else out. The occupants of one shelter are both dead. The green-tinged corpses of a middle-aged couple are lying together motionless, entwined and u

Squatters have taken over the public toilets and moved in. They used to get vandalized every other week and were used more as a pickup point for gay men than anything else. A man and woman sit on chairs in the dark doorway, like a king and queen surveying their particularly grim kingdom. A fierce-looking, half-starved dog tied up with rope keeps everyone else at bay.

There’s a patch of land up ahead that’s unexpectedly empty. As I get closer I see that the road there is covered with streaks and puddles of drying mud, making it look like a dried-up riverbed. Flash-flood water seems to have washed away huge numbers of improvised tents, leaving an expanse of muddy block paving slabs visible. Weeds are sprouting in the gaps between the slabs. The council used to spend a fucking fortune on this place-I remember hearing someone from another department bitching about it-now it’s just as godforsaken as everywhere else. Incredibly, though, a street clock I walk past is still working. It says it’s coming up to 3:00 p.m. and it’s a Thursday, for a fraction of a second I feel an instinctive swell of relief because the weekend’s coming. Christ, how stupid is that? Itmakes me realize that no matter how much everything has changed, the effects of years of conditioning are going to take more than afew months to disappear. Has the clock been maintained purposely for precisely that reason? Does it help the Unchanged masses cope if they know where they are in relation to their old routines?