In the middle of the State, a police officer pressed a button on the remote control. A centerfold hatch opened to the Outside.

The trucks gave a slow whine. The people inside fell out of their nets into the white ice, one by one, dropping to shatter into tiny bits to the great rocks below or to die of the ice-cold.

The speaker, the young man wearing glasses, screamed aloud. His arms waved awkwardly in the air as the police dragged him over the concrete. 

Goodbye to him…. Gone to the ice and the cold, gone forever...

A crowd slowly formed, consisting of old friends, but with wrinkles clouding their vision, and fat cheeks emblazoned with a rosy hue. Some, with thin necks and dirty, grey, faces. They stood around and behind the ring of police officers, watching the disgraceful young boy go off toward the Door Outside.

“Help me! Somebody help! Goddammit, I did no wrong gentlemen! Let me go! Let me go!”, he shouted aloud. His heels rubbed against the steel floors, but he could not keep a grip.

 A police officer yelled, “Open the hatch!”

A tiny, torso-shaped doorway opened to the outside. They placed the bottom half of him inside, attached thin wire hooks, and left him hanging in the cold like the carcass of a cow in a freezer. The red dripped in glossy puddles, all the way down to the bottom of the State.

“No, no, no“, his voice hoarse from screaming, “No, no, no. Someone help… Help...”

Eventually, the crowd went away. He walked away too, past the streetlamps

Zircon continued on the sidewalk, wandering, thinking, into a calm where he could remember memories of the past. He laughed to himself, as he remembered everything, the past smells, sights, the heat, the fun, the whirling lights… He remembered- He remembered-

Slam! There went the bats and sticks, hitting and bruising a man. He walked past the idiot who had broken down and was crying about death and his youth. The police surrounded its homeless, feeble, broken-down form. One was beating him with leather-gloved fists, while another thrashed him with his leather bats. He glimpsed at the bruised face and sighed, transported out of his thoughts.

Another crime… The man most likely deserved the beating for something. Stealing, begging, trafficking Ainomians, or whining about the world. The National Guard killed off the maggots and flesh-worms of society, stomping them out with heavy boots. 

“Good job!” he shouted and attempted to smile. He walked toward them, waving toward them.

“Back off!!”

He stared at them for a while, almost going away. But, with his fists clenched and red, he marched toward them.

“That is no way to say that to a Commanding Chamberlain!”, he yelled.

None of them paid attention either way and continued stomping on the man’s ribs, kicking and punching. 

“My god! My god! Death and the youth, doesn’t anyone understand anym-”, said the man lying on the ground.

“I demand your attention! I am your Commanding Chamberlain! Listen to me, you idiot! Come here!”, he tapped the tallest officer on his back. But they continued punching and kicking the helpless man on the ground. 

“Listen to me! I told you to listen to me!”

“Back off! ”, they pushed him onto the ground. He grunted and lifted himself, but they kicked at him. “Get away!”

“But I am a Commanding Chamberlain! Listen! Listen!”, Zircon yelled from the dust. But they continued to batter their victim, the disgusting man, until it gave a slow moan, blubbered, and stopped thrashing around.

Zircon stood up, brushed himself off, and stormed off into the streets again, walking toward The Bunker as always. His brows were furrowed in deep thought, as he wondered about revenge. 

There was no respect in them, no respect for anyone who had built up the glorious State. He hated them all, he despised all people. He despised the rebels of the State, the strangely ignorant, the sadistic, the violent, all of them. But they would learn, some way or another.

He grumbled and pouted, but eventually reached the Bunker, cleverly disguised as a series of office buildings. Thousands and hundreds of hum-drum, boring people passed by him, bowing as they did, waving to him, smiling at him. Their despicable, horrible little faces reminded him of boredom and shelves of paperwork. 

But, he waved, and bade them farewell as he went up the elevator to a hidden door, into a stairwell that fell downward, and finally, in the Bunker. Monoliths of steel stood near the doors, and soldiers held their guns up high. A Worker receptionist greeted him with a motionless face and teeth of galvanized steel.

As he walked, nobody greeted him. They were all busy with research and projects, mumbling and mumbling about science and progress and discovery. Posters nearby emphasized the remaking and reforming of the world. To shape it into a human form uncontrolled by the chaos of nature.

He walked another pile of stairs, and into his uneven workspace, full of papers, contracts, and orders. Bulletin boards lay strewn across the ground. A photograph of him on a carnival ride lay torn in shreds on the ground.

He sat down on his tall chair and watched his employees, his workers. The thousands of scientists worked in cellars, on storage containers, and in catacombs. All with their shriveled beards, their special shirts, and beady eyes. He watched them all with the title of Chamberlain of the Bunkers of the Government, smiling calmly and contentedly.  

He grabbed the speaker near his desk, smiled at the people below, looked through the blurry, stained plastic window, and spoke.

“Good morning. Good morning”, he rambled forth. His workers looked up from their various works, “The Chamberlain announces that today is a glorious day. That today is a special day. Today is the Glorious Massacre Of The Rebel day. A special holiday...The greatest of the State”

He continued in his rambling monologue, while they continued and continued with their dull, stupid lives. Going on and on and on, like shrimps and worms in a strange can, forever and ever twisting and turning, buzzing and fluttering. 

Zircon ended on a quiet note, with the whine of his microphone turning off and the start of Government-Approved Music, fitfully studied by the Calculator Bots of the State, the whirring machines that thought for hours and hours.

He whistled to himself, all alone, in the clicking and the drumbeats of The Las Morgraten, listening to the large, grating Poetspeak pound into his head. Singing, humming, remembering strange things, as memories filled his mind. 

He remembered those swirling lights, as the Ferris wheel went up, and the bulbs twinkled, and he went up, seeing the sky, went down and down again, forever and ever, in the loud sticky noise of the world, then up again, around and around, as he remembered saluting, smiling, softly…  Again and again, he walked around in his small uniform, laughing, and saluting. In the shadows, strange things walked about the night, spooky things, hiding, but then they danced away in the night, fading away, by the lights above, as they twinkled, buzzed, forever and ever.

. 

.

Soros pushed the PO-KT close to his head, near his white hairs, deep in a string of memories. He savored them. Each memory was like syrupy gold that shone brighter than his dull life. 

He remembered Ainom, but the things before that, rediscovered from the dusty corridors of a hidden hallway. Reinvigorated thoughts of flooding, rows of houses gone, a steamship, and other things filled his empty head. He remembered those strange days, looking out of the window, dusty, old, decaying, filled with the grime and seaweed of the ocean, as the water swallowed the hills, and people floated up from the bubbling muck and he screamed and cried and ran away into his watery home, until it was gone, until a steamship came, drove past, picked them up from the roof of their home…  He rocked back and forth on an old chair, remembering those strange snippets, those strange dreams. From the buzzing faces that spoke and comforted him, to the gone, faded things from the past. the thoughts of himself as a febrile one-year-old. A swing, a playground, woodchips, fresh jeans, freedom, cars driving past. He saw a strangely natural world, where people were normal, and everything was full of a bit of sun. 

It was a reliving of the past, of memory, of a world he’d once held in his hands. After the steamship, he’d arrived at Ainom, barely learning how to walk. The memories shifted again, horrible waves crashed against the stone. He’d been terrified, horrified by the flooding, wondering about his childhood home. Nightmares crashed through his mind, of the infinitely gigantic waves, of the great infernus, dripping things in the dark. He smiled softly at them now, as nostalgia filled him with warmth. Those strange days were gone, all gone. Stuck inside, cramped in the great hollow hallways of the world, nearly frozen to death, in the colonies of ice. Then, all alone, seeing those strangely twisted bodies against the ice, all dead. All dead! He could not remember their faces, their smiles. They were black and blue, screaming aloud, with heads tilted upward.

He remembered the full cold, the winter howling in the night, he crawled to Ainom with his weakling hands, sucked on them for warmth, collapsed in the ice, the snow, the whirling wind, the death, the horrible black death. Alone, alone, alone, mourning and mourning with his thin cheeks icy from tears.

The Ainomians carried him back, sat him near a fire, in a great village of Buddhist temples and Monks, but with new people, Germans, the French, and more. Wearing uniforms worn grey and pale with the white of age. They let him into a great iron hall, with thousands of other children, where he hid his scarred face and slept near the warmth that burnt brightly through his eyes.

Then, the ceremonies, the lively, great feasts of the young king. Magic made the night warm and kept the cold away. Feasts and drinks with the Xenu’s, the Children Of God, the floating Icith. Ah, yes, when Ainom was strong, when progress and success marched  Then, the rebellions and the horrible State. The guns flaring forward, as God killed his Children and forced the Lamb-headed men forward from the ice. And now, he lived in a dump, with the worst of the world. In the smelly smog, in the deepest warmth, in the strange fiery chaos of a horrible world. 

He continued in the reliving of his memory, tired, restless, and awake. He did not want to go outside, experience the fresh ice and the fresh cold blast through his skin, and leave him wasted and helpless. 

The wrinkles around his forehead mushed together in hateful thought. There were people outside, the idiotic people, walking about in utter devotion to the State. Their selfish ideologies took them into ignorance. Their freedom was taken away, stuck inside, cramped into suitcases, cans, boxes, shoved into the State, a cramped cylinder of concrete. Horrible, horrible, like Zircon de Miek himself. The man who despised the world and its people, but despicable himself, a worse, more ignoble thing. A man who killed the freedom of others without a single drop of regret.

The rotting State would soon crumble to Ainom. There was no doubt. 

He continued rocking in his chair, collecting each curious memory into a pocket file. His eyes were nearly blind from constant rest. His legs rolled around uselessly, and his skin grew pale and flaxen, white as his bleached hair. 

He was old and useless, barely could wake up in the morning. Paralyzed by life, the world, age, and time. With his saggy skin 

The hours passed by for Soros. He sat in his wooden, rocking chair, quietly whispering, feeling the warmth of feeling and emotion pass through him. The PO-KT whirred and blew its small fans out into the cold, expelling heat into the dead room. Silence faded away, replaced with the quiet audio of the PO-KT replaying Soro’s memories, again and again.

A knock on the door woke him from his trance. It was Zircon, the only person who visited him these days.

“Come in. Come in”, he grumbled and shifted himself to appear taller and prouder. He pressed a button to unlock the latch he couldn’t unlock.

Zircon walked in, waved toward him, and took a seat on a rotting bench full of oozeworms and termites. It creaked and cracked

“Good morning! Ah yes, ah… Good morning..., Zircon said with his thick tank-borne accent. He laughed, smiled again, waggled his eyebrows, and then stopped, paused to contemplate something. The false politeness oozed out of his voice. Soros stared at him through his tired, empty eyes.  

"You’re doing well today! Under my promotion as the Head Of The Elimination Of Magic Unit, under the command of your Chamberlain.”, Zircon saluted and smiled toward Soros. Standing up tall and straight, but Soros ignored it and walked forth to get something from a chest in another room.

“A great day isn’t it?”, Zircon said, smiling again, “Yes, a great day...”

“Be quiet! I’m trying to focus!”

Zircon paused his contemplation. Stepping behind Soros, staring at him.

“Quiet!? You pig! You idiotic fool, sitting here by yourself.”, he shouted. “Is this what you do all day? Sitting here with your stupid PO-KT!”

He kicked it across the room, with a weak force.

Soros said nothing, but continued looking through the chest, 

Zircon approached forward.

“Look at me, Soros! Look at me! Look!”

But he continued, shuffling through the boundless items… 

“ Our modern society does not need people like you!... You… You weak old thing! Scum!”

He stood up, walked over, and held up a bag of items.

“Here it is”, Soros gave Zircon a grocery bag full of black market items. Food spilled over, fish, bread, nuts, berries, corn, turkey, apples, duck, chicken, and peas.

Zircon handed him the money, stopping his speech midway. Then, he snatched it from Soros’s hands, looking into the bag.

Zircon looked up, muttering to himself, scratching his head, standing there for a while, by himself. He watched Zircon’s stupid piggish eyes, hated them, hated Zircons disheveled face. 

“Get away!”Soros shouted. He hated the face. He wanted to tear those dull eyes away from Zircon’s skin, watch it peel away until it shriveled and fell into dust. He wanted to bury him underneath the earth and leave Zircon there to rot. God! He hated him, the sight of Zircon made him sick.

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Goodbye, Soros”, Zircon went away, the door slamming with a loud bang behind him.

Soros was alone, in the dinky hut. The light flickered, then went out. He put on his PO-KT again and turned it on, looking into the deep chasms of his mind, relaxing in the dark. 

Quiet… All quiet…