Electronic Gags (11 page)

He
dropped the book and went to his room. Before he went to bed, he checked the
balance of his electronic gag and found out that he had eight lucres and
thirty-two cents in his account. Now that his mother was gone, the airtime
could last him more than three days. When he was at work he only spoke when it
was necessary. He and his colleagues mostly communicated by writing notes.

After
more than an hour of turning and shifting positions on the bed, Freddie fell
asleep, dreamlessly at first, before he started dreaming about Michael facing a
firing squad.

“I
didn’t betray you Michael!” he shouted.

Michael
kept looking at him with accusing eyes.

“Michael
I swear to God, I didn’t betray you.”

Michael
kept glaring at him. He had to do something to save Michael from the firing
squad. He had to do something to show Michael that he didn’t betray him.
Suddenly he had a gun in his hands. He opened fire at the firing squad before
he untied Michael. “Run Michael, run!”

“I
can’t,” Michael whined. “My leg is injured. Go without me, Freddie. Now I know
you didn’t betray me.”

“No
Michael, I can’t leave you.” He carried Michael and ran away from prison,
security agents in hot pursuit. He killed many policemen and CIB agents but
more kept coming. Now he was beginning to tire.

“I
can’t carry you anymore, Michael,” he said. “I guess we have to surrend―”

A
nasty electric shock enveloped his neck, spreading all over his sweaty body.
“Jesus!” he shouted, bringing the shock back. He panted, trying to recover his
wits. It took him fifteen seconds to realize he had finished his airtime
talking in his sleep and had to shut up to avoid electric shocks, which the
NASP manual euphemistically termed payment reminders.

His
watch read 3:02 a.m. He got out of bed, worried he would fall asleep and start
talking in his sleep again. He would never again fall asleep without adequate
airtime.

*
* * * *

Michael
and his fellow prisoners had been on death row for more than two months,
knowing that each day could very well be their last. Whenever they heard the
stamping of boots and the creaking of the prison’s gates, they feared the
guards had come to take them to the firing squad.

When
a guard came to take Michael to Cabinet House at Professor Reed’s request, all
the members of cell 13 thought Michael was going to face the firing squad. When
he returned hours later, they all looked at him as if he was a ghost.

“Michael!
You are alive!”

“Where
did they take you?”

Michael
told them everything that had happened to him at Cabinet House.

Now
all the inmates had electronic gags and had no airtime. They lived in silence,
praying for a miracle that would deliver them from the jaws of death. The
silence was so unbearable that they looked forward to the four minutes of free
airtime they got at twelve for singing the national anthem. Although they hated
the anthem, a song that idolized the supreme leader and his regime, they sang
it loudly, happy to use their vocal chords without attracting electric shock.

Sometimes
CIB agents interrogated the prisoners for fun, forcing them to speak without
airtime. When a prisoner refused to answer their questions, the CIB agents beat
him and when the prisoner answered the questions, he suffered electric shocks.
The prisoners had to choose between electric shock and beating. They soon
learnt that the best thing to do was to give short answers and agree to all
accusations to shorten the interrogation.

One
night a prisoner tried to commit suicide by singing a hymn. He only managed to
sing for seventeen seconds, ignoring the electric shock, before he fainted.

Today,
as Michael sat in cell 13, a twenty-square-meter room he shared with six other
prisoners, he tried to answer the question that had vexed him since his arrest.
Did Freddie betray him? Freddie, the man he considered his best friend. The
kind and considerate Freddie. Did he, of all people, betray him?

He
had discussed this with the other occupants of cell 13. Everyone else believed Freddie
betrayed them. Michael had resolutely defended Freddie, but now he wasn’t so
sure. Now that the electronic gag had confined the prisoners to silence, Michael
found it difficult to defend Freddie from his own doubt. Telling the other
prisoners that Freddie was innocent was easier than telling himself the same.

Michael
looked at the walls of the dark cell and spotted two big fleas descending
towards him. He took a piece of concrete from under his bed and squashed the
insects. Bulging with blood, the fleas were purple, cruelly reminding Michael
of mulberries, his favorite fruit. The smell of the entrails of the fleas
filled the cell, almost overpowering the smell from the squat hole.

Holding
the piece of concrete, which was reddish brown from crushing fleas full of
human blood, Michael scanned the walls for more fleas. The prisoners in cell 13
called the piece of concrete the mouse because they held it like a computer
mouse when they crushed fleas on the cell’s walls. Michael had pulled out the
concrete from the cell’s cracked floor. The prisoners also had a “stylus,” a
stick of matches that they used to squash or flush out fleas hidden in cracks
and crevices on the cell’s walls. The other occupants of cell 13 sometimes
helped Michael kill the insects but mostly it was Michael who killed the pests.
He was angry with the Ward regime and he vented his anger at the fleas. The
prisoners only managed to kill big and medium-sized fleas. It was difficult to
spot the tiny baby fleas in the dark. There were so many fleas in the cell that
Michael believed that if the insects were to be collected, they would fill a
bucket. During the day, the pests hid in crevices on the walls and came out for
dinner at night. There were a few greed fleas that wanted to feast during the
day and Michael deleted most of them with his mouse.

Michael
felt movement in his bowels and would have gone to the toilet straightaway if
he was home. He had to wait for five o’clock, the time the inhabitants of cell
13 had set as the shitting time. Since prison guards only gave prisoners in
each cell two buckets of water every day to flush their toilets, the occupants
of cell 13 decided it was better to defecate one after the other and then flush
the squat hole with one bucket of water, saving the other bucket for emergencies.
When it was hot, like today, the inmates soaked their shirts in the bucket or
sprinkled themselves with the water to cool themselves. As for pissing, one
could take a leak any time.

Once
every three days, each prisoner got half a bucket of water for bathing.

*
* * * *

Security
chiefs and members of Cabinet chatted at the Brandon Ward airport, waiting for
the president’s return from the FAO summit in Rome. Some of them impatiently
looked at their watches, anxious to go home. President Brandon Ward’s flight
was scheduled to arrive at 7:15. The time was 7:42 and the plane was nowhere in
sight. Ward required all his ministers and security chiefs to welcome him when
he came from abroad. On arrival, he wanted them to brief him on the affairs of
the state.

Away
from this group of powerful people was a crowd of National Party supporters,
dressed in the party’s colorful regalia and singing the party’s songs. The
National Party’s symbol, Brandon Ward’s face, was dotted all over the party’s
regalia.

“He
is here!” Air Marshal Gardner said.

“Where?”

“There,”
he said, pointing westwards.

The
rest of the group couldn’t hear or see anything. Air Marshal Gardner had worked
with airplanes for most of his life and he was always the first to hear the
president’s plane. Eight seconds later, the others heard the drone of the
Boeing 787 VIP.

“Gardner,
you have radar in your ears,” General Robinson said with a laugh.

Like
kids looking at their father’s car, the security chiefs and members of Cabinet
watched the plane circle before it descended onto the runway. They walked to
the airplane and stood in a line in order of seniority, members of Cabinet
first.

Cameramen
focused their cameras on the stairway as President Brandon Ward and his wife
came out, followed by the president’s bodyguard, Assistant Police Commissioner Evans,
six CIB agents, the president’s secretary, Lopez, and Foreign Minister Henderson.

The
crowd of National Party supporters broke into the song
Viva Ward the Father
and Savior of the Nation.
If God was listening, He must have felt envious
at the praise that His creatures were giving a fellow creature. CIB agents
stood between the president and the National Party supporters. Some of the
women escaped through the CIB cordon and laid pieces of cloth in the
president’s path as if he was Jesus on his triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Smiling,
Brandon Ward greeted the vice president and chatted with him for a minute
before he greeted his young brother and chatted with him for over two minutes.
Then he greeted the ministers of Defense, State Security, Interior and Information
before he greeted the lesser ranking ministers.

After
greeting each minister, the supreme leader asked, “Patriot, is there anything
of interest that you want to tell me?” None of the ministers had anything to
tell the president, meaning everything had gone smoothly during his absence. Brandon
Ward then greeted the security chiefs and asked them the same question. Only
the CIB director-general had something to tell the president.

“I
don’t know if you will consider this interesting, Your Excellence.”
Director-general Sullivan cleared his throat. “A day before you left, on the
second half of the first lady’s birthday, we arrested a rather interesting
rebel.”

“Tell
me more, director-general,” Brandon Ward said, suddenly erect, his jetlag
forgotten and the smile gone from his face. If there was one word President Brandon
Ward hated, it was the word rebel.

“We
arrested a member of the Police Special Branch. NASP caught her ridiculing you.
A―a...” he wanted to say
a day before
but corrected himself in the
nick of time. “During the first half of the first lady’s birthday, she was in
the VIP lounge as one of the security personnel protecting you at the national
stadium, Your Excellence.”

“What!”
Brandon Ward exclaimed amid the ecstatic singing of National Party supporters.
“Commissioner Hunt, you must thoroughly vet the policemen you assign to protect
me.”

The
police commissioner said nothing, knowing that the supreme leader brooked no
reply when was angry.

“I
no longer feel safe,” Brandon Ward went on with his tirade. “Why do you admit
rebels in our police force? A rebel in the Police Special Branch! What is this
country coming to?”

The
director-general disliked the police commissioner and saw this as an
opportunity to discredit him. Before the president assigned him to the CIB, the
director-general had been a policeman and the police commissioner had unfairly
treated him. Now it was payback time. “The rebel won the President’s
Sharpshooter Competition in the women’s category,” the director-general added
mischievously.

“Jesus!”
Brandon Ward shouted. “A rebel sniper! Did you interrogate her,
director-general?”

“Yes,
Your Excellence.”

“Was
she working alone or she is part of a conspiracy?”

“No,
she was working alone.”

“Still...
an armed rebel sharpshooter in the VIP lounge near me. Commissioner Hunt, how
did the rebel sharpshooter end up in the VIP lounge?” President Ward frowned,
“If she wanted, she would have killed me with one pull of her trigger.
Commissioner, if you can’t vet the officers you assign to protect me, send them
to the CIB for vetting.”

“Should
we eliminate her, Your Excellence?” the CIB chief asked.

“Of
course! But wait until I say so. Patriot Christopher and I came up with an
interesting plan to eliminate the rebels in our prisons. I have to discuss the
logistics of the plan with Patriot Christopher before we can set it in motion.”

The
president then walked to the crowd of his party’s supporters. His face lit as
he listened to their song.

Ward
you are a messenger from God

Ward
the Lord sent you to save the nation

Ward
you are our savior

Ward
you are the father of the nation

Ward
you are our light

Drunk
with joy, he looked at the women who were dancing to the song and spotted a
young woman who was provocatively shaking her backside. She was beautiful and
about twenty years old. He was going to make enquiries about her. He wanted her
and he would get her. The country was his garden and he could pick any flower
he wanted, young or old.

Freddie’s misery
kept mounting. He tried overworking himself but work didn’t help him forget his
problems. He had lost interest in his job. What was the use of saving wild
animals when the government was rounding up and killing people at will? What
was the point in saving polar bears from extinction when he couldn’t save
himself and those he loved from the predatory Ward regime? What was the point
in maintaining the balance of nature in the wildlife refuge when there was no
balance in his life?