The time of the decrees was undoubtedly the era of the hashtag priests and their followers.
It was the time when every collective reflection on what was happening was unpopular, opposed, banned. People prayed and prostrated themselves before a symbol, venerated as a totem: #
The social networks profiles were turned into social butcheries and people were pleased to be able to contribute to the hunt for the scapegoat; they were really eager to burn the witches at the stake and take back all those little pleasures of public executions, in which only a joke from the civil registry had prevented them from taking part. They were thirsty for culprits and pushed to join the virtual ranks of the Royal Army of Decrees. They raced to be more royal than the King. A constant recruitment of battalions of persuaders and spies.
The armored vehicles of the Empire beat the streets spreading the word of the Decree. The Ministry of Propaganda of the Empire wondered how to propose the new enemy. It wasn’t easy; this time the enemy was invisible and evanescent, he could not be slammed on TV or on the web. However, it was necessary to find a solution and do it quickly because there was a serious risk that someone could held up as next enemy the Empire itself. Until that momen the enemy to stand against was made of flesh, bones, blood but with the ID from another side of the world.
At that point the idea came automaically: your new enemy will be yourself! The social crowd cheered enthusiastically. One but one, the public enemies were identified, summarily tried, finally executed and thrown into the common graves. this was the fate of those who had not yet understood that the way of looking at the world had changed with the Decrees and the grammar had changed with it too. It was no longer legit to conjugate verbs in six peonouns; it was an obsolete and irresponsible use of the social evolution of the language. Only two people were still in place: the first and the last. Me and them.
They take the train back home.
I stay home and swear at them.
They go out.
I record them with my smartphone.
They spread the disease by breathing my own air.
I call the police.
They work in barns.
I buy on Amazon.
They die in prison.
I say they deserve it.
They bring the goods home to help me pass the time.
I open the door but they have to stay away from me, because they are all crowded together in the warehouses.
They work fourteen hours in hospitals.
I cheer from the balconies.
They die.
Not me.
I die.
Because of them.
Thanks to the diligent attendance at those virtual gatherings, the Empire of the Decree did not consider it necessary to take further measures. The system would hold. There was no reason to put public health before individual safety. Small voices in the distance encouraged the spread of discontent about the conditions of public structures; they wondered why collective treatments and a prevention plans had not been put in place; the need for truth about the origin of the epidemic was meandering; they wondered how twelve people could live in one room. All those voices crawled underground. The earth was slightly vibrating, like subway trains running under checkpoints.
Still, the fury did not change: “the ones who leave home are to blame“, encouraged television.
Although the Empire of the Decree had had entire months to prevent the catastrophe, it deliberately choose to keep the population unprepared. The weak ones fell like flies. The fault was entirely of those who did not stay at home. I have to save myself, I have to save my family and it doesn’t matter if others have to keep on working, are in jail or alone and there’s no one to help them.
Resources were lacking. Masks were nowhere to be found.
A few organisms, modified by acid rain and climate change, brushed up some old gas masks from a cellar. They were dusty, but still working. They took turns to escape social dictatorship, hashtag priests and the singular first-person. They took turns to wear them, one hour a day, to breathe again.
To Conspire means to Breathe. Together.
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