Peripheral Visions: Dissident

"Peripheral Visions: You sense them from the corner of your eye or in the soft blur of darkest shadows. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late."

Dissident

"I've decided to call you Liam."

Colvin sat forward in his chair, looking at the hi-def image of the writer with sudden interest. The tiny hidden camera was in the ceiling above the writer's desk, so the view was of the writer from above as he leaned back in his chair and stretched out.

"I know we've been chatting for weeks now," the writer continued. "And we never needed names before... well, I didn't, anyway; you know my name already, which I suppose gave you an advantage. But if we're going to spend all day every day together, we really should become better acquainted."

That made a certain amount of sense, Colvin thought. He'd been monitoring the writer for five weeks, ever since he had been released from the Baltimore penal center due to intense pressure from abroad and even – despite these tumultuous times in America – from right here at home.

Colvin was impressed that the writer had excited as much loyalty as he had. It was one thing for those socialists in Germany or the virtue-signaling Fins to mount a campaign to free the writer, but for Americans to regain a sense of moral outrage? Colvin never thought he'd see it happen. Never in his lifetime, anyway. He remembered when, as a young man, he'd thrilled to the authoritarian decrees of Trump and then, a few years later – after an interregnum of left-wing fumbling and high-flown rhetoric that went nowhere – the meteoric ascent of Winfield Kirsch. After fifteen years in office Kirsch had taken the final few steps to secure order once and for all, decreeing that those who had not joined the Theopublican Party would be imprisoned. Colvin had celebrated along with everyone else as a wave of mass arrests swept the country, a purifying flame that finally stamped out voices of perversion, voices of faithlessness, voices of chaos.

The writer had been among them. He had been a thorn in Kirsch's side – and therefore America's side – for a decade and a half at that point. Colvin had assumed, as everyone did, that the old man would simply perish in prison, given his advanced age.

And yet, that did not happen. The old bastard was determined to hang on, determined to embarrass Kirsch even now, at this late date, by surviving.

For three years he hung on, never seeming to weaken; for three years his essays and japes had continued to find their way online and onto paper from the notorious Baltimore facility, a political prison that had, for good reason, been nicknamed The Dungeon.

For three years.

And then, with international censure mounting and the frail American economy imperiled as transnational corporations began wavering on long-pending megadeals, and with protests and demonstrations in America's city streets escalating into riots, Kirsch had shown his true colors: Not the all-in, eternally devoted guardian of the Rule of Law after all, but someone who was focused on praise and personal enrichment, just as the writer and others of his ilk had always said.

The writer was magnanimously released from The Dungeon and ceremoniously sentenced to house arrest. He went home to a residence that had been fitted with a dozen tiny camera-and-microphone assemblies; yes, a home that was equipped with the latest in electronic eavesdropping, such that even the words he wrote on his laptop were transcribed and transmitted to his datafile.

And Colvin watched him, day in and day out; read the reams of pages he produced, day in and day out; listened to his perpetual monologue, day in and day out, a one-sided conversation that had begun practically the moment the writer had set food through his front door after three years away.

"Home is still sweet," the writer had said in a clear, distinct voice as he shut the front door and took off the thin jacket the officials at the facility had provided him. "Even if it includes an uninvited guest. Well," the writer had continued, "invited or not, a host must never leave his guest bored or feeling that he's not being attended to."

Thus it had begun: The writer's daily serenade.

The first couple of weeks hadn't been so bad. They had even been amusing, at times. Colvin had listened as the old man had outlined a number of writing projects, asking, on occasion, "What do you think?" or, "Should I pursue narrative path A, in which the hero dies, or narrative path B, in which she lives?" Colvin personally would have preferred the old man himself to die, and take his fictional characters with him. But Colvin said nothing, and gave no sign that he was listening, watching, waiting for some overt act of insurrection. Anything would have served – the writing of a tract, a treatise, or a couplet that insulted Kirsch, critiqued the government, or insulted the state religion.

But the writer didn't truck in such things any longer. He had, once; he'd pointed his quill like a finger at Kirsch and others in power, and called them creative names, slurs that were deadly accurate and unforgivably venomous. The writer was one of those malcontents who was determined to use his gifts to create strife and chaos. Colvin had never understood it. Why couldn't these people be content to submit - or, if they couldn't submit, to give up and die? Did they think the world had any use for them? They had lost the battle many years ago. What was the point of continuing to complain and accuse? All that ever happened was that they ended up in prison, costing money that the workers paid in taxes. Even when the malcontents were simply executed – drugged, sliced open, dumped from aircraft into the sea – there were expenses to be paid.

In the case of the writer, at home once more, under house arrest, under constant scrutiny... and still writing... the cost was unpardonable. As far as Colvin was concerned, every breath the old man drew was a luxury worthy of liberal wastrels and a burden that society should not be asked to underwrite. In effect, the government was paying the writer to stay home and pen his treason.

Except the writer wasn't producing anything that seemed remotely treasonous. He wrote every day, yes; he wrote for hours at a time. But his stories seemed innocuous, even amusing.

So, too, were his daily monologues in which he addressed Colvin – not that he knew who Colvin was, but he certainly knew he was being monitored. Colvin wondered if this was a mind game – some sort of psychological warfare – or simply a way to cope with loneliness.

At first the writer talked aloud about subjects such as the weather, or told meaningless anecdotes about celebrities he had known, or gave voice to long literary analyses of fairy tales, the lyrics of popular songs, the Greek or Latin etymologies of common words. As time went on, though, the old man's one-sided conversation got more personal. He began to talk about his youth, his early dreams, his travels. For a while Colvin was on the edge of his seat, waiting for a name or maybe a confession. How the Bureau would have loved an audio or video admission from the writer of his subversive activities, his unlawful associations, or even his unnatural sexual habits!

But the reminiscences were factual, dry, nondescript. The old man talked about living abroad, yes, but he didn't reveal the conversations he must surely have had about Marxist philosophy; no, he talked about the kinds of moss that grew in German forests, or the architecture of Oxford university. He discussed the technical aspects of the rebuilding of Notre Dame cathedral and the paper-making techniques of the ancient Chinese. He talked about the evolving form of the novel, from Murasaki Shikibu's 11th Century Japanese work "The Tale of Genji" to the palindromes and other word games to be found in the works of James Joyce. None of these ruminations were political in nature (or theological, which would have been the same thing). Instead, they focused on literary technique and narrative structure.

And now, today, he had decided to start calling Colvin by a name. What had he said it was, again?

"So, Liam," the writer said, as if on cue. "In order for us to move past this unseemly habit of starchy formality, I suggest we stop talking so much about me – my work, my life – and talk a little bit about you. After all, I have treated you with the utmost courtesy, would you not agree? You have been my silent interrogator. I have been your fount of information."

Colvin laughed to himself. Fount of information? Perhaps, if one were curious about the similarities between the molecular properties of caffeine and the geography of the Priapus mountains. Not, however, if you were doing the sacred work of stamping out dissent.

"Perhaps we can now take things to another level. Perhaps we can attain some degree of intimacy, or at least reciprocity."

Colvin rolled his eyes.

"Now, being a writer, I am well equipped to imagine who you are," the old man was saying. "What you look like, your daily routines, your quirks and soft spots. But imagination cannot be fully free-form, now, can it? Not if it's to be an effective tool. That's something many aspiring writers don't seem to understand. A story must follow certain rules – abide by a certain system of logic. Those cardinal guidelines are absolutely essential, and they can be applied universally – not just to stories, but to people, also. After all, what are people but stories? Living stories, rich and surprising, following certain conventions but also, when it matters, departing from those conventions to surprise the reader, or the... the observer."

Colvin buried his face in his hands, wishing for anything surprising to come from the writer's nattering. Couldn't the old man simply come to the point?

"Under even the most the prosaic surface there are poetic cross-currents and examples of deep symbolism," the writer continued. "Boring people don't exist, Liam. The people who are boring are those who look at an accountant and see nothing more – and you, let's face it, you are an accountant, tallying my words and actions. Looking for any hint of slight-of-hand between the credit and debit columns. What are my earnings and what are my expenditures? Have I exhausted my capital – my political capital, that is? Is the market still too hot to consider liquidating the stock holdings, which is to say, my life, my person, my existence? Do you not make those determinations and report them to the appropriate parties?"

Colvin sat back in his chair, realizing there would be no juicy disclosures. The old man was just amusing himself.

"Ah, my poor accountant." The writer had a smile in his voice. Colvin glanced at one of the screens and saw the smile echoed on the old man's face. "I have thought about you for so long now. Worked out who you are by considering who you must be. You have no choice in the matter, no more than I do. And yet, it's not the state, or any book of laws, that has brought us together. It's who we are. This is how things had to be. And how can I say so? Because, Liam – my dear friend; for we are friends, are we not? Liam, it's because this is fate. Not personal fate, mind you, but universal fate. We are who we are, and we are the same as anybody else. By that, I mean we are carrying out our necessary roles. To fit the parts, we must possess certain qualities. Our lives must fit within specified constraints. Our souls must in and of themselves follow certain contours. Existence is an unforgiving pattern, as fluid as colors swirling in a soap bubble and yet as rigidly definite as any pattern rooted in mathematical principle. We follow the patterns of our lives because we are patterns ourselves, and, Liam, this is key: We cannot be or do otherwise. If we did, we would not be ourselves. And do you believe that we can be anything other than what we are? Can we be anyone else but ourselves?"

Colvin scoffed.

"Of course you don't," the writer said. He was staring into the middle distance, leaning back dreamily in his chair, seated comfortably at his desk with his laptop ready for his customary six hours of writing.

Colvin looked at another view among his bank of screens, and started. It was a perfect coincidence that the writer's eyes were looking toward the tiny camera; for a moment Colvin thought the writer was looking at him, could actually see him. But the illusion melted away as Colvin realized the writer was not looking quite into the camera – which was fortunate, since the effect would have been too unnerving, even for Colvin. But still, Colvin got an uneasy sense that the writer really was addressing him – him specifically. That maybe he did know a thing or two about Colvin's life, his mind, his character...

Character. That was it, Colvin thought. The old man was simply creating a character, turning his situation into the plot of a novel and then populating that novel with the kind of stock figures he had always used in his fiction.

"I'll be writing about other things today, Liam," the old man said. "You'll be reading along, won't you? You have the technical means to monitor every keystroke, log and note every mistake, poor word choice, misspelling, correction, and second thought. I cannot erase my record of dubious behavior – in the eyes of the state, that is – simply by hitting the delete key. I cannot reorder my life by resorting to the cut and paste function. There is no polished draft of my life as it exists in your files, only an endless series of sequences and details that are constantly being revised. How much guiltier could I look, given the way my stories change? Because, no, I am not really certain that one July 19 fourteenth years ago I left the house to go get milk and bread at nine in the morning. It might have been ten. But if it was at ten, does that fit your timeline better or worse? I cannot recall such details; they are lost in the shuffle of quotidian tasks. Even during a reign of terror we must contend with the sameness of the days, the obscure details and monotonous functions of life. And is that not in itself the very reason for such a reign of terror – for such close scrutiny and such technical effort to preserve each movement and moment? Do we not, innocent and guilty alike, look to the stat to do the work of recollection for us?"

"So full of shit," Colvin whispered in exasperation.

"Why do the agents of those in control ask me about my movements and gestures? Am I supposed to know?" the writer continued. "Yes, it's my life, after all, but then again: It's your timeline we're concerned with, isn't it? Your timeline that accounts for my words and gestures? The timeline that explains my movements along every stage of my long career? And are you not the accountant, stacking each moment on one side or the other of the abacus that determines virtue or crime?

"Am I barreling toward guilt or exoneration?" the writer asked. "Will my record be expunged... or my existence? Ah, Liam, the stinging irony is that there may be no difference between one fate and another. We simply do as we do, for as long as we show up in the always-changing patterns."

Colvin realized he was actually grinding his teeth as the lecture went on. Thankfully, the old man shut up at after that and started on the day's work. He was writing an essay about the parallels between Mayan stone-carving and 1920s silent-era film: Stories told one frame, or panel, at a time. Stories that followed similar themes and predictable progressions.

***

"Good morning, Liam!" The old man sounded bright and clear headed, despite the early hour.

Colvin wasn't feeling so bright or so clear-headed. He had already had his first cup of coffee, but it was still only half past six in the morning. It was February, and the sun didn't even rise until late in the morning. Colvin always felt tired in the winter, due the short daylight hours.

Too bad watching the writer wasn't a seasonal job, he thought.

"So," the writer said a few minutes later, after brushing his teeth and using the toilet – the same actions he took in the same order every morning while Colvin looked on, bored. "Tomorrow I have my shower, is that right? Yes? Tomorrow is Wednesday... yes. Wednesday and Saturday, those are the full water supply days for my neighborhood. That is correct. So this morning we have time to talk a little extra."

That struck Colvin as a wonderful idea... in an ironic sense.

"Let's talk about this: Liam. The name I've chosen for you. And why? Because you are a man of a certain age – between forty and fifty-five. Not an energetic upstart whom the state bureaucracy would not waste on the job you're doing. And not a pensioner who'd fall asleep during the long hours when you should be watching with eagle eyes for whatever sly and sublime sigil I might describe in the air." The writer lifted a hand, pointed a finger, and traced a letter, or maybe a number. A 2? A Q? Colvin couldn't be sure.

"You have to be sensible, level-headed, alert to credible facts," the writer continued, "but not liable to leap down some time-wasting rabbit hole. In other words, you have to be smarter and better equipped for thinking than the vast majority or your... I mean, our... countrymen." The writer smiled broadly. "And what did that little slip of the tongue just now mean? What will it tell you? Is it evidence of disaffection? Alienation? Loyalties to some country other than America the Beautiful? Ah, my boy, my boy. Yes, you are between forty and fifty five, but you are still a boy to me. You could be my son. I could be your father. We could have a tender understanding between us, a veritable electrical field of shared history and, therefore, thoughts and attitudes. Could we not? But, then again, sometimes a word is nothing other than a word, and the fact that the universe includes true randomness within the scope of its operations is the thing that keeps it interesting, even for poor, concrete patterns like ourselves."

Colvin sighed. It was going to be a long day if the writer kept this up. At least he would summarize his daily report in just a few words to the effect that the old man had spent the morning hours rambling aloud.

"But I'm being rude, aren't I?" the writer asked. "You must want specifics. Bite-sized, no harder to swallow than, say, one of those tiny powder-sugar donuts I imagine you must have for breakfast. I wonder if you put them on a plate – count them out, in a kind of morning ritual, serve them to yourself in a tiny act of self-respect, a courtesy carried out in the symmetrical presentation of ... how many? Six? Six donuts stacked like a pyramid on the plate?

"Or are you the sort who enjoys it when others do his bidding? Did you wangle a subordinate who brings the donuts to you, right on time, exactly so many, arranged exactly so?"

Not hardly, Colvin thought. Though that might have been nice.

"Or do you simply reach into the bag and pull them out, one at a time, not keeping count, just eating until you've had your fill?" the writer asked. "No, surely you are more disciplined than that. You know you should be eating better food. You indulge yourself in the donuts only because you follow a healthful diet the rest of the time,. Note this well, young fellow. Healthful diet. Not healthy. A diet is not healthy, the person who follows that diet is healthy. The diet helps him maintain his health. It is a healthful diet."

Oh, Christ, Colvin thought, resting his forehead against his palm. He was getting a headache.

The writer chuckled. "Yes, you did well in school, and you have strong verbal skills – within the requirements of your profession, of course. But that's a pretty circumscribed professional silo they're dropped you into, and not terribly deep, is it? You know the words and phrases to use in your reports, which you probably dictate, letting your computer turn your spoken words into written format before you hit the 'submit' button. You're all about efficiency, but the hard thing about it is those highly efficient habits can turn into ruts, can't they? And discipline, at a certain point, becomes another sort of laziness, doesn't it?"

The writer paused, a smile still on his face. He let his eyes close. Colvin looked at the front view, the eye-level view, and confirmed that the writer's eyes were shut. A minute went by. Several minutes went by. Colvin began to wonder if the writer had fallen asleep.

"No, no, I'm still with you," the writer suddenly said. "Don't worry, I'm not turning into a feeble relic who's apt to drop off in the middle of a conversation. I just wanted to give you a little time to consider the importance of language, and liveliness, for both personal and professional gain. If we don't chase ourselves out of our mental ruts, who'll do it for us? Well, I'm happy to take charge of that task for both of us. You watch me, Liam, and you watch me well. That is your contribution, after all, to sit there and watch an old man talk to himself. Indeed, you are be commended for it; civilization itself depends on your acute watchfulness, your attention to detail. But I will also contribute. I cannot see you, but I will watch over you, and isn't that what every good citizen wants from his government? And what a government wants in turn from its... citizens?" The writer smiled broadly.

Colvin wished the writer would just come out with something treasonous and be done with it.

"So back to you, then," the old man resumed. "A man of a certain age. We used to call it 'middle age.' Do you still? You know, I hate to admit this, but even before going to prison for three years I'd stopped following trends in contemporary langue. I know it's my responsibility to keep current as to how words are used, but I have to tell you..." The writer's voice dipped to a whisper. "I was getting depressed with how people speak now days. No sense of fun, no double meanings, no sparkles of innuendo. And the average vocabulary has shrunk to a shocking degree. You can hardly expect anyone under the age of sixty to appreciate le mot juste. But you're clever, Liam, and even if you're a little rusty you'll be able to follow along as I chatter, won't you? Of course you will. You're a bright boy. And you've been trained in the art of listening."

Sure, Colvin thought. A six hour online tutorial, followed by a multiple-choice quiz.

"And you've had a good education," the writer said. "After all, before you joined the military... and you did, didn't you? The sensitive work of watching a monster like me could never fall to someone without the proper party credentials... well, before you joined the military, or perhaps... perhaps... afterwards, you went to university. Either way, you went to the right schools. Not the basic public education system, no. They don't give dullards the job you've got; keep the dumb brutes in reserve for the dirty jobs, let them be prison guards, correct? For a job requiring attention and focus and even, perhaps, finesse, we need an educated man. And when it comes to monitoring someone like me... a writer, a poet, a putative enemy of the state, that's what they've called me, isn't it?... well, for someone like me they'll want and need someone like you. Trustworthy. But maybe a little careless, at least at some point in his life. Maybe someone who said the wrong word to the wrong person at the wrong time and found himself caught under someone else's grudge. A superior officer, maybe. A father in law. Because, of course, you come from a good family. And you would have married into a good family. Families that hold that power and won't marry outside the proper spheres of influence. Yes? To do a job like this, you need the right sort of people... the right sort of people, that is, who have gotten the wrong kind of attention. Officially, your reputation is sterling, of course. But between the lines? In the drawing rooms or studies of the commandantes, during conversations that take place with surveillance dampening measures in active use? In the strips of shadow between the bands of sunlight that fall through the slats of those opulent wooden blinds in the office of... let's see, your father in law, maybe? Or an uncle for whom you are not a favored nephew? Yes. You're still part of the family, after all, but you're never going to become the patriarch. Are you?"

***

Colvin sat in his car for a moment. He was parked in his driveway. It was dark. Short winter days, long working hours. The writer had regaled him with so many details about his family and his likely address, his career path and his education... he'd gotten a lot right, but he'd also gotten a lot wrong.

Annapolis? No. Colvin had gone to West Point. But that only sharpened the old man's astute and correct deduction that Colvin's once-promising career path had been stunted and dimmed by a man in a position of power – a man who could arrange for a job like the one Colvin did now for the Bureau of Homeland Security: Politically sensitive, requiring a high level security clearance, and yet a dead end. Because, as the writer had observed, someone doing the work Colvin was doing had to be trustworthy, but he also had to be professionally hobbled. Work like this was hardly a fast track to anyplace but obscurity. And yes, the reason for Colvin's dead end assignment was his father in law: A man who had not succeeded in stopping his daughter from marrying Colvin, but within whose power it lay to stop Colvin from succeeding as brilliantly as he otherwise might have.

Colvin's military career hit an invisible ceiling thanks to Marion's father, Frank. A good opportunity presented itself when Homeland Security came recruiting, but it wasn't the avenue Colvin had thought it to be – it wasn't a route that circumvented Frank, it was a short and straight path to his current position right under Frank's thumb.

Annapolis, though. Colvin shook his head. What had the writer been thinking?

***

"Of course," the writer was saying, "she wanted a son, just as you did. But she also wanted a daughter. Didn't she? And a father wants sons, of course, but the truth is that a daughter is going to become the apple of his eye."

Apple – of his eye? Colvin shook his head at the strange metaphor. He'd never heard that one before. But just as the writer had said himself, he tended not to use contemporary phrases. His language was often a little archaic.

Still, Colvin thought he understood what the phrase must mean.

"Of course, a single child is an economic hardship for most people in America these days," the writer continued. "But not having a child automatically makes one suspect. It's almost disqualifying, isn't it? To join the party and remain a member in good standing, a man has to be either a current active-duty member of the military or else married, and, preferably, both. Anyone who's still childless at the age of – twenty-six? Twenty-eight? Thirty? Well, of course, the state must assume they are defective. Sterile. Or married to someone who is sterile, which speaks to a lack of judgment. Or, that man is corrupt enough to allow his woman to use birth control methods, unless – even worse – he's being played by his woman, and she's on some illegal prescription right under his nose."

Under his nose? That was another odd turn of phrase.

"Or," the writer added, "he's pathologically unlucky... 'Cursed by God, 'isn't that the current legal language? Or maybe... dreadful to contemplate! Perhaps he is a homosexual!"

The writer paused as if to let the shock of the word have its impact. Colvin smiled at that. He'd heard worse; he'd seen worse.

"But of course deviants will be found out, won't they?" the writer resumed. "And real men, blessed men, will have wives, and they will have children. But probably no more than two, preferably sons. Yes? Because it's certainly within the realm of the permitted – unofficially permitted – that a man with two children might manage, through whatever means, not to have any more. Unless, of course, he's from a powerful family and gets a little financial help... a little incentive to coax him toward additional childbearing and child rearing. Such a man could easily find himself blessed with three children – a genetic legacy that more than replaces himself and his wife and, more to the point, increases the genetic legacy of the powerful men who pull the purse strings of the extended family. Yes? Slowly making the world a better place by displacing inferior genes. Yes?"

Yes. Colvin and his wife had had three children.

"And your daughter, now admit it: You're glad you have one girl child. Because where would your sons be if no one had any daughters? And even you – yes, even you – have enough of a sense of symmetry in the universe to know that if others have provided daughters for your sons, it's a moral obligation to provide a daughter in turn."

***

Colvin sat in his car again that night, gathering himself before going into the house where his wife and two sons waited for him. A daughter? Was that what the old man had said? Plus two sons.

Was she a daughter? The doctors had simply taken their third child away as soon as he... she?... was born. Defective, they said. Indeterminate gender. A moral and financial liability for society at large and, under the Faith Laws, they had no choice but to destroy it, monster that it was.

The law also mandated that Marion be subjected to a hysterectomy to prevent the generation of any more such defective offspring. Not even Frank had enough clout to prevent the state's Bureau of Racial and Genetic Health from imposing the procedure, closing the door forever to a third... no, wait, Colvin thought, a fourth... no, he cursed himself – idiot, keep these things straight – a third child.

Colvin's daughter. Or his son.

***

Colvin settled at his desk at 5:00 a.m. and glanced over the sensor and video feed logs. Nothing unusual in any of it; the old man had been fast asleep by nine, and had gotten up three times in the night to empty his bladder.

Well, good. Colvin hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep, either. He had lay awake, fuming, his skin shimmering hot and cold in the darkness as Marion slept beside him.

Colvin knew that he shouldn't – couldn't – let the wily old bastard get under his skin, knew the writer was simply talking out his ass, and yet... and yet is words possessed a power to sting, to outrage.

If he could only find a way to get out of this task. And yet, it was considered a plum assignment – monitoring one of the nation's most incorrigible criminals, making sure that the women and children of America were safe from his poisonous words.

Those words were poisoning Colvin, but he couldn't go to his superior with a request to be reassigned – not without word leaking back to Frank. Colvin suspected Frank would take any opportunity to prosecute him, and a criminal record – or even expulsion from the party – would trigger an automatic divorce from a women of such breeding and social standing as Marion.

Frank would have cherished it if Colvin self-destructed.

So Colvin was going nowhere. No matter how many sleepless nights he had to endure, he'd stay at his desk, and keep his ears sharp.

***

The writer began his monologue right after waking. It was the usual three hours of philosophizing and conjecture about Colvin's life. He surely had a sister, and probably an older brother too, the writer postulated. Yes, an eldest child would have been too responsible to get tripped up in politics and end up exiled in a job like the one Colvin was doing.

Colvin gripped his coffee cup with white fingers, the coffee cold within.

His sister might be older or younger. Which seemed more likely? Well, the writer admitted, he had no way of guessing that. But he supposed that the Colvin's sister must be younger, because a man as arrogant as himself – or rather, as arrogant he once had been, before his career prospects were dashed – would surely have a habit of looking down on women. "More so than even the typical American man," the writer chuckled.

Colvin's blood boiled. What the hell did that mean? He yearned for the writer to use one of the forbidden phrases – "toxic masculinity," that would be enough to get him sent right back to the hole he'd been locked away in – but the writer didn't.

He was focused so angrily on that thought that Colvin almost missed it when the old man started talking about his wife. It took him a while to understand that was what the writer had moved on to, because the writer's name for Colvin's wife was Emily.

"A dainty name, yes? A pink and white name, a delicate name for a delicate woman. So lily-fair, and so proper, isn't she? Because she must be. Because anyone doing your job must have come from a good family, and would have married into a good family. So, your Emily, does she color her hair? Ah, me, no. That would be forbidden, an exercise in vanity... and a sign of salaciousness, too. A violation of the Gender Laws that dictate a woman's demeanor and attitudes, her kindly support and her uncomplaining ministrations to the man, her mentor and head of the house. Just as Jesus intended, yes?"

Colvin waited for the old man to say something insulting about Jesus: Call him a sexist or even a bachelor, which was, of course, a code word for "faggot."

"Yes," the writer said, and chuckled. "Your Emily. So devoted to the children. What was it we decided yesterday? Three children, wasn't it? At least two sons. And... was it a daughter? The youngest? Or maybe the middle child. But not the eldest. No. Your Emily is from a proper professional family, a respected family. Her father – and yours, I daresay – would never allow your eldest child to be a girl. That would be certain proof of God's disfavor, and His judgment not only on you but also on your entire line. It would never happen. One way or another... praised be His name!... it would never happen."

No. It would not. Marion had given birth to a boy and then another boy. But the old man was right that Colvin had a sister. She was, in fact, younger.

And the old bastard had guessed something else, as well: Marion's first embryo had been female. Well, they said that all embryos started out female – a borderline blasphemy, in Colvin's opinion – but Marion's gynaecologist had warned that this female embryo would not develop properly for a first born – would not, in other words, be male. This embryo would remain female right up to birth.

This embryo was also, as it happened, terminally non-viable. No specific cause was given. Nothing beyond what had already been stated: She would have been a female firstborn, an intolerable contradiction in terms.

Marion had grieved for a long time, but she was strong and she remained loyal to her family. She bore up. She became gaunt, she was pale and too sickly for a long while to bear another child... all the more reason, family members whispered at gatherings, for why she had lost the baby in the first place; why, the poor woman had not been physically prepared for the challenge of carrying a child! She'd been far too frail. But within five years she was healthy and pregnant once again, and this time the pregnancy went off without a hitch, a did the one after that.

Then there had come the third...

Colvin shut that thought away.

The writer was talking away: "Ah, Emily, such a devoted mother," he mused, his voice maddeningly confident, his story insufferably detailed. "And let's be honest just between ourselves, shall we? You're not alone in your secret preference for your youngest, your daughter, such a sweet and precious girl. Emily loves her best of all too, doesn't she? And at night, as you talk about your day while lying in bed, you both smile when her name comes up. And one of you always brings her name up while talking about the day, or the day to follow, or the weekend, or the next holiday. And... what's her name? That lovely name, the perfect name for such an angel? Annika, I should think. Hm, or maybe not... too European. Can't have daddy or uncle or whoever the alpha male is that's held you down thinking that you have socialist tendencies. No, that wouldn't do at all... So; something different, something quintessentially American. But not Ethel, not Phyllis, not some angular, heavy name. Something more graceful, yet also traditional, chaste, and virtuous. Not Rachael – too headstrong. Not Esther – too plain. But perhaps... Penelope?"

Colvin's heart hammered. While awaiting the birth of their third child... the child they never had, the child that had been displaced by a deformed and sexually ambiguous creature... they had talked about that name. The name of Marion's grandmother.

How had the old man known?

Colvin felt himself sweating with rage and delirium; he felt himself grow pale with fear. The moment elongated, towered over him, then shrank away. Colvin breathed slowly, steadily. It was a coincidence. That was all. The old man had made a lucky guess.

***

But when he arrived home that evening and walked through the door, it was more than a lucky guess that there was a little girl in his living room.

"Daddy!" the boys cried – Jeffrey and Daniel, running up to him, throwing their arms around his neck.

And the girl, too. She ran up, laughing right along with the boys, and threw her small arms out for a kiss.

Colvin smiled at her, perplexed. Was Marion watching a friend's child? If so, where was the girl's older brother? Perhaps, Colvin thought, Marion's friend had to take her son to the hospital... a playground fall, a need for stitches...

Colvin walked into the kitchen. Marion stood before the open oven, reaching inside, a long-tined fork in her hand, fussing with the roast. She took a long look a the meat and then stepped back and shut the oven door. She turned toward him, her cheeks flushed with heat from the oven. Her eyes seemed alight; she wore a smile the like of which Colvin had not seen for years.

"Who's the girl?" he asked her.

Marion actually giggled and reached out to stroke his jawline with a quick, light touch.

Colvin followed her as Marion moved briskly through the kitchen, focused now on getting the salad washed, the carrots peeled, the tomatoes cut, and the ingredients all assembled into a salad.

"Marion? Who is that pretty little girl in the living room with the boys?"

"Oh, that girl," Marion said. "I thought you meant me. But no, I suppose that would be too romantic for you." She threw him a smile, and Colvin thought he saw her wink.

"Is she a friend's child?" Colvin asked. "Where's her mother? Where's her brother? Was there some kind of accident or something?"

Marion paused for just a moment to give him a half exasperated look. It wasn't the most wifely moment, but then he had always loved it when she showed a little rebellious spark. It was that same sense of rebellion that had led to their marriage, despite Frank's objections. No one but Marion cold have stood toe to toe with her father and made him blink.

"Marion?" he pressed, trying to be gentle and patient.

"Really, Colvin, I'm busy," Marion said. "She's our daughter, of course."

Colvin tried to laugh at her joke, but after two weeks of the old man's taunts and jibes he found it hard. Marion, bless her, was putting a playful spin on having to babysit for a friend, but she had no idea how irksome it was.

"Marion, now, let's be serious for a moment. Will she be staying for dinner? What's her name?"

Now Marion was frowning at him.

"I want to be friendly," Colvin protested. "That's all."

"I'd hope so," Marion said, sounding angry and tense now. "She adores her daddy. You had better be nice to her. Our Penelope."

Colvin stared at Marion as she turned away from him and chopped vegetables with hard, loud strikes of the knife.

***

The little girl was a delight. If she had a mother coming back for her it wasn't that night. Colvin watched as Marion got the children ready for bed. He felt the sweat come over him again as Marion took the girl – Penelope – to the spare room, which was now painted yellow and fully equipped for a three-year-old child.

Colvin went to bed early and was still awake when Marion came in. "Are you all right?" she asked him. :"You seem distant. I'm sorry if I offended you. But your joke about our daughter..."

One of you always brings her name up while talking about the day, or the day to follow, or the weekend, or the next holiday, the old man's voice rang in Colvin's ears.

"I'm... I'm sorry," Colvin said. "Hard day. Hard week... hard last few weeks. I've been..." He swallowed. "I'm working on an assignment that I've..."

Marion was suddenly snuggling close to him. "Poor man," she said. "My father's tormenting you again. I'm sorry. I know how he can be,"

She kissed him. He gave her a grateful peck in return, afraid of the moment, afraid of what it meant... afraid of it ending.

He lay still. Marion fell asleep. He did not – not for hours.

***

The little girl was a permanent part of the household. Four days later – four interminable days, each of them filled with the old man's garrulous fantasizing – the Sabbath finally arrived. The sensors and cameras and monitor logs would keep track of the old man's movements, but since there was no civilian access allowed online for the Sabbath there wasn't much the writer could do. Colvin was expected to spend the day at church and then with family, but he told Marion he had a migraine. While she and the boys... and the girl... were gone, Colvin, feeling a sense of dread, began sorting through his own life.

First his old childhood records – grade school transcripts, photos, a few samples of his work. Colvin sorted through all of it, and it seemed just as he remembered. Then he stopped, feeling cold all over. He'd found a small blue booklet. It was a vaccination record. He didn't remember ever having one. His parents had foreseen the vaccination bans and gotten out front early, refusing to allow him or his sister to be given shots.

But here was proof that their anti-vaccination efforts had not been entirely successful.

Colvin put the small blue booklet aside. He sorted through his high school papers – more grades, more photos, a diploma. Then he found his academy papers.

An admissions letter. Forms from his first year, from his midshipman years... All of it official. All of it showing he had attended the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

Not West Point, as he knew goddamn well and good he had done. Annapolis. Just as the old man had said.

Colvin dropped the papers and got to his feet. He'd been sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor. It was just a few steps on stiff knees to cross the room to the closet where, squirreled away on the far left side, he found his old uniforms in their suit bags, placidly hanging a they had done for years.

He pulled the bags out of the closets, threw them on the bed, opened them up.

Naval uniforms.

Colvin stared at them, feeling something drain from him, feeling hot and empty. His heart started hammering again. The sweat started once more. He swayed on his feet.

This couldn't be happening. At some point either the world would begin conducting itself according to reality, or he would snap out of these delusions and remember things as they actually had happened.

This could not keep on forever.

***

The old man kept on. Colvin listened, wanting to scream at him: Shut up! Shut the hell up! Put things right again, you sorcerer, you evil old bastard!

But he kept his jaw clamped shut. The surveillance devices worked one way only: They let Colvin see and hear the writer. The writer could not see or hear him.

And yet it almost seemed as though he could.

"You're awfully quiet today," the writer said. "Oh, but then again, you're quiet every day, isn't that right?" He laughed, and the laughter turned into t series of wet-sounding coughs, not unusual for him – certainly not unusual for so early in the morning. "I'm sorry," the old man added, once the coughing had stopped. "I don't mean to be jocular. But, you know, every conversation ends with laughter. You do know that, don't you? Laughter and then silence. The silence can be a little oppressive for some people. I say it's best to enjoy the laughter while we have it."

The writer was staring up at the wall again, almost into the hidden camera lens.

"You know," the writer said, "I hate to leave a good friend, and I hate to leave a party, and we've pretty much had both haven't we? A friendship. A party. Like a couple of frat brothers. Yes? But..." The old man sighed. "You know, the state wanted me to die in that dungeon. I didn't. Now, I suspect, they want me to stay alive... stay alive long enough to incriminate myself in some way. But incriminate myself for what? Thinking? Feeling? Imagining?" The old man laughed again.

Colvin looked away from the monitor, fixing his eyes on the desk. On the blue light reflected on the surface of the desk. On his hands, wrapped around each other, strangling each other, fingers white.

"I imagine they let you go home to your wife and family each night," the writer said. "Surely, they could dose you with Agrippinax, or whatever the current brand name might be for asominacs."

Colvin was asking himself what the writer was talking about when the old man himself provided the answer:

"You know, the pills they give soldiers to remove the need for sleep and enable them to remain vigilant no matter how many hours they remain awake... until, that is, the hallucinations start and madness follows. Do you suppose the stories are true that some battalions are deliberately starved of sleep for six days or so before being sent into battles when the generals want or need especially bloody, vicious combat on the field?"

Colvin quickened. Could this be the actionable, treasonous comment at last?

"Surely someone else takes your place for the night shift, no?" the old man continued, to Colvin's disappointment. "To listen to the silence of my darkened house and the outbursts of my snores? To parse any mumbles I might utter in my sleep? Or, I suppose you have an AI or at the very least a system of sound and motion-activated recording devices. You probably get an alert each morning about any such triggerings. And, of course, mornings like this one... what did you have, five alerts to review? All because of my weak old bladder?"

Six, actually, Colvin thought. Reviewing the recordings had been tedious, as always, but even that was better than listening to this meaningless prattle.

"I suppose you've begun to despair of me flying into a sudden rage, uttering oaths and blasphemies against our leaders," the writer said. "I suppose you are starting to hope, each morning, to see me drop dead in the long hours to come, whereas once you tingled with certainty that soon, surely, I must betray myself... or perhaps even someone else, some compatriot you'd not known about. Sad I am to tell you, you've killed or imprisoned all of my friends, and even all the people I admired from afar.

"So perhaps you now hope for some other form of desperate or impetuous act... Do you pray for my suicide? Oh, no, I shouldn't think you do," the writer said, "since they probably would hold you accountable for not seeing warning signs. Even if I slash my own throat in the middle of the night, you'd get the blame, wouldn't you?"

Colvin waited to hear if this line of thought would progress anywhere useful, but the old man had fallen into a protracted silence.

Colvin had sunk into a kind of timeless stupor - the unthinking state in which he passed the bulk of his days now - when the old man spoke up again. "Who you are," he said. "Who you were. Who you might have been. Such separate things, so distant from one another. But are they? What if the distance from where you are and where you want to be is narrower than you imagine? What if the difference between who you were and who you have become is as thin as the blade of a very sharp knife?"

Colvin frowned. What did that mean?

But the old man was no longer speaking, and it was a long time before he spoke again. Then:

"You know," the writer said, his voice in Colvin's ears... right in his ears, inching toward his brain stem. "Nothing is forever. No feeling, no temptation, and nor any torment or delight. I fear I won't be able to accommodate my country, because my life, too, is ending."

Colvin looked up at the monitor, alarmed that he writer was about to do something rash. The writer was correct: Suicide would not look good for the Church, it would frustrate and deprive the State of its satisfaction in exacting punishment on him, and it would blacken Colvin's career.

Colvin tensed: He had better be ready to call in as soon as it looked like the old man might seriously try to harm himself. If he were to simply stand by and watch... and god, how he wanted to see the old man take a pen or a stylus and jam it into his own neck, then bleed and gasp and crumple, eyes still open and glassy, across his desk... but if he simply sat by and watched, then he'd be accused of dereliction of duty. He'd be censured, fired... possibly imprisoned. Expelled from the party. Automatic divorce would follow. Frank would win. Marion would end up with... who knew. Someone Frank approved of. Some younger version of Frank himself, probably.

But the writer was doing nothing. He sat still, looking up into the air, still talking.

"The machinery of life grinds within all of us, fast in our youth and then more slowly, and more slowly still, until it... stops." The old man smiled. "When you're young you fret about it. But as the years go by you don't mind so much. At least, I didn't. To be honest, it will be a relief."

Colvin watched carefully, remaining watchful for sudden moves, drastic measures.

"You can relax," the old man said. "I intend myself no harm. No, nor you, either."

***

Colvin was used to seeing the little girl when he walked in the door. But now his sons had changed. He stared at them as they rushed across the living room, calling out to him, their arms raised in happiness.

The old man had talked about his sons that morning. Not Jeffrey and Daniel; he'd given them different names. Jeremiah was one, and... Colvin couldn't remember the other. He had barely been able to listen, feeling a sick fear grow within him. Jeremiah had an artistic bent, the old man had said, and that struck terror in Colvin's heart. "Artistic" was one of the many euphemisms for the death penalty offense of being a homosexual. The law said nothing about there having to be any actual sexual activity. Everyone knew was a faggot looked like, sounded like, acted like.

Artistic.

The other son... what had the old man's name for him been? Well, he was a man, there was no question, he'd said. A fine man in the American tradition. He tortured puppies. Didn't he? Well, after all, it was wall known that owning a pet meant teaching the animal who was boss.

Just as you had to do with all animals, he said. Wasn't that what the president and his friends in the congress had said? Yes? When they passed the Race Laws, the Ethnic Purity Laws? When they built the camps and created the public execution grounds? When they sold the broadcast rights and the streaming rights to the networks...?

The older boy had an intelligent, open look. He moved with an almost feminine grace. His eyes were green.

Colvin looked away from him to the younger boy, who had a cruel, thuggish look even at his young age.

The girl was the same, though. Penelope. Colvin smiled,

Penelope. His angel.

Marion entered the room, only... only she wasn't Marion. She was shorter, slimmer, more frail.

Colvin stared at her.

"Hello, my darling," the woman said. She stepped over to give him a welcoming kiss.

"Emily?" he whispered.

She smiled demurely and said, "Supper's almost ready."

She walked back into the kitchen.

***

Colvin strode into his office. He was going to do something. He didn't know what. He couldn't go to Frank or his superiors; they'd think he was crazy. He'd get a lethal injection for sure, be put down like a mad dog. That's what they would call him. He could hear Frank's voice saying it.

Mad man. Mad dog. Menace to his children.

"Sir."

Colvin looked around, saw a young man in his office.

"Sorry, sir, but I was told to let you know as soon as you arrived. He's dead, sir." The young man nodded toward the video monitor and the listening equipment. "He died during the night."

Colvin looked to the desk, the monitor, his headphones. He looked back to the young man.

"How?" His voice sounded hollow, weak.

"Natural causes, I guess. They said he went to sleep and didn't... didn't wake up. Shall I get you your coffee, sir?"

Colvin waved the young man away. He sat at his desk, and looked into the monitor. He saw only an empty room. The desk, the floor, a wall. He toggled from one room to another – to each room in the old man's house. All empty.

Things would return to normal now. Colvin would have his life back. Marion, Jeffrey, Daniel.

Would Penelope disappear?

If the old sorcerer had any kindness, he might leave Colvin that one solace... after tormenting him with all the rest...

The young man was at his elbow, setting a cup of coffee down on the desk.

"And your usual breakfast, sir."

Breakfast?

Colvin half turned to look at the young man, who was setting a plate onto the desk.

A plate of small donuts, covered in powdered sugar, arranged meticulously into a roughly pyramidal stack.

"Sir," the young man said, and left the room.

Colvin stared at the donuts. Then the cold wash of fear returned, flowing over him in terrible pinprick sparkles.

He tugged at the laminated ID that hung around his neck on a lanyard., He pulled the card before his eyes, focused to see the photo. It was still his face.

Maybe this was going to be okay...

Then Colvin saw the name on the ID.

Liam.

Liam Murray.

Not Colvin. Not anymore.

And never again.

The laughter bubbled out of him – the laugher, the despair, the surrender, the rage.

He laughed and laughed, as the young man tried to ask him something, as his superiors came into the room, as Frank appeared on the monitor screen and frowned, as medics picked him up, one on either side to escort him out of the building, put him in an ambulance, and take him to...

To...

Colvin –

No, Liam. No, Colvin.

– laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Until there was silence.