It Started Peacefully

Marco had had a difficult day at school where competition was tough and he imagined that he was going to face a tremendous challenge of leading his sports team on a tournament. He likened the staff to be a like a bunch of aliens with no heart about the ‘game’ or the people managing it. But he was also being punished for not having done his homework. So his parents sent him to his room where he fell asleep exhausted; the intimidation of another player and the punishment were too much for him.
A dream started to unfold where he could strange craft coming to the outskirts of the town and setting up control posts. The passengers would soon man control towers and project lights that would invade every privacy there.
His walls gave away to an outdoor world that that crept in on him. Slowly he was naked and exposed to that light from the edge of town. And he began to see himself observing his neighbors working in unison. It was something ecological and as if he was really in their townhouse garden watching the other property owners picking up paper and plastic waste. He watched as the neighbours all set out to divide what was supposed to be an afternoon collective cleanup. Not everyone had the same equipment and so it couldn’t be expected that they would all be performing the same tasks, so one of the neighbors, who saw himself as a leader took command.

It was the beginning of the month when falling stars were supposed to occur more commonly. A flash of light could be seen in the distance while the neighbours began to collect but nobody was really concerned because this was northern country and comet sightings were quite common this time of year. There was though a sudden interruption of sorts while the group was out and about. For every flash of light meant that someone would be thinking of an alien ship landing.
So did Marco. He was so adamant of aliens coming to visit he would post signs in front of his house saying which direction they landed. Nobody believed him and his neighbors called on his parents to take the boy to a correctional center. “Your kid is nuts”, the Lewinsky’s living next door would say, “How do you let your kid hoist signs on your property?”
“Why we let him do it to antagonize you”, the father, Tom would get back at his neighbors prodding.
”My kids aren’t like that, our company taught us not to let them be so liberal”, the neighbor retorted.
“Well in our company employee children are a full spectrum of expression!”
To that Ned continued mowing his lawn thinking of the disadvantages he would be subject to because of those new corporate laws which recently delegated how family behavior should follow into line, into line that is with what corporate management wanted.

Tom worked at ‘G-SPY’ that people would just call ‘spy’ and leave out the g for ‘general’. It was that kind of media company where company personnel would be held accountable for not being investigative enough. “You too may have to be held accountable for not being competitive enough, “his boss Max used to say and Tom was able to answer sarcastically, “looks like the company is living up to its name.”

Meanwhile in company headquarters new dictate was advising personnel that they would only be allowed to enter and leave their homes during set hours. Company cleaning crews were on the prowl for undesirables notably employees who questioned the law and refused to pay those penalty tickets the city had levied against those who were tagged to walk along predetermined routes. Only one or two ways could be chosen on the way to work, nothing in the way of a third plan. That meant deviance. Similar punishment would occur when the parent would opt for an educational plan that was not the vision of the company commanders.
“We want company parents to be content when raising their kids,” said Max the vice-president. And we are capable of getting kids to disregard their parental care if parents don’t comply.” So there was a torrent of oohs and ahs as parents didn’t want any meddling. “Remember we are the ones who have programmed you to have kids in the first place so we have the liberty of having you raise them so that we could get them.”

Whatever their secret society would do to their kids, no one really knew except that strange vehicles would pass by their centers at certain periods of the year, loan their kids and then send them back. Company personnel were saying that it had to with programming experiments that would periodically occur as the kids grew from one stage to the next. It wasn’t like the days when parents were allowed to see their kids turn into young adults on their own.
While some kids were playing in a school yard, all of a sudden they looked up to see that they were being directed away. But at the same time, one of the kids, the one who saw the flash in the sky began to act oddly. Normally the kids would play together but on this occasion he just wanted a play group of his own.

In the distance at the perimeter of the town, one could see strange looking observation posts from which the town was being spied upon. Notes were taken, not only of Tom for his refusal to conform but also of his son for not following something as simple as game rules. “We cannot have any of these people think that they can taste liberty in any form from childhood games too...” a sub-commander responded,” At least we can give them a taste for success.””Ah, that would be good,” returned his leader. “I ‘d like to leave a legacy of imparting futility in all of their deeds.” And to that both scrambled up to their craft command post for further instructions.

They had been collected and influenced to think in a different way other than what they were used to. This meant they could not even decide on the game because it meant mood changes that go uncontrolled. Kids playing near Marco’s place would always have a set game routine until a whistle would go off whenever there was a tendency of getting over eager. “Too much ill spent emotion,” were the words Tom advised Marco, “is going to have an uneasy outlet”.

The kids stopped their ordered play and then began to skirmish. It meant that they would eventually be collected and then reprogrammed much to the angst of Tom who didn’t want to draw the wrong kind of attention. His kid was peaceful and didn’t want the label of being a trouble maker.Marco stepped outside after hearing the shrill note. It wasn’t the kind that meant duck for cover, just something that prompted him to see why there was lull all of a sudden. Kids that he knew were anxious to do activities not stand around and debate what would be better to do or not.

One of them ran over and entered into his personal space right away. “We’re lucky that we have this organized free time but you’re luckier just standing there and managing.”On that note he kicked up some sand into Marco’s face. This wasn’t the time for aggression and Marco left thinking this was just another jealous kid. He wondered why the about face. They had been playing well together for so long, until then. Was it because he was in a different educational class?

One teen who challenged him even more, not only for being born into a good family but also for having a say into what play activities kids could do or not, was Neal. Neal had been setting up games when Marco was away and felt he could do that all the time without supervision. “ I don’t game rules coming from a high school kid, when I could play on my own terms.”
The kids like Marco liked the selection process if it meant that he could be a leader among his peers but he had a small suspicion that he would be further controlled just in the way that after every school game he had to explain why he would choose one facility different from another. “I like the freedom to play in another district,” he would tell his dad. Tom would encourage him by saying that there’s nothing wrong with the choice. “I am responsible for allowing you the freedom of choice but here every move we take outside the district limits is suspect,” he said. True enough the family would lose the tranquility of living away from the media mongers.

In the meantime Tom began to notice a change in the atmosphere. Before the flashes in the sky he was calmer during the day. Now he was apprehensive of what was happening at his work place. Projects were falling through. His colleagues were testing him ever since the neighbor remarked how weird his kid was. Was it because of the lack of sleep or something from the unknown? It was as if that one bad apple on the block had communicated to the people at his job place and now he had to take a step back and examine things more clearly now. If there were going to be challenges that had to be rational, not because of the mood swings that the neighborhood kids knew.

He would walk down the conference rooms and it looked that otherwise friendly workmates were eager to badger him first. “Hey Tom, how come you always get first choice as to what needs to be done?” That was a competitive question coming from another manager Eric, who had never been known to voice any question against authority. Tom at first ignored this and then went on to meet Eric and accept the challenge. “We’ve always worked together,” Tom replied” so I have always valued your opinion.”It looked like that wasn’t enough and Eric walked off in a huff.
Media mongers picked up on the discord between the two foremen and soon the event was the subject of local billboard publicity. ‘Could you work at GSPYY under constant discord’, was the opening line posted. It was enough for talk show events trying to get hold of people like Tom and Neal.

Days later would pass and there were instances where Marco would feel the heat too but at a much more junior level. He would follow his dad’s advice on how to accept differences of opinion and how to avoid conflict but that didn’t seem to work. Neal got angrier. Marco would be baited until one day his father caught word of the impasse and he tied it into his own experiences, the friction he witnessed at the plant. “Looks like you and I are being tested for some strange reason, since the beginning of the month. Seems odd doesn’t it?”

“But all I’m doing is playing a sport. It’s friendly competition. We’re not trying to outdo anyone,” Neal would open up to his father.”
“Doesn’t matter. Here every action against the norm is going to be held suspect,” his dad responded. “You may not remember but in the day that we were really allowed to have real political opposition groups, people didn’t have to feel any guilt for holding a different opinion. Today even playing in another place is just like having that other opinion. “At that point Marco thought he could be more careful in not getting the ‘wrong’ kind of attention. Besides there were those strange patrol lights radiating into town from the high observation posts, corralling kids repeatedly after individual games that made the prospect of being an independent thinker even more daunting.

The commander from the outpost saw that Marco had become a serious threat to his position so he called for his abduction in the middle of the night. It looked like the garrison was getting ready for their supper while discussing news reports:“Media reports have picked up on the two who are getting the attention we don’t want,” the sub-commander heard from his chief. “Anytime there is going to be opposition, we’ll have to be there to wipe it out.” The leader wasn’t expecting his subordinate to voice any concern over the dilemma but he did with a statement like, “Wouldn’t that be overkill? After all, this is the first incident.” “No matter,”his commander reiterated, “better to act sooner, to make sure that dissension doesn’t spread.

It occurred to Marco that the outpost personnel were more concentrated on the food than the threat of, civil unrest. The smell of freshly ground meat was familiar...it affected to such a degree that it felt real. His eyes opened to the odor only to find that his world of commanders relegating tasks to outpost personnel evaporate into the far distance. Even the advice he retained from his dad, about being discreet in his activities, seemed unreal now that he was back in his room. Its walls had fallen back into place and the odor of food could now be traced to a meal at a small cafe table he had in the far corner next to the window. He sprung up and wanted to check if in fact his thoughts about being further controlled were as unreal as the dream itself.

The food looked tempting and Marco ate, oblivious to the fact that normally his parents would not serve him after any issue dealing with a punishment. I addition the house seemed quiet perhaps too quiet for a mid-week evening knowing that at least one of his parents would be in. He occasionally would pick up his plate and look outside where he could see the town’s perimeter and there were no outposts of any kind but his neighbors were out and about doing their fall tasks that seemed so real when he slept. Then there was a slight creeping sound of steps leading to his bedroom, the sound of footsteps that were gradually getting louder as they ascended. The steps stopped outside the door and the handle began to turn but at that point what was odd was normally the door would have just swung open. “Come in,” said Marco as door sprung open and shadowy figures he could not have distinguished, took him by surprise. His fork dropped for his guests had not even bothered to wait for him to finish.