Property is Slavery

There was a time when freedom meant that you could do whatever you want, do whatever you want to do, to be whatever you want to be, to say whatever you want to say. They used to say that freedom was the freedom to go where you like, eat as you please, work as you please, play as you please.
They don’t say that anymore.
         It’s night; green smog covers the suburbs in a suffocating mist. A rusty gate has the words “Private Property: You cannot enter” labeled across it in bold letters on an ageing sign.
         Unceremoniously, a figure clad in a loose fitting black outfit and sneakers dashes towards the gate, leaps, and vaults himself neatly over the gate. The sign falls to the ground.  The dark figure runs through the decorated backyard. The figure vaults himself up onto a fence, before leaping gracefully onto a roof. Tiles skitter to the ground as the figure skillfully runs across the rooftop, leaping to the next rooftop just as quickly as he had the last one.
         As the dark figure runs across the rooftops, an enourmous, glowing billboard dominates the background, shrouding the bland suburb in a moonlike glow. The billboard has the image of a smiling family; with the words “Property is Freedom” slated across it in enourmous bold letters.
         The figure continues to leap from rooftop to rooftop. He lands on the roof of the first floor of a multi-story house. He arduously, yet swiftly and expertly, climbs up the home, before finally reaching the very top of the house. He then vaults forward to the next home, progressively getting higher and higher with each home of larger size.
         The figure finally reaches his destination, a church. The church is a rare break from the normal conformity of the dreary suburb. The figure leaps onto the doorway of the church, almost slipping to the ground. He continues to leap up to the glowing cross. He nimbly climbs up the church, in an almost spider like manner, using every window, crevice and ledge.
         The figure finally reaches the rooftop after at least 5 minutes of climbing. Perching himself, almost like a crow, atop the cross on the very top of the church, the figure looks out at the suburban sprawl before him.
         The suburbs sprawl out endlessly into the horizon, almost covered by the constant greenish smog. The constant houses line up endlessly into the distance, an endless line of conformity and bland uniformity, and each house looking almost exactly like the other. The longer he looks at it, the more the sprawl begins to look like a line of prison cells. Thousands of people, each one contained within their own homes in a uniform line. Faint lights flicker through the smog, millions of T.V screens flashing at once, slowly enslaving the minds of each prisoner with advertising and propaganda.
         Police cars patrol the streets. Each car has pasted across its side the words “Freedom Protectors”.
         A police car comes across a man going for a late night stroll. The car pulls him aside, an officer reprimanding him for his violation of private property, explaining that the man does not have the right to violate the property of others without their permission, stating that he has not yet paid the toll for the privately owned footpath.
         The figure smirks as he sees the man.
         “Amateur” he quietly says to himself.
         The figure’s earpiece crackles, and a female’s voice speaks to him through the hazy reception.
         “Did you say something Kion?” asks Emily.
         “Don’t worry about it, can you just tell me what I’m meant to be looking out for here?” the figure retorts back into the earpiece.
         “We’re looking for a middle-aged man going for a stroll, he’s been marked by the Pigs as a threat, he’s lead some worker strikes at his workplace. He might be useful, but we need to get to him before the Pigs can get to hi-“she is unable to finish as Kion suddenly leaps from his perch atop the church, racing towards the man who has just stepped into a police car.
         Kion mentally notes the direction of the nearest police station as he races across the rooftops. He hyperventilates as he tries to push himself harder, fearful of losing the man. He decides to take a shortcut, jumping onto the street and quickly running to the other side, cutting across the lanes of the suburban sprawl. The lights on the footpath and the road light up, indicating an intruder who has not yet paid the toll, an intruder who is unlawfully invading private property.
         Kion quickly leaps up onto the rooftop of the nearest house before a police car can arrive. His heart skips a beat as he sees the police car with the man drive by his rooftop on the opposite side. He quickly chases it, leaping from rooftop to rooftop alongside it, trying to keep up with the vehicle.
         The car begins to turn. Kion sees it turn and, in reaction, leaps from the rooftops onto the car, taking advantage of its temporary drop in speed.
         The car shudders with the sudden weight on top of it. The turning car beings to swerve, skid marks making a strange, smoking, figure eight on the road. The car swerves until Kion falls off of the bonnet and onto the road. The car smashes into a pole as the policeman stumbles out of the driver’s seat, and onto the lawn of another dull, generic, suburban home.
         As the bumbling policeman stumbles to get up, Kion swiftly dashes over to him and kicks him in the face, ensuring he doesn’t get up.
         Kion casually walks over to the passenger seat in the back, aggressively opening the door. The man silently walks out, a look of surprise crossing his features as he sees Kion.
         Kion stares at the man with a look of apathy, before sarcastically groaning “Your welcome”, before slamming the door shut.
         The man smiles, he has a faint beard and a goatee, with ruffled hair. A kind, but exhausted look of mixed fear and hopelessness overwhelmingly comes through in his eyes. Kion looks at the man sadly, sensing a familiar aura of tiredness and fear.
         The man stares at Kion, an awkward moment of silence passing between them.
         “Well thankyou, it’s nice to know that someone is there looking out for me” the man adds with a hint of humour.
Kion replies with a dark stare before bluntly commanding “You’re coming with me”. As Kion turns away the man comes forward to interrupt, “You could at least tell me who you are” he nervously requests. Kion sharply turns and replies with his dark stare. The man returns it before cautiously adding “Please?”
Kion turns away, leading him away, its five minutes of following in the darkness until he talks again.
“I am a member of an underground organization, they call us Runners” he explains. Kion talks at his own pace, large gaps in between his rare statements.
“Everything the corporate owned media has taught you are wrong, property is not freedom, property is slavery” He states simply. The man replies with a baffled look.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, Slavery, you cannot move without paying a toll, our own oxygen is privately owned, your wage comes from an employer, your food comes from a supermarket…”
“But that isn’t what I’ve learnt! I’ve learnt that private property is the source of freedom, it is freedom because we can do whatever we can with our own property…”
“Your confusing Freedom with Authority” he states, continuing with his walk. He then stops, turning to the man, a look of crazed anger crossing his face.
“But I have ownership over myself, that is what the media has always told me. Property is the basis for morality and freedom, I own myself, I can do whatever I wish with myself, to endanger that is a violation of my property…”
“Look around you! This is not freedom! If you where to truly own yourself then you should be able to do as you please, but how can you be said to own yourself when you cannot do anything without the permission of others! Property is not Freedom, it is a form of authority, Property is Slavery!” he exclaims. The man’s expression turns harsh.
“I see” he coldly says, but Kion has not yet finished.
“look around you, the endless homes, the tight schedule and limited wages that our employers force down us, the privately owned roads and footpaths, can you not see that everything we do with our lives is dictated by someone else? We cannot leave our own homes without the permission of others to use the space surrounding our homes! This endless sprawl of homes, the tight schedule…Can’t you see! Suburbia is prison!” Kion finishes, staring at the man.
The man’s expression remains cold and merciless, in his eyes, a flicker of sympathy and agreement passes through briefly, only to disappear.
“Very well, I didn’t want to do this” the man sighs, stroking his brow. Kion looks at the man in curiosity.
A sudden burst of sound resonates throughout the neighborhood. Kion’s head is transformed into a bloody mess within an instant. His body stands on its own for a moment before collapsing to the ground. The man slowly puts away the smoking gun before taking out a mobile phone.
“Yea boss? I took care of him, yea, just like you said. The bait worked like a charm. Yea…yea…okay that’s great.” The man casually talks into the phone, turning back once as he looks back at the bloody sprawl on the road.
“Okay that’s great boss, look I was just wondering if your still considering that raise, I’ve been working really hard lately and…” the phone’s line died in mid-sentence as the man angrily withdrew his phone back into his pockets.
The man turned to look at Kion’s corpse one last time, a tinge of regret edging into his thoughts. He quickly shakes the thoughts away as he slowly turns away and leaves.