The vans travelled alone, materializing in back alleys and underneath streetlamps as if they had always been there. Gliding with lupine grace and singular purpose, they had acquired a bizarre invisibility, erased from the memories of those who stumbled across them. Some might recognize these vans or guess their purpose. Perhaps there are some, unlike me, fortunate enough not to, a mass of blissfully content idiots alien to the instruments of tyranny. Mobile charcoal coffins, they made themselves known suddenly but surely, like a rag pressed on the mouth of a sleeping victim. Their arrival seemed to herald some terrible calamity, one that had nevertheless been quietly accepted as part of the natural order, the iron tang of ozone before a thunderstorm.
It was six in the morning, in a place whose name does not bear mentioning, and one I would have rather not remembered, though my duty to record the slain forces my hand. It happened on a day like this, with the birds still waiting to strike up in song and the dew spreading a slick sheen on the blades of neatly cut grass quivering with each gust of wind.
One such van was parked beside the curb. It had been sitting there for quite some time and would wait for more still. It was a singularly ugly thing, wretched in its blunt simplicity. The vehicle bore no markings of any kind, clad in a coat of sable paint. Tinted windows of smoky obsidian gave the van the appearance of an enormous bug, squatting in wait, ready to leap at any moment with foaming mandibles and chitinous claws. Framed against the backdrop of white-picket fences, lace curtains and brass doorknockers that adorned the surrounding houses, it was an aberration. An intrusion on the isolation afforded only by a Party membership card.
It could have occurred at any time. It had before, in different scenes, been denied the pleasure of being lit by the light of the approaching dawn. In ramshackle Joint Habitation Apartments bursting at the seams with wailing children, their faces yellow under the cheap, flickering lamps that lined their walls. At Centrally-Approved celebrations thick with the miasma of bitter state-provided liquor and the leaden gloom of fun carried out under the prerequisite of compliance. Usually, the stage was set by some regional village out of my reach; its air punctured by the lowing of the few healthy cows still available for distribution and the shriek of the rickety junkyard scraps that passed for Ministry-Sanctioned machinery. The setting was incidental. The result, seldom different.
Inside the van, the first man stretched awkwardly, shifting in his seat, his jaw popping as he let out a death-rattle yawn. His name was not important and could never be. Another line of type out of millions, locked away in confidential archives in a government basement. Suffice to say he was a faceless blur devoid of colour, endowed with the same agency as an axe or a hammer. Rubbing his poorly shaven jaw with one hand, he blinked, eyes crusted from a lack of sleep, focusing his bleary sights on the house visible alongside the window. Looking, no doubt, for a sudden twitch of a curtain, or the tell-tale lights revealing someone was awake far before the beginning of the dictated productivity timetable. Finding nothing, he let out a breathy sigh and leaned back as far as his chair would let him.
His face, as reflected with a slight distortion in the rear-view mirror, was hardly striking. It was neither excessively ugly nor handsome, nor was it the portrait of demonic evil many would expect. Instead, it spoke of a more petty malice, not one born of scheming or savagery, but the simple, unrefined cruelty of the everyday. In his pebble-grey eyes was the look of someone who had pulled the legs from beetles just because it was easy and stamped on the shiny new toys of his childhood neighbour for being nicer than his.
The legions of passengers in the black vans that traversed the country were formed of such men. Men unaware of any meaningful change that could be achieved without a rifle or a pistol, eager to dish out punishment to those they thought deserved it and content to view themselves as excepted. His partner was asleep behind the wheel, the dull red light of the dashboard casting his features in a cherry sheen. The scarlet dagger insignia embroidered on the lapel of his jacket glistened. The collar was turned up, jutting upwards from his neck, whilst the state-issued peaked cap that came with their uniform was pulled down far over his eyes. Fitful snores could be heard from beneath the shield of clothing.
Drumming his fingers on the edge of his armrest, the first man fished inside his jacket pocket for a crumpled packet of cigarettes. Its wrinkled packaging was the trademark of a shoddy underground import, covered with angular foreign characters in a language he could not understand and would not have been allowed to learn. The tin lighter in his hand flared for a second in the semi-darkness of the van. He cranked the window open a sliver to let the smoke worm its way out. I wonder if the illegality of his actions enriched the sensation. Not that it really mattered: the crimson dagger on his uniform absolved him from upholding most common state-ordered restrictions. Those with no knives, symbolic or otherwise, were in no place to object.
The inside of the van was now thick with light blue fog. It looked like the inside of an aquarium. Mumbling, the first man turned the radio on, turned down as low as possible, and began humming along under his breath whilst his partner slept. The station he had tuned into was also banned (the concept of multiple radio stations seems laughable in the wake of the ‘Entertainment and Togetherness’ Campaign and the creation of the Smiling Faces Broadcasting Group). It played something that the presenter, most certainly speaking from a dingy offshore fishing boat fitted with a battered antenna, called ‘rock and roll’ music. The man had certainly only ever heard of it in classrooms during his academy training.
It was one of the innumerable offences he and his partner would have been made to memorize: in this case, Section 457, which penalized the distribution, ownership or performance of any music that threatened to destabilize unity, goodwill and cause disturbance. If the C.D wasn’t stamped with the cherubic grin of the Smiling Faces label of approval, if the band did not present a permit of Centrally-Approved entertainment, then in brief a black van would appear one day, and that would be all. He could never have guessed the name of the song, though if pressed to try he may have hazarded Rolling Stones based on what the radio presenter had whispered before the music started. It was very good, much better than the trite sludge pumped out through the speakers in community productivity centers. It had a dirty, punchy rhythm to it, rough around the edges, sweating sex and aggression.
The man tutted to himself. Small wonder it had been banned. His foot, however, still moved to the beat as he took another drag on his cigarette. As he listened, perhaps he wondered what the inhabitants of the house could have done, trawling through endless memorized pages of felonies and anti-productivity offences. If he did, he surely gave up once boredom set back in. There wasn’t much of a point. They had an address and an order, and nothing much aside from that was needed. If the address had been pinned up on the corkboard in his cubicle, then whoever it belonged to must have done something to deserve it, even if they themselves were not aware of it. And it they weren’t, well, wasn’t that their fault? It must have seemed quite self-explanatory to the man, as he sprinkled ash onto the side of the road. If only guilty people had their address placed on the board, then if they hadn’t done anything wrong, they wouldn’t have ended up there. It didn’t get any easier than that.
Right now, what surely weighed most heavily on his mind was the thought of being able to punch out of his shift soon, have a hot meal rather than grainy nutrition bars and lukewarm coffee. The chance to shower, even if hot water was now a thing of the past, wash away the stench of sweat, tobacco, grime, and stuffy air that had clung to him like a second skin begging to be peeled off. Could he imagine what it must be like to live inside one of those houses cradled within the suburbs? I doubt he was capable of picturing anything of substance. Men like him cannot begin to fathom an interior or exterior life outside of the van. They are reduced to visualizing vague shapes, more the ideas of things than the things themselves: happy, family, together, peace, rest……it was territory too alien for a mind stripped down and engineered into uniform boxes, stacked together to serve one purpose, and do so unflinchingly.
Suddenly, outside-movement. The door had been opened slightly, from behind which emerged a banded tabby ca. The first man watched it, a collar with a tiny bell hung around its neck. He must have been more than a little impressed: outside of the suburbs no living person had seen a live cat in years. Its existence would prove maddeningly puzzling, almost frustrating as it sashayed through the open air. The cat could leave whenever it wanted. What compelled it to stay? Was it the safety of four walls, the promise of treats passed under the table that made it give in to those benign overlords that stuck tracking chips beneath its flesh and castrated it? Did their promise of security suffice, for it to suffer being stamped with a foreign name and wear it on a plate around its throat?
For a second, did he see himself reflected in those slitted, feline eyes?
He was thankfully snapped back to his senses before his thoughts could become too dangerous. His partner was awake. He turned off the radio, and adjusted his cap. His head nodded in the direction of the house. The van swung open.
Six in the morning. Three knocks on the front door. On the threshold, the two men in their raven-black coats. Gray guns in their holsters, the strap unbuckled.
The first man was still smoking his cigarette, his foot tapping to the beat of a phantom drum. The other man pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and tacked it above the house number.Rows of black text bunched together spelled out: “Guilty of Deviant Expression: Anti-Utopian Conspirators.”
No answer from within. Then, muffled footsteps. The door creaked open. Dressed in undersized pyjamas, a little girl rubbed her face and blinked up at the men looming over her. She was up far too early, wanting to let the cat back inside. She was confused, addled by tiredness. She saw adults, but did not understand.
The first man let out a hiss of blue smoke. His knees bent slightly. He was face to face with the child. He asked, slowly in clear, precise tones, as to not alarm her, if her mummy and daddy were still upstairs.
Still puzzled, apprehensive now, the girl scratched her head. She gave a curt nod. The first man smiled. His partner drew his pistol and shot her through the head. A spray of blood speckled the entrance. The first man wiped a ruby bead from the lapel of his uniform. A jackboot crushed the bud of his cigarette.
The girl had been holding a teddy-bear. Its fur was sprayed claret, and it was missing an eye. Upstairs, a scream. A light came on.
His partner took the stairs first. Stepping over the body, he followed. Two more gunshots. Crickets chirped outside. One final crack: the mother was trying to crawl away.
They left in a single file. The van waited at the side of the curb. His partner got in first. In the glove-compartment, a box of sanitary wipes was passed around then tossed to the back of the van, wrinkled and stained. A splutter, and the van started rocked to life. The house lights were still on.
The first man lit another cigarette as his stomach growled. His partner drove, the clicking of the turn signal counting away the minutes before the morning, underscored by his tuneless whistling. The first man turned towards his partner, looking at his watch as he did. A fleck of clotted gore was drying on its surface. The next words he spoke were recorded, as everything they did and said until then had been. Stored in devices embedded in their uniforms by their ever-vigilant Ministry for the purpose of a report that, if it were not for my efforts, would have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
“So, what do you think we’ll get for breakfast?”
Pablo Lacalle Writing 