Fascism

"Name on the line, please."

I keep my gaze lowered and repress the urge to count the number of eyes this woman has. I know how many eyes she has. She has two eyes. Just like every other person on his planet. Two eyes. Two eyes. Two eyes. She hands me the pen and I take it with my left hand, ignoring the curious look I know she is directing at me. Write my name. Continue on.

The line shuffles along slowly, and I keep my hands deep in my pockets to try to hide the brand marks. Too many smells greet me, and I feel sick, but emptying my stomach in this gray corridor would be one of the worst things to do today. I have successfully kept myself hidden, and no one else wants attention brought to themselves, so I think today I am safe.

They forget me each day. Each day I struggle to move on without someone seeing me. Each day I walk down this long hall, and each day I write my name on the sheet of paper, and each day the woman has two eyes. She wants to ask me why I do not use my right hand. As long as I never make eye contact with her, I am safe. I wear gloves with only the fingers uncovered so she can't see the burns, or the numbers, or the scars. Sometimes I wonder if it would even matter. Tomorrow they won't remember me. They never remember me.

I wonder if they notice that after I walk away, my name fades from their list. I wonder if they think their sanity is slipping away, bit by bit, day by day. I want to take them by their shoulders and shake them so hard they can't see, I want to scream in their ear and tell them that yes, yes, yes, their sanity is leaving them. They have no choice. It is the system. Live, work, die. Write your name on the line. Don't worry if you think you're losing it, don't worry. You'll be fine.

I've seen what they do with those who do lose it. I know what they've done to the few who figured it out. Such horrible things, such torment, such agony. I've seen their severed hands nailed to the walls outside the Law-Room. I've seen their hearts, cold and bloodless, on display in the entry-way. No one else notices. No one notices the dead fingers secured to the boards. No one sees the horror. No one knows until it's too late.

The woman at the table with the list of names, she's changed so often it's frightened me. It used to be a tiny, mousy girl with large gray eyes and limp, pale hair. Her hands were disporportionately small; she was deformed. She was ugly. That's why she worked the table. She painted her nails a different color every day. She had two eyes. Of course she had two eyes. Everyone has two eyes. That's all they need to see what they are supposed to see.

The last time I saw her, her nails were bright red. I remember because one was chipped, and her fingers trembled when she handed me the pen. I remember looking up at her eyes, hoping to see a third eye in the middle of her forehead, but she only had two. Just two eyes. She looked startled to see my face, and I dropped my gaze and wrote my name, and moved on. That evening, a new decoration was added to the wall of hands, the wall of formers. A tiny hand, with bright red nails. The next day it was a different girl at the table.

Sometimes I dream about the nights I used to work the tables. I have nightmares about the endless lines of blank faces, the downcast eyes, the steady hands as they wrote their name. Name after name after name. In my dreams, no one has a mouth, and they all have been branded. They all have been branded. That terrible shape is burned into their flesh, on the back of their hand, and they have numbers marked permanently into their arms and their foreheads. They have no mouths, they cannot scream, they cannot warn.

In reality, the days I used to work the table were not much different. There were the endless lines of people, and I would sit there and I would only say five words, only five words, all day. It was what I was paid to do. "Name on the line, please." "Name on the line, please." No one looked at me. No one said anything to me. The long hallway stretched in either direction; from the left people came, to the right they walked away, heads bowed. Sometimes you could hear the invisible chains clink together as they went.

I remember once, I accidentally looked at the face of one of the people signing their name. I remember seeing blue eyes, two blue eyes. I remember the scars of a banished smile written across their face. I remember hearing the chains crash together, I remember smelling burning flesh. And then they were gone.

I had started to watch. The sound of the chains was clearer with each passing day, and sometimes I dared to read the names of those who had written their names on my list. I wrote my name on the list once, but it faded even as I traced the letters. I never saw another pair of blue eyes, but the smell of burnt flesh grew stronger with each person who passed me.

One night they came for me. They dragged me from my bed and led me to the Law-Room. They stood me in front of faceless men who struck me with a whip of chains and demanded my name. I had a name, I knew my name. But as they struck me again and again, and as I lay on the floor with blood dripping from my head, I screamed out the feelings that had been boiling inside me.

"I have no name."

They struck me again, and the dull pain sparked and boiled inside my skull. "What is your name?"

"I have no name!"

Again they struck me. "What is your name?"

"I have no name!"

They dragged me into a different room, and there they held me down as they pressed searing metal into my skin. They branded the backs of my hands, they branded my neck, they branded my left shoulder. They tattooed numbers into my skin, up my arms, down my back. They ignored my screams, and they did not look at me. And then they left me outside the Law-Room.

When I eventually recovered, they had replaced me at the table. A new girl was there, a mousy girl with pale hair. She painted her nails different colors, and she only said five words, only five words.

I joined the lines, but I knew now. I knew so much more than the mousy table girl knew. I knew so much more than the endless lines of nameless, faceless people knew. I wrote my name and it faded from their lists, for I had no name. I was a number. I was a symbol.

I cannot sleep tonight. The nightmares are horrible, and they leave me cold and shaking. I lie on my bed and stare up at the pale, cracked ceiling. The newest table lady has the bed next to mine. I listen to her snoring, and the brands on my flesh seem to burn again as they did the first time, so many months ago.

There is a noise from ouside, and instinctively I freeze, even stopping my breathing. Someone enters the room, and I open my eyes slightly. My heart pounds once and then is still.

The figure grasps the table woman and drags her from the bed and out of the room. I feel so cold I cannot feel the clothes on my body. I jump down from my bed and go outside, into the dark, shapeless night.

The person and the table woman enter the Law-Room. I sit outside one of the windows and I listen. I hear the snap, the rattle, the sickening sound of cold metal against flesh and bone, and my stomach tightens into a hard stone.

"What is your name?"

Thud. The woman cries out.

"My name is Cursed," she says.

Thud. "What is your name?"

"My name is Cursed."

Thud. "What is your name?"

She screams now. "My name is Cursed!"

The doors burst open and I duck my head. They walk by me; they do not even see me. They place the woman on a stone table and hold her down. I close my eyes tightly and turn away. I hear the sound of metal against stone, I hear her scream, and I throw up onto the dirt.

The next day, there is a new dead heart on the display, and there is a new pair of hands nailed to the wall. No one sees them. No one notices.

I have a mirror in my room. I pick it up and I look at it, even thought I know what I will see. I see myself. I see the numbers on my neck. I see the symbol-brand on my throat: the closed eye, stitched down to keep it from opening. And in the middle of my forehead, I see a third eye, a blue eye, raw around the edges and bleeding. I am the one within and without the system. I am the one who can see.