It was time to strike back. His own personal Fifth of November. He was consumed with grief.
Universal Healthcare they called it. What it was was rationing. And crude rationing at that. Against the old; against the have nots; against those not in power. It evolved into a two tier system. One for the politicians, komisars, and bureaucrats; another for the serfs. He and his wife were serfs.
They had played by the rules working their whole life. They were soulmates. She was diagnosed with a curable cancer, but that’s when rationing killed her. Treatment was expensive and they were old. Paying for it was against the rules. He filed papers, he appealed, he got a lawyer, he bought a politician. He even found the deciding bureaucrat and begged. That to was against the rules. The decider unmasked called the police and Old Serf spent some time in custody. The police beatings were painful. But strangely the other inmates left him alone. Maybe out of pity; more likely for the crazed look in his eyes.
In the end it was to no avail. They were old serfs. No longer useful to the empire. She died and excruciating death. He was with her every step of the way. Now his was alone.
Be careful when you take away everything that civilizes a man.
It was easy. He had met the man that had virtually signed his beloved’s death warrant. So, an example was needed. It would be one small strike at the root. It was oh so easy.
In the library, the government pravdas tracked the decider’s career with the state’s meaningless awards. Most dollars saved by rationing. Most effective “care” region. Biggest growth in organization. New rationing initiatives. What sick joke.
The internet provided the information. Saxon’s poor man series for details. The essays of Jefferson and Paine for inspiration. Directions to the decider’s house.
Gasoline was freely available still; even to serfs.
A printer produce press credentials. He interviewed all the decider’s neighbors as a ersatz local reporter. He knew the decider’s wife and family and schedule. Each workday, the decider would wave goodbye as wife ‘n’ children left for the school. He go back in the house, finish his coffee, and then go to his job killing people. With kindness of course.
So the plan was set.
Be careful when you take away everything that civilizes a man.
The Old Serf had set his affairs in order, given his money to the Old Serfs Charity Fund, prayed to his God for forgiveness, and drove his van to the decider’s house. The decider’s family was just pulling out of the driveway. He gut them off and hit them. He turned and flicked the lighter. Eighty five gallons of gasoline, suitably warmed vaporized, mixed with fertilizer, sprinkled with thermite, exploded. Now TNT would be thousands of times more powerful but it was more than enough. The two vehicles were totally consumed. Siding off melted off the adjacent houses.
He did miscalculate. The decider was knocked down by the blast, received some burns, and was unconscious for his family’s screams. The State press labeled the Old Serf a loon. New laws were passed oppressing the serfs, protecting the privacy of the elite, and propagandizing the masses.
But it was too late. The “spark” from that explosion, helped by the Old Serf’s email to a million of his closest inet “friends”, sowed the seed of rebellion. He was dead, but his beloved wife was avenged. There was the lesson for “deciders”.
Be careful when you take away everything that civilizes a man.
“I know not what course others might take, but for me. Give me Liberty or give me death.”
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 