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Simple premise. Write a story about what it's like to live a day in the life of a country where a political ideology has been taken to its most extreme conclusion. I will start with Libertarianism: You wake up to your alarm. You used to listen to NPR's morning broadcast, but ever since the government was peacefully dismantled and its assets sold off you've been waking to a local Keynes News Service station. Today, you wake up to a voice admonishing every white person in America to stand proud with their race and move into a local Klanburb. It appears that the local Klan station has upgraded their antenna and shoved KNS off the air. You cook breakfast to the tune of racist death metal interspersed with exhortations of the white man's superior genes. Knock knock. Your landlord, or My Liege as he prefers to be called, is at the door. He was one of the smart few who hoarded bitcoins before the collapse of fiat currency. Due to his foresight he now owns your entire town and controls the local security force. In the pre-freedom days he was a teenage heroin junkie. "I have been notified by my legion commander that a female was seen entering your apartment last night. I have come to assert my right of Primae Noctis, as per the rental agreement you signed willingly without coercion." You explain that it was just your sister. Because she defaulted on her private student loans she is entering into the obligatory 8 years of slavery that were listed in the contract she signed willingly without coercion. It was the last time you expect to see her this decade. Crestfallen, your landlord throws back his cape and leaves. You hear the jangling of his katanas echo down the hallway. Time for work! Hopefully. You go down to what used to be city hall. It is now an open air market where people freely associate for the purpose of doing business. "gently caress my oval office, my tight teen oval office, three hundred millibits! Call you daddy for five!" Shouts a particularly aggressive child prostitute as you set up shop. In the dark days, the days before the ascension of the Paulite Church, you were a chemist specializing in quality control tests for pharmaceuticals. You lost your job when deregulation and chemical 3D printing allowed anyone with the necessary bitcapital to synthesize heart medicine or methamphetamine in their basement. Nowadays you test various drugs for purity. Today was brisk business. You assured two local tweakers that their speed was indeed the quality product they paid for. You had the unfortunate duty of informing an elderly man that his heart medicine was just chalk coated in lead paint. Cave at Emptor, or whatever it is they say. Time to relax! You head to the local arena, where homeless men fight to the death after signing contracts willingly without coercion. The beer you bought is spiked. In your uninhibited state you hire one of the prostitutes working the arena (the intended effect of the beer; she works for the owner). You take her home, where you freely associate for mutual benefit before falling asleep. Knock knock. It's your landlord.
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Jan 14, 2017 03:08
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 23:31 |
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Stalinism: You are awakened promptly by the factory-dorm bell, signalling the beginning of night shift. While you wait to use your shared apartment's stove, you are informed that your upper bunkmate has been taken in for questioning; apparently he was friends with the Ellisonist traitor in Block R. You weren't close to him, but nevertheless you are disturbed to know that a traitor to Great Sanders could have hidden so close to you. You rub the the miniature portrait of the Immortal Liberator nervously. After your 15 minute wake-up period you report to work, where you are angered to learn that that kiss-rear end Todd had commandeered your lathe and those of your entire section for a demonstration of 'labour heroism', all but assuring that you will not meet your handle-knurling quota for the day. You are nevertheless required to remain at your station for the entire 12 hour shift, after which you grit your teeth and congratulate Todd on his remarkable feat, which has badly damaged your lathe from overuse. You proceed to the movie theatre where your attendance is recorded. You then view a 90 minute long patriotic film set during Comrade John's suppression of the Black Separatist bandits. After Comrade John defeats the bandits and the German Imperialist Saboteurs helping them, he returns home to his wife Ashleigh who is glad to bear and raise him many healthy babies for the motherland. In the climactic scene, Ashleigh cheerfully thanks a framed portrait of Great Sanders for decreeing the end of sexism, freeing her to raise a family. The movie fills you with pride in your country and you look forward to when your hard work knurling is rewarded with a marriage assignment. You proceed to your mandatory supplemental work assignment in the coal pits. You are assigned to help excavate a collapsed gallery, looks like the Ellisonist saboteurs have been at it again. After six difficult hours in cramped conditions you punch out and head back to your dorm. The National Public Security Bureau agents are waiting for you, it seems Todd was a revisionist in contact with the Germans and they want to know how you helped him evade detection. You are shocked at the accusation but vow to do everything in your power to help them find Todd's real accomplices. Your family is informed that you have been sentenced to 10 years in the labour camps without right of correspondence for sabotaging your lathe; ten years later your younger brother is informed that you died midway through your sentence.
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Jan 14, 2017 03:54
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fascism: You wake on a mattress previously owned by someone who was killed by the state for failing to seig heil fast enough. You were very lucky to win it through the state run lottery. Your alarm is the blaring of air raid sirens at 5 AM, and you don the jacket you had used as a blanket to fight off the ever present chill in your unheated room. If you sleep in, guards will break down your door and shoot you in the head for betraying The Cause. Leaving your door open and unlocked, for easier searching by Labor Enforcement, you march down to the street and join the throngs of people exiting their homes. As you exit the building you are handed what is essentially a Power Bar in unmarked wax packaging to eat on the way to work. The wax is edible, sort of, but you're not that hungry this morning so you pocket it for later. You work at a Solution Factory in Resource Reclamation. If you are lucky you will find enough teeth with gold fillings to earn lunch that day. Today is a good day and you meet your quota. Lunch is a weak soup and something that tastes like unsweetened energy drink, but with meth so you can focus on your job and not be distracted by hunger. Hey, it's your friend Steve. Steve works in Materials Processing. His hands are always covered in ink because he tattoos serial numbers onto the Problems as they're inventoried. Steve waves at you from across the lunch room. Seconds later, guards swarm him and he is taken away for questioning about why he would make such an extroverted gesture. You never see Steve again. It is now 3 PM. You are allowed a 10 minute break to use the bathroom. A guard stares intently at you as you poo poo. His job, among other things, is to ensure that you do not use a decadent amount of toilet paper. As per your high school education, you fold your 3 squares of toilet paper in half after the first wipe so that you may use them again. The guard counts each section you pull off the roll loudly, and you are required to show the front and backs of each hand before each set of wipes. Last month you were allowed a day off to visit the State Museum because you used the least toilet paper out of anyone in your division. Once you are finished, you stand next to the toilet and salute so that the guard can examine the contents of the bowl before he flushes it. He is checking the size and consistency of your stool to ensure you are not stealing food or drinking contraband liquor. 8 PM rolls around. Work is over! You are allowed 30 minutes of supervised personal time in the town square. You and a few friends accidentally stand too close to another group of people and the guards beat you for, as they describe it, "conspiring like Jews." The half hour passes. It is now time for the silent walk back to your apartment. What a day! You reclaimed so much gold, and you even found a pace maker! You know it contains something called plutonium, and you know the state thinks plutonium is good. You don't know know why though, because you were beaten severely the first and only time you ever asked why it was good. The air sirens blast the national anthem as you fall asleep on your precious, precious mattress in your otherwise bare room. It is now 2 AM. You wake up and require use of the bathroom. You press a button on the wall and await the Bathroom Guard to escort you. He arrives 15 minutes later. He is especially fast for you because you sometimes smuggle him a tooth as a bribe. He hints that he will allow you the time and privacy necessary to masturbate on your next escorted restroom break if you bring him a breakfast bar, but your education was focused on the duties required of a good citizen so you don't know what he's talking about. After he radios in the amount of toilet paper you used to Central Resource Management, you go back to bed and have dreams of the glorious future you and your people are working toward.
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Jan 14, 2017 04:19
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