A Late Stage Capitalist Sacrifice

It doesn't matter, every day’s the same. I'm constantly reminded of this reality as I stare out of the train's thick and smogged up windows. A million different advertisements, that are practically carbon copies of the same one's I've been forced to glare upon since coming to the city. What are these advertisements? Simply, hedonistic promotions of almost every vice imaginable, even those they claim to be illegal. Though still they propagandize us to engage in such behaviors. I'm curious as to why that is, maybe to keep filling the jails. Sometimes in a system of slave labor you need a group below them, one that is made to survive with even less dignity.

The same hollow displays of modern entertainment ever so slightly rebranded every three to five years. No originality, no societal redemption. Just, and only just; the full sale promotion of thoughtless vice, I will not fail victim to such schemes. That I can assure you!

Once I was young, once I was hopeful. I remember as a child how pensive, curious, sweet I was. How I'd spend hours in the green provincial grass, and I'd enthusiastically ponder all of the mysteries of the universe. Relaxing in the park by the church; enjoying the sun that caressed my face so blissfully. My favorite times there were those when either brother or mother would read to us. It's been such a long time since his death, four years ago on the frontlines of Central Europe. They say he served the empire well, killed many Slavic barbarians.

I remember when I was young, and the world was still full of beauty; how pure were my concerns. Primarily that of courting the sweet blonde hair girl in my class with the big brown eyes that were beyond imagination. All the hours I spent planning our imaginary future together! The millions of speeches that I would constantly conjure in hopes of professing my love for her. Although I knew she liked me, I never had the gall to act on it. She never told me either even though she was most undoubtedly aware of my feelings. Perhaps I never confided in her because I was scared to lose one of the few beautiful things left in my life. What a tragedy it is? All of those puppy love inspired songs that will forever go unheard, and unsung.

However, those days and actuable sentiments are long gone. Nowadays there's none of that; for now, my only solace is the symphonies of ages past that ring through my wired detached earphones. Sometimes as I take them out and put them back into their case, I see the dirt creases along its plastic indentations. Maybe they'll cause an ear infection, and it will get really bad. That way I'll be exempt from the draft; they won't conscript a man with one ear. However, in the caverns of my soul I know I will be sent to die someday.

These are the thoughts that plague my mind on the way to the factory. Every day I hop on the train stop by my lodgings, which are of course just one of the many densely packed crevices within the tenement building nearby. The train carries me right down to the industrial district. This has been my prime routine par quotidien for eighth years now, or has it been nine? Sometimes my mind fails me; call it a side effect that is known to come along with drudgery. Around then is when I graduated from stationary imperial school, where I earned my Basic's Certification in Entrepreneurial Studies. The last two minutes before the train door opens, and I'm ushered out onto the fray; my mind drifts off into a splendid psychological hallucination.

I travel back to the time when I felt as if I were still alive. In those last innocent days of when I was still surrounded by my humble and naive family. Oh, how peaceful it was, the last time I saw my mother was then as well. Right before graduation to be exact. I remember the tenderness of our little cottage, not much but just right. Oh yes, and my sister she was only five years old then. I fear that they're probably searching for a future groom or master for her now. She's got only two more years until she'll be required to be sent away. By God, and by all that is good I hope it's a local, a humble provincial boy.

I'd rather die than to let her become some maid or escort of a financial oligarch, or an imperial bureaucrat. That would be one offence too far; a just God wouldn't allow it. Everyone knows how those types of people treat those that are supposed to be in their care, just another flavor in their cosmopolitan harems. My thought’s have become too sour, God help me to think of something better. This city is perverting my mind!

The letters, oh yes, the letters. I receive them once in a while. They're typically always on the same line. That being mother, and how her condition continues to deteriorate. How I wish I could get a travel pass out of the city to see her one more time before it’s too late. However, I know that the financial supervisors would never allow it. The one relief in the letters is sister, sweet innocent sister. I swear that her naivete is what revitalizes my faith in humanity, at least for a short while. How she gleefully relates to me about all of the adolescent milestones she's been conquering.

My day dreaming is cut short as the train doors open. A few moments later I look down at my watch and realize that I have only fifteen minutes left before I have to punch in. I can't afford to gain another infraction; I'll have to pick up the pace. My walk transforms into a march, my march then transcends into a run. The five minute warning whistle rings out, cutting through the dense polluted air above. The sound is more terrifying than a banshee. I wonder if God has abandoned me, as I head toward the main entrance of the factory.

It's at that moment that everything goes black. I start to hear a voice seemingly coming from many miles away, but it also seems as if it were right in front of me. Light starts to return to my eyes, still above me there is a grey sky. However, the cause of its dimness is no longer that for which could be blamed upon pollution, but precipitation instead. However everything around me feels far less safe. Now more than ever, I'm positive that something wretched is awaiting me. I hear my name repeated once more. Although this time I make no mistake in regard to its origin. It's my sergeant telling me that I'll most assuredly be receiving a medal, and that I've made the Empire proud.

His words mean nothing to me as I stare back up at the sky, for I feel heaven granting me some relief. This divine gift is in the form of a few droplets of rain, that are so ever gracefully kissing my lips and face. Although I can't exactly feel it for the pain has made it almost completely numb, I'm still cognizant that the wound is there. I know for certain that a piece of shrapnel has penetrated my skull. Fully aware that I will soon die, I use the last of my energies to scream, Mother!!!!