Freedom in a Landfill

We never believed it could happen to us. No one ever does. Not until they find themselves in the middle of real world horror. It’s strange how we all saw it coming, but either chose to ignore the signs, or genuinely believed something, someone, somewhere, would stop it — It couldn’t really happen in The United States of America for fucks sake. It was a gradual dissent into a situation we often read about in history books, but in 2045? That just wasn’t possible.

We had let ourselves become comfortable. After 4 years hanging on the precipice of our so-called democracy being eradicated, we showed up and made our stand — letting our country and the world know, “This is not tolerated by our citizens, we’re putting an end to it.” Our candidate won, and many thought the battle was over. Here we are, 2063, and we could not have been more wrong. Though we may have won a small victory, it wasn’t nearly enough. After one term, our President lost his campaign in ’49, following an exasperating term of complete ineffectuality leaving few surprised by the loss. So, the Presidency fell into the hands of a man who prefers to be referred to as “supreme leader.” It didn’t take long after his election for his intentions to become clear, despite the millions who hung on his every words, and more living in complacency. Some of us, however, could see it simmering throughout his campaign. It wreaked of deception, tinged with the markers of totalitarian fascism we’ve seen throughout history, though hardly remembered, much of it nothing more than a footnote in those accounts, if mentioned at all.

Our tradition of four year terms, with a two term max is nonexistent. For all intents and purposes, then newly elected President has made himself “supreme leader,” hinging on his aversion to leaving office and a series of vague, yet well constructed and loophole free legislation ensuring his extended stay. Those who clung to him found this brilliant. The complacent remained just that for the most part, while the rest of us are constantly fighting the urge to shake people into consciousness. Our food has been rationed to starvation levels, we’ve revamped sweatshops with kitschy names and slogans to glamorize the slave labor, indentured servitude, and forget about labor laws. Those went out the door pretty fast. The average person’s living conditions would be more accurately described as workhouses; You get a bed until your shift, or until your bunk mate returned from theirs. A curfew was implemented on the bedrock of “law and order,” in an obnoxious display of the “tough on crime” platform folks seem to love so much. Of course, that inherently comes with police and soldiers on every street corner, many towns surrounded by tanks and base camps to “have a direct, hands on approach to dealing with the increasing rates of crime in our beautiful country.” I don’t recall if this was during the campaign, or after he’d taken office, but it happened before anyone could blink.

Each of us had our assigned roles in society. Matching uniforms to boot! It was also expected that we wear the insignia of our “duty,” for easier identification. Mine is sanitation in the ever growing landfills. Yay. I have found some good treasures though, which I keep hidden in a false brick compartment just up from the sanitation work house. Amongst these treasures, I came across something rather beautiful. Not something we’d usually see during our time in the landfills. No one was supposed to have anything like this anymore. Anything that had been either of any value, sentimental or otherwise, was confiscated and incinerated back when things really started to change. We called it “The Purge,” for lack of imagination and distress I suppose. No idea who it belonged to, and to find or even seek this person out would surely have unimaginable consequences and I wasn’t about to risk my life (or anyone else’s for that matter).

Unable to just leave it behind, I wrapped it carefully in the bandana from my head and shoved in my pocket, continuing with my work as usual.

The moment I left work, careful to not appear “off” to the guards as I left the dump, I headed to the only place I knew wouldn’t be teaming with “peacemakers.” Can you believe they call them that? Ha. It was a bit dangerous to get to, and I imagine I would have gotten a good skull crushing if I were caught — especially with whatever I was holding. Most of the guards were out of towner’s, so they didn’t know a lot about the tunnels under the city. The running story, as it were, is that all of them have caved in and collapsed, so no getting in or out; no means of escape, to use their terms. Having grown up here my entire life, I knew there were still a few that remained untouched. They weren’t safe, but neither was anything above ground anymore. I made my way to a corner of the city, far enough out most ranks of the elite didn’t bother with that area. With some casual stealth-ing on my end (Pretty impressive I’d say… I definitely wasn’t a ball of nervous sweat…not at all), I managed to get myself to the manhole that would lead to one of the supposedly blocked off tunnels. I visited here often, always making sure to pile debris on the area I’d squeezed through on the off chance someone might go…exploring. Manholes are extremely heavy, and not at all quiet, but I’d made myself a little lever and padded in the inner corners to muffle some of the noise.

Once safely inside, I shuffled as quickly as possible past the first cave in. I wouldn’t be staying long enough to get to my usual spot, but this would do. I had to see what I’d found!

It was delicate, that much I could tell when I first picked it up. Unburying it from my sweaty bandana, I took out another clean one to wipe off the grime from the landfill, trying to polish it as best I could. It was definitely old, but well preserved. Likely something that had belonged to someones grandmother before the purge. A small, gold locket laid in my palm. It was in the shape of a heart, with such intricate filigree laid over the front and what looked to be an emerald jewel gently mounted in the center. On the back were two letters, “M.K.” in delicate script, which I assumed to be initials. I debated opening it, suddenly feeling an unexplainable reluctance. It seemed silly, so I took a deep breath, shook my self out a bit and opened it.

Inside held an old, yellowed photo of a woman and child on the right side. If I had to wager they were mother and daughter. The left bore an inscription. Faint script that read, “And the proletariat shall eat the rich.” What an odd thing to give to a child, I thought. As I stared at the inscription, I noticed a series of numbers carefully worked into the words. Clever, but I had no idea what they meant. Or what any of it meant. Grabbing the cleaner bandana, I worked to gently polish the inside of the locket, applying extra care on the inscription. Eventually my eyes were able to separate the numbers from the words, “ 75430-28573.” It still meant nothing to me. Having examined to my satisfaction, I now had to determine the best way to get the message home so that I wouldn’t be putting the others in any danger. It was too much of a risk to carry it on paper, writing it on myself would be a clear shot to execution since it *must* mean I was part of some ploy to overthrow our “supreme leader,” and I most definitely couldn’t take it home with me. I decided it would be safest to leave it hidden in the tunnels, so I folded it up into both bandanas and placed in it a crevice in the wall and carefully piled debris in front of it.

The entire way home I kept repeating the numbers in my head. My bunk mate had already left for his shift, and we were one of the few lucky fellows allowed a curtain to separate our bed from the rest of the bunks. I grabbed my knife and etched the numbers into a piece of board that was loose enough to pull free and put back without notice. For hours I lay thinking about the locket before finally drifting off. It felt like I had just falling into sleep when my bunk mate slapped my arm to wake me. “My turn.”

Everything was chaotic when I showed up at the dump. We would be sending our trucks to our supreme asshole’s estate to pick up their massive weekly load. I hated going there, but for some reason, I actually volunteered to go this time. It was uncharacteristic enough that my boss was hesitant, looking over me suspiciously. Still, he let me go.

It was just as horrible as always. But, something caught my eye that made it all seem worth it. You see, Mr. Supreme doesn’t just have us pick up his garbage. To him, we were also janitors, granting us access to see all the things our money had paid for. While I was removing garbage from his knocked into the cabinet attached to his desk. The door popped open, revealing a poorly hidden safe. No dial, but a keypad and a heart shaped impression, with an indent in the center that resembled some kind of key lock. Same shape as the emerald set into the locket. It had to be a coincidence, right? Scared to set off any alarms, I fought the urge to try the numbers on the keypad. But the rest of the day through til next morning, all I could think about was that locket and the possibilities of it actually belonging to that safe and our dear leader.

By the third day, my curiosity was boiling over and I had to find out.

******

When I proposed my idea to the boys in the workhouse, they were surprisingly on board. Not really, everyone hated McSupreme. Stunned and a little nervous, that was that. It was really happening. We were busting into the Supreme fortress.

*****

That night, the boys told me they’d recruited a couple of the other workhouse guys to join us. We’d create a huge diversion, trash some stuff, do some pretend armed burglary crap (maybe a hostage? Eh?), creating enough chaos and damage for the cops to show up. I’d seen enough movies to know the tropes; I’d come in dressed as a cop, sneak by everyone down to dude Supreme’s crusty old study. Only so much time since they’d surely search the house, but enough.

Everything was going according to plan. I rushed as fast as I could without arousing suspicion to the safe. Code or locket first? Shit. I placed the locket and typed in the code as simultaneously as my fingers would allow. The little shit swung right open!!! I sat there amazed and laughing at this bizarre situation. It had actually worked! Now I just had to grab everything in it and get out. Stuffing the entire contents of the safe into my bag, I rushed out back where my buddy was waiting with the car and we high-tailed it out of there.

What we found… I couldn’t believe it.

I’d expected some staff of money. But it was all documents. Detailed documentation of the Supreme’s rise to power, scandals, crimes, national secrets and cover-ups. Everything we needed to take out the entirety of the totalitarian elite.

We found our key to the Revolution. All in a tiny, gold locket.