The Mocking of Jean Paul

I woke up screaming again, Mama's hand on my shoulder. Shh, darling, hush, she whispers, hush, as if anyone is going to hear my screams out here in the middle of nowhere. 

It was the same dream, Mama, it won't leave me alone. I was holding your hands in mine, crying, begging. I don't want to go to Sartre, I sobbed, over and over. Don't let them take me, Mama, please. I was so scared. You were crying too, squeezing my hands so tight I can feel it, even now. 

She presses a cup into my hands. It is warm.

They found us, Mama. Broke down the door and all I could see was those red jackets and I watched as the men strode over and pressed the wand to your neck and I was screaming. Screaming.  

I don't even know what they looked like. It happened so fast and then all I could see was their boots. Those dreadful black boots. Polished to such a shine that your face stared at me, reflected in their boots and I couldn't look away. I was screaming Mama, Mama while you stared at me from their boots.

Mama beckons to the cup and I take a sip of precious tea.

I do not understand a world that has no room for old people. Snuffed out the day they retire. Or when they find them, if they run. Like we did. A quick touch of the wand and they crumple. Who invented such a weapon? It's painless, they say, yet I scream every night. 

Then their hands were on my arms, Mama, and I woke up there. In Sartre. Sartre! Do they not know Sartre was a person, not a place? Are they so obtusely stupid? But no. It's not stupidity, it's malice, Mama. Malice, and mockery. Mama's eyes are sad but I can't stop myself. 

Jean Paul Sartre. Philosopher, Nobel prize winner and literary magnifique. He wrote about existentialism and nothingness and I can't help but wonder what it means that they superimposed his name on that awful place. Simone de Beauvoir loved him, Mama. Beauvoir! She would not have loved a monster.

Mama sighs. She knows better than to tell me it was just a dream. My dreams are why we are still alive. Still free.

Do you remember when I used to tell you about them, Mama? Incels. I would read you what they said on the internet and you shook your head slowly, side to side, and asked what the world is coming to. This. This is what the world was coming to. Sartre. Fear. Hiding. 

They are not involuntarily celibate anymore, those men. Not in Sartre. It's not good for a man. Now women are involuntarily married. Making babies for the chosen. How did we get here?

Some people say it started when the revolutionaries took over the government building but it started long before that. In Rusnya. Angry men hidden away in dark rooms creating robots to post lies on the internet, knowing people would believe if they saw them often enough and they were right. They did.

They wanted to destabilize us and they did. Turned us against each other. So filled with hate for each other we didn't notice the changes. First they stopped increasing wages until we had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Tired people don't have the energy to protest. They knew that. It was part of the plan.

They banned abortion, first. One by one, womens' rights were stripped away. Not in a world of horses and carriages, but in a world of technology and lasers that end life without shedding blood.

It wasn't even difficult. Everyone hated feminists anyway. It's a man's place to be the head of the family, they said. Even women said it.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It all went to hell from there. They closed borders. Killed dissidents in the streets. And we let them, because we didn't believe it would get to this. There is none so blind as he who will not see. And here we are. In a world of forced marriage and eugenics. White people with black souls.  

Mama's face is weary but I cannot stop. 

I woke up wearing a wedding dress, Mama. A white one, because I passed the virginity test. That's how stupid they are. They were marrying me off, Mama. A good man, they said. That's all I needed to know. Women don't need to know any more than that. 

Oh Mama, I was so beautiful, I tell her and her eyes fill. But I won't be married off that way. I won't. To some woman hating monster chosen for me so I can make children until I can't and then I'll be terminated too. I won't. I know what you say about life being precious and I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't.

I stood at the window, Mama, and I could see the other windows. All around the compound. With bars, just like mine. I watched as a dark haired girl pressed her face against the glass, mouth open in a scream that no one could hear because they use soundproof glass. 

The church bells started ringing, then, Mama, and faces appeared in the windows. So many women. Just girls, some of them. Looking, fearfully, to see who they are coming for this time.

I could see the guards through the bars, Mama. Marching across the street, two by two in their blood red jackets and spit polished boots.

They were coming for me, Mama, and I couldn't stop screaming. That's when you woke me up.  

"We'll run," Mama says. She is crying now.

Where Mama, where? Where will we go?

"There has to be other people out there," she says.

"Somewhere."

Look around us, Mama. We're in an old shack on some old farmer's land. We have no running water. No electricity. We forage for food in the night and pray the wild animals won't get us. Where will we go, Mama? How will we get there? There is nowhere left to run. Maybe for others, Mama. Not for us.

She reaches behind her neck and unclips the tiny heart shaped locket from her neck. Mama, that's yours, I protest. From Daddy, I say, but she smiles and kisses the top of my head. For a moment, as she presses the locket into my hand, she is almost luminescent. 

Opening the locket, I see a tiny white pill sitting on Daddy's photo.

I glance up at her, looking for answers to the questions racing through my mind but instead of answers I watch as her eyes grow wide and dart to the door just as the guards break through.

As they press the wand to her neck, I am laughing maniacally. They think I am insane and I don't care. Maybe I am. The dream was wrong. You see? It was wrong. I didn't see that coming. I thought I was saving Mama, and instead she saved me.

As I slip the pill under my tongue, I remember what he said. Jean Paul Sartre. "Freedom is what we do with what is done to us."

I slide to the floor. All I can see now is Mama's face staring up at me from a pair of spit polished black boots. And she is smiling.