The Pendant

Stan intently watched the pallid glow of monitors surveilling his once-suburban stronghold, scrutinizing every movement of the progress now surrounding him on all sides. Under the grip of a frenetic paranoia that informed his every perspective, he seldom left the omniscience of his bedroom reconnaissance of the dangerous world outside. The occasions were fewer still that he left behind the security of his split-level, pedestrian refuge.

But the day had finally again arrived, where Stan could express the zeal he repressed during the weekly broadcasts that delivered updates and directives to the rest of a dutiful, fervent base of adherents like himself. Funded to life by the sale of deifying regalia and other conspicuous signifiers of allegiance, the annual rally was this year only a 45-minute drive away and Stan had already worked himself into a frenzy of excitement and anxiety.

He knew the perils of leaving the certainty of his own four walls. There was also no avoiding the inevitability of his neighbors. Obsessed with their green spaces, fertilized by the compost of their own waste no less, he would be under the attack of their scolding glances as he drove by in his archaic pickup, propelled forward by the same combustion engine so abhorred by these occupying invaders. This onslaught of their emission loathing he knew he could withstand, having persevered before. But it was the sight of the desecrated family unit that appalled him to the point of paralysis. Unable to navigate around these streets for their leading to the highway, he prepared himself for the repulsive scenes these carbon-free lawns along his path were bound to expose. Transgender children, co-parented either by the pansexual or the once inconceivable, emasculated, ineffectual stay-at-home-dad, living in wind-powered homes, with an attitude of complacency for the reality of no television on the most calm and breezeless nights. How he pitied the ignorance that perpetuated their malnourishment, their tongues never having tasted the dead animal flesh that the carnivorous diets of his heroes had once relied upon.

Worse yet were those subhuman lifeforms, those born of international soil who did little but contribute crime and disease. Their share of what was now scarcely a labor force had so metastasized that the few natural-born citizen’s that still believed in working for a paycheck were utterly destitute. Day by day, armies of caravans poured over the hardly distinguishable southern border by the thousands, greeted by border patrol and customs agents who’d long traded weapons of protection and deterrence for celebratory, technicolor streamers, and choreographed their movements to guide new arrivals towards welcome centers rivaling theme parks. Following the War on Words of the last administration, immigrant had been deemed politically incorrect and it was agreed that processing facility was equally dehumanizing. Once on site, each new arrival began the effortless process of registering for the minimum income. All were encouraged to apply for citizenship, but that too was now entirely optional given the unlimited benefits granted to those holding green cards.

Distressing as these thoughts could be, Stan regained his composure at the thought of the day ahead. Everyone at the rally would despise the country’s free healthcare system as much as he did. It was also the last place you could find restrooms explicitly labeled MEN and WOMEN without exception.

“Karen, are you ready?” he called out to his wife, thumbing through his key ring to fasten the deadbolt of his watch room. “I don’t want to miss the opening ceremony.”

Though characteristically obtuse to the sensitivities of his wife, Stan sensed her waning enthusiasm toward his preparation for the annual festivities. The threat of propaganda ever-lurking, he’d made sure to remove all mainstream media outlets from their cable television package, and had reprimanded her severely when he found she’d been reading articles written in that rag of a newspaper from the city. But that was more than a year ago now, and he knew from his daily review of her social media she no longer followed any account with even a hint of that radical activism bolstered by the big tech that now controlled the internet and thereby free speech. Other than his now estranged and only daughter’s attending an Ivy league indoctrination camp back east, he had mostly triumphed in his efforts to insulate his family from the evils of the once almost undetectable cabal that had successfully infiltrated all parts of a country he no longer recognized.

“Give her some grace,” he told himself. “She can’t help her emotions; she’s a woman after all.” Just then Karen appeared, clad head to toe in a kind of slogan-bearing ensemble that carried all the tackiness of a costume. “BRING BACK CHRISTMAS”, read Karen’s bedazzled ball cap. “I’M OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER CAPITALISM”, her shirt proudly boasted. Stan beamed in approval at his wife’s apparel. She would not be the only one today donning tributes like these.

“I’m ready, hon’,” she said with a half-smile. She followed Stan through a short hall leading to the garage. Through hoards of toilet paper, nonperishable food items, and cases of bottled water stacked to the ceiling, each made the narrow footpath to their respective sides of the truck and stepped inside.

The couple made the highway without incident only to find swarms of electric vehicles speeding erratically in and out of every lane, a reminder that all traffic laws were now mere suggestions with the eradication of a police force. To the screeching of tires, blaring horns and at least one obscene hand gesture, Stan managed to merge into traffic. This kind of venture really takes guts, Stan thought, admiring his courage to brave the insane world around him. Self-aggrandizement customary to his esteem, Stan imagined himself a respected dignitary of sorts, at the table of those authoring a constitution that was now so pillaged not a single liberty remained.

“This is your exit, dear,” Karen’s voice fractured his fragile illusion. He struggled to hold his thoughts with the same futility one might employ towards prolonging their sleep to avoid waking from a dream. Navigating the curve, Stan stopped at the light ahead and took inventory of his environment. The rally entrance was only a short distance in front of him, and was flanked on either side by one of the myriad of abandoned industrial complexes killed by the suffocating regulations of a government that not only overstepped, but lived well beyond its bounds.

Passing through a row of collection booths, Stan flashed the free parking pass he’d received for preregistering and located a place in the lot. A cloud of exhaust from the arrival of countless 4x4s had formed a haze above the event, arousing the sweetness of Stan’s nostalgia. Confronting extinction as one of a surviving few, he was now the relict of an all but forgotten bygone and spent his days longing for a former glory. The energy of the rally was palpable and building yet with anticipation. His social life was nonexistent most of the year and rarely did he experience human interaction outside of Karen. Thanks to the institution of a federal living wage, even his favorite fast-food restaurant was now entirely run by robots. But Stan brushed aside these thoughts with the assurance that today he’d reunite with not only his friends, but those who knew the truth about the world.

As the attendant at the gate scanned his ticket, Stan’s heart lept. Just inside, a fanatical manifestation of what the big networks called an all but vanished ideology stretched before him. In estimation true to party analytics, he guessed at least a million people had gathered upon these barren grounds once home to an ammunition plant.

“Can you imagine if they hadn’t taken our guns?!” the thought exploded inside his mind as it raced in all directions. “We could take this country back!”

A shadowy figure approached a podium on the main stage ahead in the distance, as cheers rose above the roaring music that droned on about a return to freedom.

Awash in the electricity of the moment, Stan reached for his phone to record the events when the sun reflected a glittering of light below his feet. Reaching curiously toward the flash of gold, he recognized instantly the heart-shaped locket he’d given Karen as an anniversary gift. Wiping away the dirt, he felt the smoothness of its worn polish, and, fumbling first to activate the clasp, eventually succeeded in opening wide the keepsake on its tiny hinge. Believing for a moment he’d found the lost jewelry of another rally-goer, the surprise he felt at its change of inscription gave way to a thrill so euphoric, the glaze of a tear crept into Stan’s eyes for the first time in his adult life. Where once a wedding date had been etched as a reminder of their life together, now read the acronym of the party’s 4-letter mantra. Barely able to control his emotion, he closed the locket, and raising his head met the proud, loving eyes of his wife. Reaching out her hand, he placed the locket in Karen’s palm and embraced her with unusual affection. He clung to her like a hero from his favorite western movie, the kind where the cowboy prevails against those savage Indians who dare pushback against his conquest of the land. These films were banned, of course, for their insensitivity to indigenous people, a word Stan still could not pronounce and vowed never to learn, anyway.

“They can take away everything I love,” he whispered. “But they can never take away this moment.”