The Birth of Dystopia

by A. Q. Moser

  Reluctant, the sweaty officer picked up his two-way radio. “I’m dropping the passenger off at the … nearby subway station.” He turned to me. “Would you require home protection? We could patrol your area and check up on you?”

  Would I be safe at home? A police presence could draw extra attention to me. “Thanks for the offer but I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to do a pass by and check if there are any problems?” the sweaty officer sighed as if annoyed by his job.

  “Thanks, I’ll be fine,” I objected as kindly as possible.

  Altering their route, the squad cars made a few turns until they located the nearest subway station. The car stopped right in front of the entrance.

  The sweaty officer pulled out a pocket notepad and pencil. “What’s your name and address? I need this for my report.”

  “My full name is Joel Daniel Taw. I live in Springfield at seventy-five Navrina Road.” It bothered me to know my name would be associated to another police report, the first being the hit-and-run accident.

  The sweaty officer nodded favourably. “Don’t worry about that crazy protestor back there. I’m pretty sure it was just an isolated incident. Here keep this just in case.” He handed me his business card. “My name is Constable S. Lewis and if you ever need anything let me know.”

  “Thanks.” I stored the business card in my wallet grateful to be allowed to leave.

  Leaving the security of the squad car, I stepped out alone. I waved at the officers, thanking them for their assistance. And without a second look I descended the flight of stairs to the subway platform.

  2

  Deep within its tunnels, it dawned on me that I was at Cemetery subway station. Its name originated from the discovery of an ancient cemetery uncovered during the construction process. The city allowed the morbid name to stand because the subway station was dedicated to all suicide victims and their families. The grey-tiled tunnel was lined with the names of victims in the city. One teenager in particular stood out. The head architect of this underground platform lost his son to suicide.

  Every workday my commute had me passing through this eerie tunnel. Like clockwork, this particular stop delivered a deep feeling of uneasiness. The very notion of suicide—something I knew all too well—just rubbed me the wrong way.

  Subway stations were vainly styled on popular themes with one exception. This was great for tourists who enjoyed the surrounding scenery.

  I examined my ripped dress shirt. It was unsalvageable and so I discarded it in a garbage can nearby. The good thing was my long-sleeved undershirt was not ripped.

  Retrieving my subway pass from my wallet, I swiped it and passed through the turnstile. On passing by the subway newsstand, a muted computer tablet displayed an old high school picture of me. The closed captioning below the image read:

  The unreliable testimony by the key witness leads prosecutors scrambling in Mister Popular trial…

  Everything suddenly changed. Here I was exposed to the public like some cheap toy. How did they get my picture? There was no time to take in the aftermath of my testimony that I had to deal with the media again. I was nothing more than a carcass for the reporters to feast on. Why did reporters have to sensationalize this trial?

  For all this publicity, the news circulated faster than I could ever imagine. The story could be delivered just as quickly as the journalist typed it out.

  Ousted as unreliable? I picked up a different tablet and skimmed across the article. It was extremely critical of my testimony and going as far as accusing me of being in cahoots with the defendant. An indefinable rage from the deep corners of my chest area grew as I read these lies.

  Right in front of me, the tablet flashed images of the movie star Mister Popular hustling out of the courtroom. A grand exit by a celebrity defendant encircled by a barrage of guards and in turn surrounded by reporters who were crowded by fans and protestors. More headlines flashed across the tablet:

  Key Witness involved in Melee—Witness too Indecisive—The What Witness—Mister Popular trial leaves Witness Unpopular—Was Key Witness Bribed?—

  Battling a chronic chest pain, I made it worse by tensing up at every mention of the word witness. All my efforts to lead a good life boiled down to being slammed by the press. I wanted to run and hide from all this. This was all horribly wrong; this could not be happening to me.

  Looking to make any sense of the situation, I reached for the Daily Toronto e-newspaper. They had the no-nonsense journalists and told only the truth. Right about now, I needed reassurance that everything was going to be all right.

  Prosecutors are scrambling to save the case against the accused actor and writer Mister Popular. The testimony of the key witness to the accident, Joel D. Taw, is seen as detrimental to overall case. The witness was more responsive when asked for today’s date then when asked for the actual events of the evening of Friday, April fifth, two months prior. Questions remain as to whose side Mister Taw is on.

  The turn of events for the defendant, Mister Popular believes all the criminal charges will be dropped. According to his confident defence attorneys, things are finally going their way.

  All the media were saying the same thing. There was no exception. I was caught up in this unreal whirlwind and there was no way out.

  Catching the corner of my eye, the Daily Toronto e-newspaper icon flashed on the top of the page. An update had uploaded with more details on the court case.

  Knocking over a stack of computer tablets, the newsstand appeared in complete disarray. I was too bothered to fix the mess.

  “Are you going to buy anything?” the hefty lady bellowed from behind the counter perch.

  Considering my haste to get home, I held onto the tablets displaying either the word witness or trial on it.

  “You can buy one tablet and then get the updates automatically too,” the hefty lady added as if trying to insult my understanding on how wireless Internet works. “They’re really cheap.”

  Having enough from people complaining about me especially the lady at the newsstand, I dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and left with the bundle of tablets. I headed towards the stairwell leading down to the second level of the subway station.

  As I descended the concrete stairs, one of the tablets slipped out of my sweaty hands and landed hard onto the concrete floor. The tablet screen went blank and seemed inoperable. I sighed in disbelief. Instead of picking it up I kicked it down the stairs and left the broken computer tablet by the trashcan.

  Over by the garbage, my head throbbed and I was almost at the point of regurgitating my morning meal. I just could not believe how bad I was being portrayed in the news. There was so much fuss over my testimony. I could not settle down. I simply had to let go of all this garbage around me. I discarded all the tablets in their rightful place. I needed to stop thinking about the trial and try to recollect my thoughts.

  Sounds of an approaching subway resonated through the long tunnel. I moved closer to the edge of the platform ready to board the subway.

  Weary and tired, I needed to get home as soon as possible. All I wanted was to be left alone and one day—hopefully soon—be forgotten as being a part of this whole mess.

  After almost a full day in the courtroom, I was dismissed. But could I be called back to court? No one told me otherwise. I could not bear to step inside the witness stand for a second time. The feeling of being exposed on a personal level and then criticized was absolutely dreadful. I had enough trouble with my life without having to manoeuvre my life around someone else’s.

  Swishing noisily through the tunnel, the subway had arrived. Relief from this stressful event was only a subway ride away.

  Opening its doors, the subway was conveniently empty. I sat specifically next to a window and stared out at the tunnel lining. Any distraction was better than what I had to deal with. The views were nothing more than dirty tunnels until we left the confines of the city.

  Recently t
he city’s subway had been upgraded to a new transportation system. In an attempt to move commuters faster, the subway was updated to use magnetic levitation to lift and propel the subway cars. However, the system was not perfect. During some temporary power surges, a moving subway would momentarily dip and the passengers would feel the split-second upsurge in the pit of their stomach. Faster did not always mean better.

  Inside the innovative subway cars, new wider seats replaced old narrower seats for the passengers to sit on. There were fewer seats to sit on but at least those who found one were comfortable.

  Gradually decelerating to an abrupt stop, the subway train reached the next platform. This was the main access to a downtown university. Since most diligent students were still in classes, the subway moved on quickly.

  Idolized for his acting and writing creativity, Mister Popular was at the pinnacle of the movie business. He was accused of hitting and killing a female pedestrian with his luxury car and then failing to remain at the scene of the accident. The driver eventually returned to the scene of the crime to turn himself into the police. It turned out the driver was one of Mister Popular’s bodyguards. The bodyguard claimed that Mister Popular convinced him to return and be held accountable for the accident. While Mister Popular maintained to occasionally lend his cars to his friends this did sometimes include his bodyguards.

  Newly installed red light cameras had several still images of a single occupant speeding in a silver luxury car with gold-plated rims and the license plate POPULAR. The vehicle was unmistakably the property of Mister Popular, but the tinted windows prevented any clear identification of the driver at the moment of the accident. Did the actor pay his bodyguard to take the blame of the accident? Rumours and innuendoes were rampant. It was no wonder the media had a field day covering this trial.

  A hit-and-run accident had an innocent lady dead. Did her family deserve all this merciless attention during a time of mourning? Where was their justice?

  Literally in plain view of the accident, I saw and heard it all. It all happened in mere seconds, from the impacting thud of the metal car connecting with the fragile lady to the blood splattering across the roadway. All that remained was a mangled body tossed aside unnaturally like some unwanted rag doll. The whole situation left me so scared that I could not even approach the injured lady. It was all too real to be real. My intimidated eyes relayed the images to an uncooperative mind and a frightened body.

  Led back to the police station, I gave the police a full witness statement implicating the perpetrator Mister Popular. It was so strange to be a part of this that it seemed like some cop scene straight out of a movie. The accident was so fresh in my mind back then. Two months later given the opportunity to testify against the brilliant actor, I slipped on the date of the accident.

  Yet, the grandiose stature of the celebrity was not entirely why I was so distracted. I crumbled for another reason. The vicious cycles of lack of sleep did me in again. The unrelenting nightmares contributed to my inability to focus even on a simple task as remembering the date of the accident.

  Easing into the next subway stop, the rushing air from the opening doors snapped me back to reality. The subway stopped at a brightly decorated platform with walls showing cartoon characters. Each character was in the act of helping a little one. It was a medical stop as three hospitals were linked to this subway stopover. I was half way home—so close to my sanctuary and so much further away from the courtroom. The subway was moving fast with few passengers. This was good for me.

  Nightmare after nightmare, they appeared for the past twenty years of my life. Every nightmare was engrained inside my mind like a chisel marking a stone tablet. I could never forget any past nightmare. It was, for some unexplainable reason, a perpetual memory. They were markers to my days. I could remember the details from the day of the accident, two months ago, because of the nightmare that night.

  The night before the accident, the images of a gentle mother teaching her daughter how to knit a sock out of cotton yarn. The creepy part of the whole thing was the face of the daughter; she had no facial features no eyes, ears or a nose. She resembled a generic play doll with no redeeming characteristics.

  I could recall every nightmare to a tee. Not a single nightmare made any sense. Scientists described nightmares as links to past experiences since the brain draws this information from those memories. Not me. There was no link to the nightmares—just random images set to a movie reel for me to watch as I slept. Once finished, I was kept awake until the next nightfall.

  Taking a glance out the window, the subway was at a platform tiled in spring green. Since the ministry buildings were located in a single area, the environmentally conscious politicians and their subordinates frequented this stop. Luck was on my side as it was still a tad early till their day ended. After this would be all the residential stops and most people exited the train rather than boarded it.

  Lacking much-needed sleep, it was a struggle to make it through each day. I was stumped on the date of the accident because I was trying not to focus on the nightmares. But how could anyone understand this part of me? Instead, I was judged as being incompetent and written off as an unreliable witness to the hit-and-run accident.

  Either way, I knew what I saw. If I were given a second chance to testify, I would recount exactly how I saw the accident. On the evening of April fifth, I was standing at the corner of Yonge and Front Street downtown, waiting for the lights to change so I could cross the street to shop for a pair of running shoes. A speeding luxury car with gold-plated rims ran the red light and barrelled over a young lady traversing the road. The skidding tires, the smell of burnt rubber, the hard thump of metal on flesh. That was it. She never saw it coming. And to make matters worse, the driver deserted the scene without a single care to the well-being of the mangled lady. It was a simple case of hit-and-run with dramatic repercussions. The tinted windows made it difficult to discern the identity of the driver except for the sizeable silhouette of the man behind the wheel.

  Did the driver of the car need to be so reckless? Of course not. Could this have been prevented? A big yes. My reward for doing my civic duty was a bad reputation and the images of a violent street death. The hit-and-run accident in all its unenviable grief was as glorious as suffering from a rare disease only to have it named after you.

  The public eye saw it differently. Dubbed the trial of the century, it pitted a celebrity against the legal system. Never mind the life lost at the hands of a ruthless driver.

  Hanging on to life by a thin thread, my hands trembled from the pressure of it all. The images of the accident, the sleepless nights, the haunting nightmares, it was a distressing life to live. My uncontrollable mind was the dilemma. I bowed my head in pity, ashamed for all it was worth. I was depressed.

  3

  Escaping from the hustle and bustle of the Toronto metropolis, the subway ride moved to the familiar grounds of my hometown of Springfield. It was a quieter town with less people by far. On the down side, it consisted of too many gossipers as only town folks could attest too. If given the choice, I would take the gossiping over overcrowding in a heartbeat.

  Venturing closer to home, I had an extra step in my walk. I exited the subway, up to the ground floor and headed home. The ground was dry and it appeared as if the morning Toronto rainstorm missed Springfield.

  Occupied about getting home I kept a clear mind. In less than twenty minutes, I had arrived at the base of my apartment building only surprised to find the front entranceway empty, a park bench abandoned. Usually, two senior ladies and an elderly man greeted passers-by with their investigative eyes but their voices could only be heard after they were left alone. They sat outside throughout the day but this time they were not there. A threesome pretending to enjoy the heat under the shade but a different story than what the exterior showed.

  Leaving the park bench meant something major has happened; perhaps the looming rainstorm scared them away. Word of my courtroom departure
must have spread to all with nothing else to do; these were the people who I really needed to avoid.

  Coming inside of the building through the front lobby, three teenage boys were huddled by the elevators. All the while one was constantly pressing the elevator call button. They seemed unconcerned by my presence. This was a good indication that these boys were not the type to watch the news especially anything revolving around the Mister Popular trial.

  Avoiding the elevators, I headed straight for the stairway. Normally, my impatience of waiting for elevators made me seek the stairs to my third floor apartment—today was different, taking the stairs meant no chance for human contact, and those were odds I would take if a lottery was involved.

  Needing to change out of my sweaty clothes, each step up meant my inside thighs rubbed against each other. I reached the third floor and opened the door to the one bedroom apartment. My answering machine set to sound-activate announced nine messages waiting. My response was to hurl my smashed cell phone, wallet and keys at the machine and proceed down the hallway to my bedroom to undress and rid myself from the stench of the courtroom.

  Of course, one of the messages had to be from my parents—quite possibly more than one—worried about the afternoon assault on their only child. I returned to the living room contemplating whether to check the answering machine. Instead, I collapsed onto the couch and stared out the window relieved to have made it back home.

  Sadly, a chaotic mind was difficult to relax in spite of the body’s craving for slumber. I was tossed between a restless night and a consuming trial—I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I had to stop thinking so I closed my eyes. Only emptiness must exist. I reopened my eyes to a beautiful skyline fading its mixing of various shades of blue and purple like a male peacock announcing to a female. I shut my eyes again.