At the Gate

“What are you going to bring?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and It has to be something not only grand, but interesting as well. Only the finest will be considered. If your offering is accepted, you will be released. Free! Can you believe it, free. I’ve thought what it must be like to be free. Can’t even imagine being able to do what I wanted to do, not what I have to do.”

“Being enslaved isn’t that bad. We get taken care of. Food, shelter, don’t really want for much. But I see your point. I just don’t know if I’m ready for something like that. This is what I know. It is all that I know.”

“You wouldn’t give everything, to be able to say what you think. Exchange Ideas with others without fear of being beaten, or worse? I can’t imagine what it must be like to be able to be yourself. Don’t you dream? Wouldn’t it be something, if only for a few seconds to feel you are you, the person you know yourself to be, not what you are needed to be, demanded to be.”

“But what is it worth? Your life perhaps? I guess I’m content to believe what I believe, and if I have to lie to others to help them believe what they need to, then that doesn’t seem to be such a steep price to pay for the security of this place. Out there, who knows what could happen. There are stories about the few that have escaped and what has happened to them. I’d rather be unhappy some of the time, but alive, than be what you call free, and be dead. If dying is what it takes to be free, I’ll have to pass. Being dead does not guarantee freedom. Perhaps it just exchanges one form of slavery for another.”

The arguments revolving around the issue of freedom and what it represented, the vision of individualism it presented, alongside the possibility of death, were debated regularly. Those weighing the benefits and costs, but knew they did not have the opportunity to procure either, until the day the wars ended.

Her capture followed the protocol of all wars. Those in power are imprisoned, held as a symbol of what defeat engenders in the people under new rule. They either accept the new order, or rebel against its tyranny. Being free to express the ideals of freedom, the representation of all values is lost, when choice has been imprisoned. The people of the South Land had suffered such a fate. Imprisoned in mind and body for failing to accept the dictates of a master.   

We waited behind the walls as the tower guards left their positions. Those on the perimeters followed shortly afterwards. We were left alone, with only the questions of what existed outside the walls. All of us had been born here. None of us had ever stepped outside these walls. Now the gates were open, there was no one to prevent us from leaving. And yet we stayed pinned to the walls. If we chose to move, would we disappear, be erased like the stories of those who left and never returned; were ever heard from again.

“Why would they leave now? Can they just leave us here, alone. We don’t know what to do. If we stay here, we will die, but if we go out there, we don’t know. It could be a trap. Perhaps they just want to see what we will do. It could be like one of those tests they had us take to determine what work we were best suited for. 

Where will we get food? What will we do when the weather changes? How do you get clothing or medicine if you are ill? We don’t know how to do any of those things. I’m staying here. I’m sure this is a test of some kind. They will return, and then what will happen to those that stepped beyond the walls, challenged their authority? I will stay. We can stay together. We can look after each other.”

The first few days were difficult, mainly because of the uncertainty. When they failed to return after a week some began to talk of leaving; going just to the edge where the trees begin. Perhaps they could tell from there what was happening. Some left, but none returned.

“They promised to come back and tell us what is out there. What we could expect. And yet, no one has returned. I’m not leaving. It is certain death, I’m sure of it.”

We can’t stay here. We will run out of food. The water is already running low. The nights are getting increasingly colder and the boilers that supplied the heat, no longer function. I’d rather take my chance out there than die like a caged animal in here.”

“But we are not caged. You said so yourself. We are free. What we need to do is learn from one another, learn how this place functioned. We all played roles in its operations. They kept us purposely from learning more than what we needed to know to perform our duties. We can change that. We have the combined knowledge to make this place work. It is better than leaving and falling into space or being devoured by the monsters we hear at night.”

The weeks turned into a month. The shared knowledge dissipated with each person or small group that ventured from the walls, and were never seen again. 

“Is it possible, that soon we will be all that is left?  Will we finally see that there is no way to remain here in fear. Perhaps there is a life out there we can escape to. All of the people we knew are gone, except for a few who have succumbed to fear as we have. We have talked ourselves into a situation that I feel will end in a worse way than death. We are afraid of what may not exist, but what we believe it to be. With each person that leaves, disappears, we lose a piece of ourselves, a piece of history that made us who we are, what we made this place. What will happen when we are all that is left, will that be the end of this place. The end, as if we never existed?”

The weeks turned into months. All that remained of their world was what they could remember of it. It had grown less constraining with each passing day, until she could no longer remember what her dreams of freedom were about. Was she afraid of death any longer, or only the loss of what she remembered. Had she found freedom?

She awoke to the last snow of the winter. The tree branches had begun to swell, buds breaking from their hibernation like tiny cabbages. She watched the birds appear amongst the burgeoning flowers erupting in the meadow grass. He had left that morning, or was it the morning before, it did not matter. He’d left a long time ago; she had grown used to the loneliness. It gave her the strength to continue to live.

What shall I give to be free she asked herself, as the first bomb exploded outside the wall. Bricks were tossed into the air, and there was no longer the need of an open gate. The second and third bombs took the remainder of the wall, leaving her exposed to the future. There was no longer a place to be free of the fear. Freedom had come from the air, exploding into small memories of escape, freedom, and what? Hope? 

There was no longer a need for hope, as there was no longer a need for fear. She watched as the last bomb fell like a cast out angel from the gray sky, and landed at her feet. It did not explode, it did nothing but remain upright, its fins glistening in the remaining sun. The trees were ablaze with fire, and those that had escaped into the fear, were now free to become prisoners of their own dreams. She watched as they walked from the shadowy trees onto the field, and then disappeared as the flash of light removed everything, including the fear; leaving behind, only a vision of freedom.