The Taboo

Splatters of rain strike the makeshift tin roof of the debilitated house the boy hid in.

He sat with his ear to the door trying to listen for the heavy bootsteps that would signal his imminent death. 

As always we felt that his heart was beating too loudly, his palms were sweaty and he was slightly nauseous. 

But as he reached into his pocket to ensure the little scrap of paper was still there, he felt alive. 

Confident that he was in the clear, the boy opened the door and peeked out.

No one, just the usual - bombed out buildings, broken palm trees strewn about, too much sand. 

This area had been off limits for five years now, a third of the boy's life, and at this point it was mostly defended by a broken fence and fear. 

The first time the boy came here the fence was almost enough to keep him out, but the fear that resided at home was enough to propel him forward.

He just needed to hide away for a few days while his parents drowned their anger and helplessness with the drink. The bones had healed by this point, but remained tender enough that lifting his arms above his head to climb the wall was a struggle.

But he did it in the end, making it over five minutes before the patrol came by shining a light for a few seconds before scurrying on to the next restricted area. 

This place was spoken about in whispers, it being the site of the famous riot that started the war. 

The story, told through the self censored language that had become commonplace, alluded to a protest against the government's attempt to ban books for all but the loyalists. The protestors violated the law by reading aloud in public, they were massacred - even the children who were the laws were enacted to protect.

The neighborhood revolted, kicking the police out, fighting back with such intensity that they won control of the city. Until eventually a lone fighter jet was sent out from Macdill Airforce base, and set the city ablaze. The missiles were enough to end the resistance there, and through a campaign of bombings, disappearances, and mass incarceration enforcement of the taboo spread through the nation until books became a commodity rarer than gold.  Anyone in possession of one book was subject to interrogation, to be in possession of one hundred would be a public stoning. 

However, on his first trip, the boy discovered that buried under the rubble were the remains of a building that held row after row of books. The place was dusty, the roof was caved in, part of the building was flooded, bugs scattered being chased by lizards.

This place was magical. 

Every few days the boy would sneak back and spend hours moving rubble, scooping out water with a bucket, cleaning dust off the books, moving books to areas with a more stable section of roof. Right before he left he would rip a few pages out of a book, triple folding it before stuffing it in his pocket to read at home by the sparse moonlight that entered his window. 

If he were caught with the pages the consequences would be severe, but mostly verbal reprimand, and a mark on his public file if not his person in short no worse than the daily consequences of living in his home. Once he was on the verge being caught by his mother and was forced to eat the pages of a book about wizards and infanticide- and right when it was getting good ! So good that upon the next verbal lashing he received he was tempted to read out loud to his parents and incriminate them as well, but he resisted.

He looked forward to his trips, they gave him life on stormy nights that were too dangerous to venture out and on days when the heat advisory made it mandatory to stay indoors. 

Each trip solidified that the government was evil, banning books seemed akin to putting every citizen in America in their own personal prison of illiteracy. Paradoxically each trip also gave him insight into why knowledge was so dangerous. There were books on gardening that made him angry at the meager rations that his family were allotted amid the restrictions on growing your own food.

There were books about religions that were not the state sponsored offshoots of Christianity that opted not to preach absolute obedience to the government.

There were books about sex that made it sound a lot less of a patriotic task meant to keep the nation’s army well stocked with recruits.

There were books about music that encouraged rebellions and books on how to ensure those rebellions succeeded. 

There were books about fantastical worlds with no rulers, with magic and hope. 

Where parents did not mistreat their children. Where neighbors were not government stooges willing to turn you in over  for some sunflower seeds and a few stale granola bars. 

Most dangerous of all were the books filled with characters who questioned the status quo and were rewarded for it, while the apathetic suffered in squalor. 

During two weeks of storms and ill tempers he planned his next trip, plotting out the books he would tackle next - there was one on how to make better deals by some former president that seemed intriguing, but half the pages were ripped out. There was another that talked about how to win at War or something. 

Finally the rain slowed enough that it was safe to venture outside without being carried away by the daily surges.  

On this trip, his 102nd, he had made it a few steps into the library before he recognized that something was off. 

Someone was here.

Huddled in the corner, books scattered amongst them  were a pair of girls.

The girls hear the boy and stand up turning towards him, their hazel eyes wide with fear. They were  the mirror image of the other with the exception that one had pink hair and the other brown and was missing a part of her ear. 

None of them spoke, the silence seemed to transcend the laws of time as the trio tried to figure out how to proceed. 

The boy had committed 102 counts of insurrection,  the girls who had been caught reading.

If they were spies they were already doomed to die.

As if they can read each other's minds, in unison they spoke the taboo

“Library”. 

They enacted the greatest battle in this underground temple encrusted with knowledge perfumed by the moth eaten pages of books, they smiled.