The Thought police

I was woken by a hammering on the front door of my detached house. Wearily I wondered why no-one had answered the knocking but then I remembered that the others had all gone away. One by one they had drifted out of the house and out of my life. I was now left alone most of the day and all of the night, only my dog was there for company and he was now barking at the unaccustomed noise. Grabbing a dressing gown I went down the stairs to see who was so impatient. Hesitantly I opened the door as far as the chain would allow. A group of men stood there and one said,
“Mrs Johnson?”
I nodded as I began to realise just who these people might be.

“We are here to take you to Central. You’ve been accused of mind crimes.”
Knowing that no amount of argument would prevent them from taking me to Central I opened the door and one of them accompanied me upstairs while I dressed. All I asked was what were they going to do about my dog; I didn’t want him to suffer just because I’d been accused. The man promised me that the dog would be looked after and with that assurance I went back downstairs to see the rest of the men who were now going through my desk and my computer files. Not daring to challenge them I said, “Shouldn’t we be going to Central?”
It wasn’t that I wanted o go there; no-one wanted to go there because it wasn’t very often that anyone came out in the same mental and physical condition that they entered.

Fearfully I sat in the back of the wagon and tried to picture the route that we were taking. As I said before no-one willingly went to Central and I didn’t know where it was; not many people did. Finally the wagon stopped and I was gestured to dismount I stood in the cold morning air and shivered. Soon, though, I was walking towards a large building the main feature of which was the singular lack of windows.
Inside there was a marked contrast with the cold of the day outside and although I tried to concentrate on my route through the many corridors I was soon confused and wasn’t sure that I’d be able to find a way out by myself. I was shown into a room barren of furniture except for a table and two chairs. I was pushed down into one of the chairs and told to wait. I didn’t have to wait too long; a man entered the room and sat in the other chair.

He passed a piece of paper to me and told me to read it.
This is what the paper said;

“It’s April and it’s wet and cold outside and just very cold inside. The heating’s been turned off for the summer even though the weather forecast is for an icy night. As I type this; my fingers feel as if they would drop off if I knocked them. I’m wearing three layers of clothes and still I’m cold, so cold that even though it’s only six in the evening i might fill my hot-water bottle and go to bed in an attempt to warm up.
So why is it so cold? It’s because the house is large and never gets warmed through, even in the middle of winter the central heating is only on for a couple of hours in the morning and another two hours in the evening so that we have a supply of hot water. In a vain attempt to get warm I’ve burnt all the rubbish I can find but the house if like a large empty heat sponge which gobbles up the heat from the fire almost as if it had never happened. I’ve even done the washing up so that my hands get warm for an instant.
So why am I sitting down writing this? I’m plotting or maybe I should say planning as it concerns no-one but me and my victim. I’m planning a murder. If I get caught all I can think about is how warm a prison will be but I don’t plan to get caught. I’ll murder my spouse, it’s not that I don’t love him because I do; he doesn’t love me the way I should be loved and he spends his nights with someone else. But that’s not the reason I’m thinking of murdering him. It’s because when he’s in the house I’m cold. I dare not put a fire on to warm my chilled bones and as for the central heating that’s a no-go area for me.

So how can I kill him in a way that’s efficient and no-one will suspect me? I thought of putting mushrooms into a stew for him but the dog gets the leftovers. I don’t get any of the food she prepares for him but the dog does. We do have plenty of poisonous mushrooms growing in the garden later on in the year.
I’m not strong enough to physically do him any harm he could easily overcome me and then I’d be thrown out of the house and would have to live on the streets. So that means that strangling and knifing are out of the question. I could cut the brake pipes on the car but that’s not a guaranteed way of killing anyone. Maybe I could give him some tablets, sleeping tablets or similar I could easily get some from the doctor but they would show up in the forensic tests.
I could go for a walk with him when he takes the dog out on the mountains but somehow I don’t think that I could lure him close enough to the edge so that I could push him over but that remains a possibility.
I don’t drive so I can’t run him over and I don’t think that I can afford to use a stranger who would charge me vast amounts of money.
I don’t possess a gun and wouldn’t know how to get hold of one.
I’ve just looked through the list and it seems to me that I’m making excuses perhaps I don’t want to kill him; perhaps this love thing is what prevents me from harming him”

The man asked me,”What do you have to say about this?”
I asked him where he’d found it because as far as I knew it had only been on my computer.
“We are the only people who ask questions here, is this your work? Did you write this?”
Reluctantly I nodded I’d written it months ago and had meant it to be part of a longer story but had never gotten round to writing any more. I tried to explain but he didn’t want to know.
“You don’t deny writing this? You know that this planning of a crime is an offence punishable by death?” I didn’t know what to say so just stayed sitting in my chair. Then the door of the room opened and an older man came into the room.
“Has she admitted the crime?” he asked the younger man
“She admits writing this but she hasn’t said anything.”
The older man looked at me and asked me if I had anything to say; so I explained that it was part of a story; an unfinished story.

“If you know anything about me you will know that I live alone, everyone who lived in the house has gone walkabout and I don’t know where they are. I wrote that piece of nonsense one day when I was feeling down and I was going to expand upon it but never went back to it. As you will also know I earn what meagre living I can by writing short stories. My computer has several on it.”
The older man looked at me and said, “Don’t expect that any of your other stories will help you as these are being careful studied by my men I’m sure that we will find dissention and treason. Your kind has a way of getting their crimes accepted by the gullible public, you disseminate filth and discontent through your so-called stories.”
By now I was confused I knew that my stories were harmless bits of fun; there was no way that I had urged mass rebellion or even discontentment.
“Are you sure that you’ve got the right person? My stories are just that; they have no hidden meaning they are harmless. I don’t write in code I write in plain ordinary common or garden English.”

The man shrugged his massive shoulders he moved the younger man by a gesture and sat down in his place. He lit a cigarette and exhaled into my face. I tried not to cough but failed. He smiled as if satisfied that he had won the first battle the younger man moved to stand behind me and I suddenly felt threatened. Trying not to tremble I quietly watched the older man; then suddenly my arms were seized from behind and my hands were forced onto the tabletop. The older man stubbed out his cigarette on the back of my hand and I shouted with pain.
“That’s just a small sample of what you can expect” growled the older man
He then stood up and left the room the younger man released my arms and moved to sit in front of me. I found his brooding silence more menacing than any questions he might have asked of me. And so we sat in the quiet I could hear no sounds from the corridor beyond the door of the room so I assumed that each room was soundproofed. I wasn’t sure if I preferred the silence or if the sound of screams would have been preferable at least I wouldn’t have felt so isolated, so bereft of human company. I didn’t count the young man as human as he behaved with no common humanity no sign of any humane thoughts could be seen on his gaunt face. Just as I was deciding that he was an android the door opened and the older bigger man came back. He looked at me for a long time before saying,
“Get out, you can go, just be careful we will be watching you.”

Bewildered I walked out of the room and down the corridor I didn’t have time to think I just walked as quickly as possible towards where I hoped the exit of the building lay. Eventually I found the way out of that inhumane den of control and started to try to retrace my way back home but it wasn’t long before I became completely lost. Then I saw a taxi and with relief was soon on my way home. Back there I sat down and looked at the mess the police had made of my home, my computer was missing and every single drawer had been tipped out onto the floor as if they had deliberately tried to make chaos out of the previous order. But it took my mind away from worrying about my detainment as I desperately tried to re-establish order.
I saw neither my dog nor my computer ever again, friends clubbed together to buy me an old computer so that I could continue trying to earn a living but my old companion was never returned to me and I didn’t have the heart to find another dog I couldn’t bear to lose another in the event of my being taken to Central again