Written by Alice Kinerk
They came for the books about gender-nonconforming children, but I’d never questioned my gender, my brother had never questioned his, so I did nothing because life is busy. It wasn’t the first time. Those who knew history knew they’d tried to shove dangerous ideas back as long as there’d been places to shove them. That wasn’t a reason for inaction, but it was true.
They came for the history texts with the potential to cause guilty feelings. Like hypothetical children, with hypothetical guilt, are sufficient to nix history that actually happened, that’s real.
While the public was still fumbling, they went about banning books with LGBTQIA+ characters. This was notable because it was the first time youth and adult books were prohibited. People took to the streets, rioting.
In response they banned all texts referring to riots. It was craziness!
Someone, somewhere, held a tribunal. The result of which was an expansion of the word riot to include any reference to a physical or verbal conflict. Anything at all from a tale of epic wartime battle to a preteen series novel depicting slumber party gossip. Alakazam! The vast majority of literature in this country was now illegal.
There was a question as to whether the news stories were themselves illegal. A judge thought yes, so TV producers had to pause teleprompters. Websites had to post 404 errors.
A clause protected the Bible, of course.
Every day, fewer books remained. Public libraries became prisons. Librarians became executioners. Printers stopped printing. E-readers were rounded up, sent to faraway countries where young children tore them apart, pulled out their precious metals, and melted them down.
Amazon pivoted.
There were precious few legal books left. Pat the Bunny. Martha Stewart’s Entertaining.
Folks in all aspects of literature-based work were forced to find new employment. For my brother the lit prof, this meant seizing and destroying the texts he loved. He’d post photos. It must have been very difficult. But he wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Talking about it would have been a story, and all stories, even off-the-cuff anecdotes, were no bueno.
It was weird. During this time there was a trend, greatly Instagrammed, of displaying one’s books in a custom bookshelf. One of those fancy recessed bookshelves built right into your wall. These bookshelves were always painted white.
No one owned enough books to be able to set them spine out like olden days, but there were cute row-of-spine bookends you could buy. You could set your books propped open on your shelf. You could lean them.
It was proposed, to wrap up loose ends, that the last books be banned. So they were.
Winter arrived. A college student stood near the White House reciting Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. They arrested him in five sentences. The media didn’t cover it. There was no media. My brother told me.
Blood was shed, but even the Bible was nixed. Other religious texts were prohibited, so even though the Bible was the right one, in the name of equality, it had to go.
Pastors had no verses to recite and just spent more time praying.
One day my brother called. “If you never hear from me again, assume the worst.”
“What makes you say that?”
He couldn’t say.
It was sad. I never heard from him again.
Everywhere, attics were raided. Diaries and family letters were contraband. Obviously, the paper industry was felled. Bic Corp, which had always understood that desperate people need ballpoint pens, stuck it out awhile, but finally quit and went all-in with their lighters. April first, some guy posted a story on his blog. It was lightly pornagraphic. He was shot. I don’t want to talk about it.
I mean, what a fascinating time to be alive.
This morning I opened my front door so as to hear the birds. Two men were standing there. Just standing there, not like, about to knock. They were young, blond, neatly combed. They might have been Mormons except for their Hawaiian shirts. The tall one had a clipboard. He rattled numbers off. “Is that your IP address?” as if I would be able to confirm it.
“You’ve been engaging in prohibited activities. This is your warning.”
They smiled. Except their eyes did not squeeze up but remained just as they had, as if there was nothing happening to their mouths below.
I smiled back. I was hit with a memory of having been a young child sick with croup. My mother had left me broiling under an electric blanket. Gentle asphyxiation. That’s what I remember feeling, and that’s what I felt this morning as the men stood on my threshold smiling.
We said goodbye. I shut the door. I wished I could have asked about my brother. I missed him.
Regardless, a few moments later I sat down, as I do every morning, to write. I opened a new document, stared at the cursor. One single vertical line, no more than a millimeter long, blinking.
It was terrifying. Zero stories left in me. No characters. No settings. No plots.
They came for my stories.
Now it’s just me and the cursor, forever blinking, shouting I! I! I! I!
.
Twelve years ago, Alice Kinerk planted bamboo in her front yard, despite neighbors who claimed she’d regret it once it grew out of control. It has grown out of control, but she hasn’t regretted it yet. Read more of Alice’s fiction at alicekinerk.com.