Fear in the 21st Century

Fear is waking up in a cold sweat because you don’t know where to buy a cyanide capsule.
Fear is realizing you have no place to hide and no escape root should They come for you.

And They will.

How can They not? They are in your phones, in your computers, on your streets, and in your banks, hospitals, and airports. They can access your emails and watch you on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. They have voice recognition and face recognition and soon fingerprint recognition and you are no longer a human being with rights to privacy and protection from your own government, but a case file and a collection of data and when they’ve had enough of you, they will come for you.

And you have no place to go or to hide, no quiet spaces. In the cafes, they watch you from other people’s phones and computers. In the parks, they find you with their street cams and drones. And in your house, in your house you are most vulnerable, because that is where you feel safe and so you relax, but They are there, They are always there; suggesting you buy this and you watch this and you should read this and They never leave you alone. You are never alone. You just go day by day eating what They want you to eat, watching what They want you to watch, and when something terrible happens you say, “how terrible, but thank god it wasn’t in my neighborhood.”

You can’t go out anymore because the man with the gun will find you. In a restaurant, on a bus, at a festival, it doesn’t matter, because the man with the gun is hidden, watching, waiting, until the gun grows heavy and the finger becomes impatient and he can’t wait any longer. It pounds on him, harder and harder and harder and he can’t wait anymore because to wait is to suffer even longer and so he pulls the trigger and you run, but you can’t run because if he doesn’t get you, someone else will and if it’s not a gun, it’s a bomb or a drone or a police officer meaning to shoot the black kid behind you, but you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And you’ll go to the hospital and the officer will go to sensitivity training and the black kid will die next week, this time by some cop who knows how to aim.

And you want to scream, but don’t because it will disturb the neighbors.

And you think it’s 2017, but it’s looking more and more like 1933 and you think, “my god, didn’t we already do this?” You wonder what uniform you’ll wear and you comfort yourself with the thought that They won’t come after you, you’re not a subhuman. The thought makes you want to throw up, but you can’t because you haven’t eaten since November. Of course, They’ll come for you. If you’re not one of Them, you’re against Them and so the choice is a Mauser C96 or the gas chambers.

Easy choice you brag to friends, but that doesn’t prevent you from staying up all night, trembling, because it’s not easy. Nothing is easy and you want to disappear into another country, another land, but where can you go? To Spain? Where self-determination belongs to the few and the state slaughters its citizens while the E.U. turns a blinded eye? To Poland? Where the media has been swallowed by Law and Order and camps are being built for the unwanted? To Japan? The only country that will have the atrocious honor of have been nuked three times? To Syria, where Russian bombs target hospitals and dead children are pulled from the rubble? To Malaysia? So you can take part in a different genocide?

But you can’t stay here where every day someone else has opened fire in a public forum. Where every day some new atrocity is ignored. Where every day people in need are mocked by a disconnected man on a golf course. Where every day your friends comfort you and tell you all isn’t lost. And you look at them and wonder how many of them will still be here in a year or two? What uniform will they wear? How many of them will be branded and how many of them will break in a dark, cold room? And what role will you play in their demise? You think of Milosz and Ulam and how they could remember with precision who perished and when and how. And you engrave the names of your friends in your heart, repeating them over and over as you struggle to fall asleep, wondering if and when an officer in jack boots will perform the roll call. Wondering if you’ll be standing by their stand or in front of them, avoiding their eyes.

Was this what it was like?

Fear is needing a cyanide capsule because you can’t trust yourself.
Fear is realizing They won’t have to come for you, you’ll go to Them.