Tara's Challenge: The Letter

One of my co-workers gave me a writing challenge:  Write a letter from your future self 500 word minimum.

Events of late have put me in a dark mood, so this is the result.  I know that the few conservatives that read this blog will take issue with this piece.  To them I say- it's FICTION (I hope.)

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Sophie,

I don’t know if you’ll read this- in fact I doubt it.  This guy says he has way of sending paper back through time.  He tried to explain it, but I was so tired.  Please excuse the paper and the black dust too.  The guy is one of the guards.  He is a “citizen” and has the Trump logo tattooed on his forehead like all “good patriots.”  However, I think he has a hard on for transwomen, because he’s always promising us extra rations for blowjobs.  I won’t tell you what price I’m paying to have this sent.

I hope you do read this, and that you read it before it’s too late.  I’m writing you from the February 2020.  I’m told the weather outside today is cloudy and 75 degrees, which is typical winter weather now.  Last summer, the average was the mid-90s.  So you can guess what happened.

However that doesn’t matter to people like us.  I work in a coal mine- I’m told in north-central Pa.  The mine has 4 shafts, each deeper than the one before it.  Shaft 1 is the one they show reporters, and those are the people that are free to come and go, and get paid.  They are almost all white, with an occasional black guy so the administration can say there’s racial “equality.”  Shaft 2 is mostly people who have a chance of actually leaving here alive- like republicans that didn’t vote for 45. 

I work in Shaft 3 with all of the other “perverts and freaks.”  LGBT, liberals- that sort.  They rounded us up at night, took us by trucks to holding pens somewhere out by Boyertown, then had us all form up in lines and we were separated into groups.  I was in an LGBT group.  We were marched outside for some time into a field and told to count off by threes.  I was a “three.”  Linda was a “two.”  We were led away from the others, and maybe five minutes later, we heard all kinds of gunfire- automatic weapons, pistols, then it got quiet, followed by an occasional pistol shot.  We eventually were loaded onto old school buses and taken to this mine.  I haven’t seen the sky since.

We work constantly.  Occasionally, if you work hard, they let you rest a bit, maybe even sleep.  They feed us energy drinks from time to time.  I’ve lost over 100 pounds.  Many others have died already.  If you do anything they perceive as wrong, or refuse an order, you’re sent to Shaft 4.  No one comes back from Shaft 4.

How could this happen?  Simple.  Trump won the election.  The beginning was rocky, but after “terrorists” bombed the New York Times and Washington Post, he declared Martial law, and the roundups began.  The Democratic Party was outlawed as was any news source aside from the brand new “trump Network.”  We were set to leave the following day- Linda and I were going to flee north to Canada, but we never got the chance.  They came for us that very night.

I’m hoping you get this before November 2016.  I know you’ll think this is fake.  There’s no real way to prove I’m really you.  Well, I’ll say something only you know: chicken add sickness.  I hope that convinces you.

Even if you get this in time (I have no idea how precise the method is for sending this back) I don’t know what you can do.  If you tell people about this, they’ll call you crazy and paranoid.  But all I have to say is this- you must do anything to keep that maniac from being elected- Anything.

By my own guess, I have only a few units of time left before I drop.  (Those who drop are also sent to Shaft 4, if not shot outright.  The guards get bonuses for shooting “trouble makers” but still have production quotas to meet, so…)  Time has no meaning here in the dark, but we all measure it by guard shifts.  We guess they work 8 hours at a time. 

Sophie, do something!  For all those you love, do SOMETHING!

Better Days