Government For The People
©2006 Faye Sizemore
In the future a good job will be hard to find..
Yrag pushed his chair back from his electronic monitor screen and stretched his
skinny body. 'Damn',he groaned, 'I am so sick and tired of monitoring these stupid citizens day in and day out!'
The government should have, by now ,come up with a way to do it by computer alone.Lord
knows,they had taken enough of everyone`s money to have done so years and years ago.
YEEEEEEEESH!! The pain grabbed him and sent him reeling..'Why,in Hell could he
never remember that the monitors were also monitored ?' He hoped his vacation would be approved soon! He could hardly wait
to get away from people even if it would be just for a few hours.
Quickly,Yrag went back to work
at the large screen.His job was to monitor a small section of the city and administer discipline by pushing a button when
he saw indiscretions .He had 'zinged' at least fifty today.Some were really pitiful..kids just trying to sneak a snack from
the food simulator.
Yrag kind of goofed sometimes and administered an adult 'zing' to some of the children.They
couldn`t survive adult zing but he was allowed a few goofs before the GFTP came down on him with their own 'zing'.
Yes,Yrag knew he was better off in his position than most government workers.Were his
father-in-law not an official of the Government For The People he might be one of the death squad cleaners sent out to retrieve
bodies of those who had the Ultimate Discipline administered.
It wasn`t a pleasant job because it took awhile to get around to some of the addresses
and the bodies got quite messy after a certain time period.He remembered the old man with the house full of cats that he had
to terminate.
Yrag had caught him on screen about to perform an act of unapproved sex.Yrag had
seen him reaching for his wife`s hand.They knew better than to go ahead without an okay from the GFTP first.
His body was left there three months before he was picked up.The rest of the family had a
hell of a time living in the house with the remains .The cats had dragged pieces of the old man all over the house making
clean up a chore.It was so much neater back when the GFTP still allowed funerals.
As Yrag viewed people on the corner waiting for a bus, he noticed a woman waiting
with her fifty dollar fare ,for the government bus ,dropping it from her tired hand as she dozed.Yrag watched the woman on
his monitor and saw the man next to her pick it up and put it in his own pocket.
Yrag pushed the terminal button.'Thou Shall Not Steal,son of a bitch!',he laughed, as
the man writhered and screamed and then was silent.
The woman awoke quickly, got up silently and moved to another bench,keeping
her head down all the while.
'Smart old bitch,good girl! She knew she was being monitored',he thought.
Yearningly,Yrag thought of the fifty in the man`s pocket.If there was a way he
could let the clean up crew know they might split it with him.
Damn,this time the pain shot
to every part of his body and seemed to take hold with long claws and shake him viciously!! ARRRRRRGH! The monitors were monitored
for thoughts, too,not just actions, by a higher up in the GFTP.
Yrag was never going to be able to sleep his alloted four hours tonight .. he
knew the aches were going to linger for awhile.
The commoners just didn`t realize just how much freedom they still had living in the
GFTP..the damn fools!...
