The door they were knocking on had a Gothic lion instead of an ordinary knocker. It was sealed more securely than most family homes – thank my parent’s paranoia - and it was their first visit, which meant that when they forced the door over and set off the home security alarm and charged into my house without taking off their shoes and shot the family pet with a taser, when they actually had a warrant - I was surprised. And petrified. I was huddled in the foetal position under the bedcovers with my laptop, the only light source in the room save their searchlights, as the entire SWAT team advanced up the stairs, by the sounds, presumably in thick and heavy combat boots, and stormed the upstairs rooms; the bathroom, my sister’s room, my parent’s bedroom and finally mine.
Ten armed gunmen (and possibly gunwomen) were around my bed, their AK-47s stiffly aimed at my head.
“CITIZEN.” one shouted, in a strangely mechanized voice. “CAN YOU REMOVE THE COVERS IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT, CAN YOU REMOVE THE COVERS IMMEDIATELY, ON PAIN OF DEATH.”
As I pulled back the covers, my hands left wet, salty sweat prints on the quilt. I was shaking like someone having a seizure. One member of the SWAT team pulled open my curtains and the net curtains and outside was a helicopter, nor more than ten meters from the window frame. The propellers were cutting into the branches of the oak tree outside and pointing out of helicopter there was a huge revolving gun, ready to pump fat bullets into my chest. It sounded like a hurricane or a particularly noise waste disposal plant. I slowly lifted up my arms, still bent at the elbows and quivering, and the nameless officers dragged me outside.
Looking at the light in the interrogation room was like looking at the sun straight after waking up. It made me feel the same way not eating for a long time does: floaty and dizzy. There was one only inquisitor and she had two piercings in her right ear and she was holding a ballpoint pen to a clipboard. I tried to suppress a cough and spluttered awkwardly.
‘Look at this.’
She lay down on the table in front of me several printed documents, all in the same typewriter font. I slowly recognized the writing as a blog entry, several blog entries, all recently dated, within the past week, my blog entries. I pushed them away in disgust.
‘Do you confirm that you are indeed the author of these blog entries?’
‘Yye- Wait... I need a lawye-‘
‘Do you confirm that you are indeed the author of these blog entries?’ she repeated. There was a pause, and then she looked at me severely. ‘If you don’t answer the question there’s a very small chance that you’re going to make it out of here alive.’
‘Yyeahhs.’
‘And do you understand these entries an obvious violation of the Whiney, Irritating and Generally Unpleasant Blogs Act of 2008?’
‘Yyeahhs.’
‘And yet you knowingly broke the law on multiple occasions.’
She began to read an excerpt from my blog.
I just can’t be bothered to do this anymore. Today I realized, I don’t really care for all the goals I slavishly devote myself too. I can’t see any way out, at all. I have no idea what to do. I would like some advice before throwing myself of a bridge. Pitying comments happily accepted and
‘Okay, okay...’
‘This is not okay. You are in violation of both subsection B9 and B12. You could be looking at up to fourteen years in jail and possibly an unlimited fine. This is a very serious matter.’
‘What’s subsection-?’ I said. I wished I hadn’t asked.
‘Subsection B9:
Where a blog entry, post or update is made available on the World Wide Web made after 12th January 2009 and before the commencement of this Section which could not have been included under section A of the Act as explained by section B8 above—
(a)the blog entry, post or update is posted within ten years after the commencement of this Act, if it does not meet the criteria in accordance with the 1997 Act, and
(b) any person is, after the commencement of this Act, entitled as of right to a permit to do anything which would otherwise cause said blog entry, post or update to meet the criteria for section B8.
(2)The terms of blog entry available by virtue of this section shall, despite default of agreement or otherwise, be enforced by a team of high strength government ombudsmen; should the content of the blog entry, post or update, be of an annoying, whiney or generally irritating nature.’
After signing a gag order, I was let out on parole immediately. It was early morning when I left the station to go home and it was foggy and humid. I walked across cobbled streets in town, past traffic cones and I crossed a bridge, stopping to peer over the edge and look far down at the muddy water, and then I walked past the pilot’s training centre and the farm market on the road home. I deleted everything I wrote.