“If a rebel shoots himself in the face, and nobody is around to see it, do the brains still splatter on the wall?”

Mira smirks, amused by her own joke. I give her a weak smile, breaking my gaze from the window. She stands up and stretches, her fingertips almost grazing the ceiling of the attic. It is all bare wood, dust, and sunlight.

“C’mon, that was funny” Mira says, taking a seat on the window sill next to me.

It wasn’t so much funny as it was true. It was a fact ingrained in our minds from the start. If you try to escape, they will know, and you will be shot. If you leave and try to come back, they will know and you will be shot. The border is massive, but we are made to assume there are eyes on it at all times. There was no question, no wiggle room. If you leave, if you try to leave, if you leave and come back, you will be shot. Many choose to do the job themselves.

I bring my eyes back to the window and gaze out past the brown and green rooftops of the stone city. I see people moving on the streets, going about their lives, buying from the market, hanging up laundry, or even just going for a stroll. It’s not like there’s anything else to do here.

I glance over to see Mira, head on her knees, eyes out the window, an affectionate look on her pale face.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She tells, rather than asking.
“I guess,” I say, finally turning fully towards Mira. Her eyes scour the landscape, glazed and vacant. Her light hair falls into her face, but she doesn’t care. The view is still enough.
“It gets dull, doesn’t it? Doing the same thing every day? Being in the same place? Talking to the same people?” I say, attempting to get her to say anything that I haven’t heard before.
She looks at me and shrugs. “I mean, it’s better than most places.”
“But don’t you ever wonder? I mean, there has to be something else out there.” My voice sounds more distressed than I had intended it too, but Mira doesn’t pick up on it. She shrugs and smirks at me again. “Of course there is. I saw a map once,” she says, her voice low. “Everything was on it. The world is huge!” She pauses, and looks back out the window. Her eyes follow a couple walking down the stone street below us, enjoying the weather. “But that’s all the more reason to stay here. The rest of the world is terrifying! Who knows what’s out there? We’re safe here. It’s good here. We have everything, we don’t need to leave.”
Mira is only a rebel in her own mind.
“Not like we have a choice.”
Mira looks at me with the inauthentic smile of a tired mother. “What are you going to do, Elin? Be a rebel, try to escape? There’s nothing out there for you. You act like being here is hurting you. We’re safe here.”
There have only been a few moments in my life when I have been more disappointed than this. I open my mouth to retaliate, but Mira beats me to it.
“Well, I should go,” she says, jumping up, her tone suddenly chipper. “I have family coming over later and my dad wants me home.” She heads to the door and goes to turn the handle, but pauses. “Elin,” her eyes stay fixed on the door. Confrontation has never been her strong suit. “They wouldn’t keep us here if there wasn’t a good reason. Go take a walk. You’ll see how amazing this all is.”
Finally she turns the door handle and exits, and I am left alone with the dust.

I don’t know how long ago it was that the rivers dried up. It was before my lifetime and apparently before everyone elses, because it is never spoken of. These once grand rivers are now empty, dusty crevasses running through our city. To compensate for the lack of water, they are filled with shady characters. The usual crowd are the homeless, less-than-certified merchants, drug addicts, and thieves. You have to know where you’re going or you could be killed or robbed blind. I knew a place under one of the smaller bridges. This is my destination now.
I set out on foot, glazing past my parents who are entertaining cousins. Having an enormous and very close family is the norm here.
I make my way down to the side streets. The sun is bright and the air is crisp and comfortable. No jacket is necessary. I wear one regardless.
I pass smiling people on the streets, their thoughts most likely being the same thoughts as Mira about how lovely the weather was and how beautiful the city looked in the sunlight. It is always sunny here. I despise it.
The city is a mix of stone castle-like buildings, row houses, and more modern looking stores. The city is constant, it has not changed for as long as I can remember. The stores never shut down or move, the stone turrets never crumble. Houses never splinter and there are never boards on any windows. The walls stay white and the streets stay spotless stone. The desecration is left to those below ground. The smiles never fade from the consistent throng of peoples’ faces. Every night just as the light leaves they return home, and when it returns they will repeat. They will never be displaced.
I scramble through the main square, attempting to dodge through the crowd. The square is the main hub for all of these more modern stores and is always incredibly crowded. I fight my way back onto a side street, find the edge of the trench, and very carefully slide down into it.
The bottom of the chasm is a whole other world compared to the surface. Dirty looking people are sprawled on the ground asleep, some speaking to each other in hushed tones. Some have tents. Somewhere in the distance you can smell a fire. None of them smile. None of them look at you. I make my way down to the bridge, keeping my eyes straight ahead of me.
The underside of the bridge provides some shelter from the insufferable sun. It is dark down here, but yet feels safer than the parts of the basin out in the open. On one side of the bridge is the stall. I’ve come to know the shopkeeper well. I’ll rarely ever buy things down here, but he is a good companion. I’ll talk, he’ll listen. He’ll talk, I’ll listen. We rarely ever have conversations. On bad days, I won’t say anything. I’ll sit on the cool ground next to his stall in silence, and his unvoiced understanding is more than enough.
On the opposite side of the bridge are the junkies. They are a permanent fixture here. They lean on cool cement or lie on the ground, their glassy eyes fixed on a nonexistent point. They are harmless. I envy them because they are in another world. I envy them because they are always so docile and so content, and not because they should be, not because it is a beautiful day. I love them because to them the sun does not exist and it is not a good day and it is not safe but they are satisfied. I love them. I love their dusty clothes and their baggy eyes. I love their gray skin and sharp joints. I love the way they lie in the dust, face up to the cement, words not leaving their mouth because they do not need to, because they already know all that could be said. I love them down to the needle pricks and bruises on their arms. I love them because when you look at them, you can’t help but wonder where in the world they are.
Before I can get a good look at them today, the shopkeeper greets me.
“Elin! Welcome!” He says enthusiastically. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”
I smile at him, and it is genuine. “I suppose.”
“You take the weather for granted. Before you were born it wasn’t as nice as this. Much more snow. Much colder.”
“Snow?”
“Ah, I forgot. They probably don’t teach that anymore. Probably not relevant. It was like soft, frozen rain. It could be very beautiful. It colored the whole city white. It looked so serene. So peaceful,” he pauses, a look of guilt flashing on his face. “The bad thing was you couldn’t come down here for weeks. Too much snow. Then after it melted the whole place was muddy. Complete disaster. Lost months of business. But hey, it’s all good now!”
The shopkeeper is a man of about 40 with curly dusty hair that once have must been blonde. He is tall and slender but muscular from years of hauling merchandise. His skin is thick and tanned and scarred. He has permanent dark circles under his eyes and all that he hold dear in this world is a dirty wedding band that he is forced to wear on his right hand because of the thick calluses on the left. He told me once that I remind him of his daughter.
“You want to take a seat?”
I look at him and try to find the right words to say.
“It’s time.” I say finally.
I see the disappointment and anguish on his face, but that was expected.
“Are you sure, Elin? Look around, it’s a beautiful day. We’re safe.”
His voice is desperate and his eyes become glassy, just as the drug addicts.
I nod slowly.
“It’s time.”
He says nothing but bows his head in defeat. Head down, feet dragging, he moves slowly behind the stall, out of my sight. I hear him rustling only for a moment until he reappears. He extends to me a brown paper bag like the ones kids get at the candy store. I reach into my pocket to pay him but he waves his hand. I stick out the money anyway.
“You may as well take it.” I say.
He takes it from my hand but holds it limp, looking at it as if it were a dead snake. He hands me the bag and it crinkles with the touch of my fingertips. I shove it in my pocket.
One thousand thoughts come to my mind that I cannot put into spoken words.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you for being an understanding mind in a boxed in world.
Thank you for letting me sit in your dust.
“Thank you.” I say quietly and finally. It is all I can manage.
He nods slowly. I linger for a moment, looking for something else to say, but nothing comes.
I turn around to leave, facing the junkies. My eyeline meets that of one of them. They are glazed over and far away, but I remember a time when they weren’t.

It was three years ago. Not much was different. It was still sunny. Everyone was still happy and safe. I had just started visiting the trenches. Mira had refused to come with me. She never quite came around to it. It was only my third or fourth time going down there, and I hadn’t discovered the shopkeeper yet. I was walking just for the sake of walking, just for the feeling of going somewhere.
The sun assaulted my back just like any other day. I carried my shoes in my hand just to feel the dust between my toes. It settled on my clothing and darkened my hair.
“Where are you going?” Someone called out behind me.
Naively I had turned around, squinting into the sun. The person could have have easily been a mugger or an addict high out of his mind and looking for trouble. But it wasn’t. It was a guy, not much older than I was. He had the uniform light hair, yet his eyes were dark. He was short but muscular. I said nothing, slightly shocked. People rarely interacted in the trenches. He had stopped in front of me and it had become impossible to avoid the question. If I had only kept walking, or ran when I had the chance.
“Where are you going?” He repeated, sounding genuinely curious.
“Uh, nowhere.” I had said, still slightly dumbfounded.
It had been the truth, though. He glanced around, making sure nobody else was around. I had walked farther than I had realized. I’d wandered out of the main part of the city and the amount of denizens lining basin had diminished. If I had been sensible, I would have ran at this point. He took a small step closer and I felt my whole body tense up.
“Are you going to the fence?” He said in a low tone, despite the fact that there was no one else around.
I was taken aback by this and the paranoia that had previously inhabited my mind the moment before had been replaced with a nervous excitement.
“No, I was just walking.” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“Oh. Well I thought since you were walking this way…”
“I didn’t even know the fence was around here.”
He smiled. “Do you want to see it? That’s where I’m headed now.”

If I had been a sensible person, I would have come up with some excuse, any excuse to say no, but instead and instantly, I said yes.

We walked for a long time, him always a few paces ahead of me. The sun had long set behind us and the silence was thick in the air.

“It shouldn’t be long now.” He had said finally.

“That’s good,” I paused for a moment. “Why were you coming out here?”

He didn’t answer right away. He only continued walking forward at a steady pace. I took that to mean that he was ignoring my question, and tried not feel offended. It had made me feel like a little kid to be dismissed like that. We continued to walk, almost side by side, out footsteps out of sync. Finally, after a few minutes, he responded.

“To be honest, I don’t know. I can’t seem to think of one reason beside the fact that I want to.”

“That seems like as good a reason as any.” I respond, quickening my pace to be next to him.

“I guess. Follow me. We’re almost there.”

I followed him to the edge of the basin. He hurled himself upwards, grabbing on to the edge of the surface, then pulled himself up. Though the trench was shallower than before, it had still been too deep for me to jump up on my own. I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up.

The surface there had been extraordinary. Unlike the city that was settled in stone, all in front of me was grass and flat land that stretched to the horizon. Not far behind me I could see the concentrated glow of the city.

“Wow” I said, breathless. I was astonished by the simplicity of it all.
He laughed.“Isn’t it great?” He said, grinning.

I took my shoes off again, having put them back on for the long walk. The grass was soft and wet underneath my feet. “Why don’t people live out here?” I say, craning my neck.

He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I assume people are too scared.”

“But we’re not outside the city?”

“Not technically. Not yet. The fence is that way.” He pointed ahead of me, into the darkness.

“Why would they care if people lived out here then?”

He shrugged again, hands in his pockets, not looking at me, but the sky. “I guess it’s too close to being free. C’mon, we’re almost there.” He placed a guiding hand on my shoulder and we walked into the dark horizon.

After a few minutes of walking, I saw it. I felt the rage building up inside of me the second the fence materialized from the darkness.

“This is it?” I exclaimed, my tone hardly concealing my fury.

The fence was metal, chain linked, and no more than three meters high. There was no barbed wire on top of it, nothing on the bottom to anchor it, and no sign of electric charge. It extended indefinitely to the left and right, and I saw no variation either way. I grabbed the fence and shook it, it clanging in retaliation. He stood there, hands in his pockets, a somber look on his face.

“This is what’s holding us in?” I shouted to the fence.

Beyond it was flat dark land, the grass lush and green.

“Physically, yes.” He had said, his tone of voice neutral.

I turned away from the fence and towards him.

“I don’t understand. I don’t get it. Why do they keep us here? How do they keep us here? Why does no one leave?”

“That seems to be the big question.” He approached the fence, grabbing on to the links with one hand, the other in his pocket.

“So the idea is that if we jump this fence and try to go to the other side…” He paused, looking towards the top of it, and I imagine he had pictured himself scaling the fence, and then, in fierce triumph, landing on the other side. “You get shot.”

He removed his hand from the fence and returned it to his pocket and turned towards me, back against the fence.

“It’s true.” I say quietly.

“That’s what they have us think.” He had said, his tone more intense than before.

“But that’s what happens.”

“But how do you know? How? How could anyone possibly know? How could they know if someone had jumped this fence and ran off? Look around, there’s no one here. There’s no one watching us. There isn’t another person for kilometers. So how do they know? They can’t, right? They couldn’t possibly know.”

He sighed and clenched the fence with both hands, face buried in the links, nose poking through to the other side.

“You’re right.” I say meekly, looking down at the grass.

His tone was no longer angry. That rage had become replaced with anguish.

“Then why am I still on this side of the fence?”

There was a resounding silence for a few minutes. No wind, no call of insects, no footsteps. Only shaky breathing.

“Have you ever heard of someone who tried to escape? Have you ever once heard the name of someone shot for trying to jump this fence?” He said, turning towards me.

“No.”

He took a deep breath, eyes still beyond the fence, hundreds of meters away.

“And that’s either because, one, these martyrs have been covered up,” I matched his gaze beyond the fence. There was flat land for kilometers, as far as I could see. There were no buildings, no bodies. No other set of eyes. “Or two, no one has ever tried,”

Staring into the blackness, I tried to think of one person who disappeared, someone who was renounced as a rebel, a story in the news or heard in passing, a history lesson, a cautionary tale, anything. Nothing came to mind. All I knew was that the other side of that fence meant death.

He put his hand on my shoulder and guided me back towards the trenches and civilization.
“Aren’t both equally terrifying?”


I look at him, he looks at me, the passion and resistance of three years ago absent from his eyes. He is a force lost. He says nothing, and I say nothing, and I turn away, back towards him and the sun. I begin to walk.

I pass the homeless, curled up in the dirt, covered in rags, preparing for the impending nightfall. I pass other groups of drug addicts who are too far gone to pay me any mind. As I walk the market stalls become less frequent, along with the piles of trash and discarded needles. By the time the sun sets behind me in a blood red and orange explosion of dissipating warmth and rust, I am completely alone in the trenches.

My pace is consistent and quick and I cover ground swiftly. I pat my jacket pocket every so often to make sure the bag is still there. It always is. The air quickly becomes cold and the glow of the city becomes increasingly distant behind me.

I wonder if my family is thinking about me. I doubt it. Many nights I don’t come home but I always come back, having spent the night at Mira’s or another friends, or even out in the trenches. I’d be surprised if my siblings have even thought about me once in the past year. They are all older and married. They have their own happy and safe lives to be concerned with. As for my parents, I can remember the exact moment they gave up on me.


It was my last year in school. I was ten or eleven. We were learning about the government that day. I remember my teacher’s voice. It was airy and distant. When she was talking about one thing it always seemed like she was thinking about something else.

“The government was set in place many, many years ago to protect the great people of this city. The fence was put up as a way to keep the enemy out.”

There were never any specifics. No number of years, no telling who the enemy was.

“It was then our great city separated from the rest of Sweden and became fully independent. Since then, no man, woman, or child has ever left this city. All conflicts ceased and safety was ensured eternally.” Her voice had been dismissive and bored sounding. She then lazily drew a circle on the board. “This is the fence,” she traced the circle with her fingertip then smacked the center of it. “We are here. The fence is constantly being monitored for our safety.” She put dash marks evenly spaced around the perimeter of the circle. “These are the watchtowers. They are manned 24 hours a day to ensure no one is able to get past the fence. They are armed to protect us.”
I remember raising my hand.
When I got home that afternoon my parents were waiting for me at our dining table. I greeted them cautiously, knowing something was wrong. They cut straight to the chase.
“Your teacher stopped by and told us that you asked some very inappropriate questions in school.” My mother said, her voice cold and tired.
I opened my mouth to defend myself.
“Sit down.” My father snapped, and I abided immediately.
“Elin. You can’t ask those types of things.”
“But it’s what they teach us-”
“Elin. You’re not listening. You can’t. It doesn’t matter if it’s what they taught you before. It wasn’t appropriate for that class.” My mother said fiercely, each word striking me like shrapnel.
“But that’s what happens! If you go over the fence they kill you! It isn’t protection-”
“Elin!” My father spat, but I was not to be silenced.
“It’s a prison!” I had begun to cry at that point, my young mind not being able to deal with the overwhelming amount of frustration I had felt.
“Listen. Elin. Look at me and listen,” My father shouted, rage still in his eyes. “That threat of death is what keeps us safe. It’s what keeps people in line. We’re safe. That’s what matters. You’re not being harmed, so it shouldn’t matter to you. You shouldn’t be the little ingrate that you are.”
He stomped away from the table, muttering something about how he wouldn’t mind if I were shot. My mother remained for a moment, her eyes sad and tired. The life had gone out of her, her icy demeanor dissipated. I gave her a pleading look, fishing for some assurance that I wasn’t crazy, but soon enough, she was gone from the table too.

With a running start, I leap and dig my foot into the side of the trench and pull myself up to the surface. It is just as dark as I remember it, the lit mass of the city behind me, open field in front of me. There were still no signs of life. They had taken care of all of those.
The grass is dark green and plush, just as it was three years ago. It smells incredible and fresh, nothing like the claustrophobic city. I look up, and there are stars. They are only little white pin pricks, but it all the assurance I need that there is a world outside of this one.
After taking it all in, I walk into the darkness until it materializes in front of me.
It is only three meters high. Chain linked, no barbed wire or electric charge.
I grab it with two hands and pull myself up, my feet finding a place in the links. In a few swift movements, I reach the top of the fence. In a triumphant leap my feet hit solid ground on the opposite side.
No shots come.
I walk along the inside of the fence, grazing one hand against the links, the other deep in my pocket. I only walk for a few minutes until I see something on the ground. It is a few meters away from the base of the fence, large, flat, and reflecting moonlight. I approach it.

Welcome to Stockholm, it reads.

This seems like as good a place as any. I sit on the grass next to the sign, and it is cool and damp. The air is so incredibly clean that it hurts. I remove the bag from my pocket.
I remember from earlier today, in the glare of the sun, the sharp sound of the cyanide pill hitting the paper bag, the kind kids get at the candy store.
I hold it in my teeth for a moment. I stare out to the horizon. The point where the black sky and grass meet is too far away to tell quite where it is. It has become cold enough that every breath I take comes out in a puff, then dissipates into the rest of the air. I imagine that tomorrow it will be sunny. I imagine it will be beautiful and safe and the city will be full of smiling people. I imagine my family will continue without me and Mira will do the same. I imagine the shopkeeper will open his stall in the morning like usual and that the drug addicts will lie in the dirt, eyes to cement, in a drugged stupor. I imagine that I would have loved them tomorrow if I were willing to give myself a chance.

If a rebel shoots himself in the face, and nobody is around to see it, do the brains still splatter on the wall?

I smash my teeth together and lay back on the damp grass, parallel to the fence, staring straight up at the sky. In my peripheral vision I see the ball of fire that is Stockholm. It continues to glow for only a few more minutes.
I am so safe.
It is a beautiful day.