Original Work The Unwelcome Sign

Now…where did you hide that worthless toad? B wondering hereabouts what condition his condition is in? ;-)

 

“I'd like to just give the food away. Distribute all of it until it's all gone, then people can do whatever they want with it and I don't have to worry about it.”
I didn't reply, and just looked at Johns. I wondered if he recognized I was using a trick he had probably employed himself on many occasions. People hate silence.
“What? Do you think I'm wrong? The food was meant to go to these people anyway, so why not just go ahead and do that?”
I still didn't throw him a lifeline. The silence hung there. He tried to live with it, but he didn't make it ten seconds.
“And I can't deal with it. I shouldn't have to. Why should I? I don't want to have to make the decisions on who gets what. Dealing with people's lies and tricks to get more than they are entitled to. Making decisions on who gets what. Telling people no. Looking at my friends and neighbors, some in real need, some trying to get over.” He trailed off, deflated, now that it was out. Now that I knew what was really going on here.
“Feel better? I asked sincerely. He nodded. “Good. You're right. Giving you control of the food was a tactical move on my part, trying to defuse the situation at that moment. Wasn't exactly fair to you, was it?”
“Well it worked, as it told me what your motivations were. And weren't. So, yes, you 'defused' me. And I was flattered, I guess. Flattered that you would trust me to handle the food, to protect it and distribute it. And I took it seriously.”
“Oh, I knew you would. Just because I used the food tactically, doesn't mean that I made the choice frivolously. I knew I could count on you to do the right thing.”
He was uncomfortable with the praise, and squirmed in his chair, trying to get comfortable. Mind as much as body. Once again, I let the silence hang, but Johns was back in the game, and didn't fall for it again. It was me who broke first.
“OK. I get it. You aren't in a good position physically to handle the food cache. If that's the only issue, we can detail people to handle that part of it. But that's not the real issue here, is it? Actually, I'm surprised that you haven't given it all away before now. We'd discussed it.”
Johns looked at me. He already given me his answer. “You don't want to have to make the hard choices. Who needs that? It's an awful position to be put in. Unless you're into a power trip, or are a sociopath, immune to other's sufferings.”
Johns nodded, but didn't interrupt. “Giving the food away is the obvious solution. At least in the short term.” He visibly relaxed at the former sentence, but gave me a sharp look at the second.
“What do you mean, 'short term'?”
“Well, it solves the problem of you being in charge of it. So you're off the hook. But what happens when the food is gone? What happens when everyone all of a sudden has a lot of food?”
“I hadn't considered that. Not really. I guess I wasn't looking that far ahead.”
“Look. The first thing we have to do is see the food for what it is. Power. Food has always been so cheap and easily availble for our generation, that it didn't have much value, and so, no power. Hell, we throw away almost as much food as we eat!”
“You're right about that. Nobody starves. The poor are actually fat, often times. Even the homeless manage to find enough to eat. At least, they used to.” Johns face turned sad at that last. “So what do we do now?”
“Food is power. Food is a resource. We just have to look back in time for our lessons, when communities had central food storage to see them through rough times and protect it from thieves and bandits.”
“I should have paid more attention in school” Johns half joked.
“Bah! Schools curricula are suspect. They teach what they teach based on someone's agenda. Don't get me started down that road!” I smiled at him to take the edge off my vehemence. “Anyway, point is, we don't need to reinvent the wheel, we can look at the past for clues on how to handle this. Let me ask you this; why does food all of a sudden have power that it didn't a month ago?”
“Because its harder to get now. There's less of it and we don't know if or when we can get more.”
“That last part, the uncertainty, is huge. It's one thing if you KNOW there isn't any more coming, or that a certain amount definitely is coming. But yes, you're right, it has more value, and thus more power, because of its scarcity. And people need it. They can't live without it, so the survival instinct is part of the equation.”
“If we give away all the food, we are giving away power... Is that a bad thing?”
Johns was mulling it over in his head. “Shouldn't the people have the power?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on what you want to happen. You will take a large chunk of power and diffuse it by spreading it out. You'd be redistributing power, from the community, to the individual. I can see where that's appealing. That's where the power should be, right? I mean, as a libertarian, I can dig it.”
“But..” John was impatient for the other shoe.
“But, it means the community loses the power. Power we could use to negotiate with others, whether it's attracting talent that we need here, or forming alliances with others. We'd be giving up a useful tool. Of course, we could always get the food back, if we needed it.”
“How?”
“Taxes”
“Taxes?”
“Sure. Living in a community isn't free. Not if you expect the community to do things for you. Things you can't do for yourself either because you are unable, or because of economy of scale. So we could impose taxes payable in food or other commodities I suppose, and get some of that power back.”
“But then we're right back where we started.”
“Yup. But instead of you, 'government' would be in charge of the food. Of collecting it, using force if necessary, and distributing it for the good of the community.”
“Or the good of the government, more likely.”
“Detective Johns! I do believe you have a most cynical view of government!” We both laughed, making Johns wince in pain as the movement hurt his wound.
“Your right of course. Even people who start out with the best intentions get seduced. Power corrupts. We've all heard the quote, and we all know it's true. But what's the alternative?”
“I guess we have to have some sort of government, don't we?”
“I'm hoping we can avoid it, but I'm probably being naieve. But that's a discussion for another day. Right now, it's just you and me. Two good men trying to do the right thing.”
He nodded and leaned back, a signal for me to continue. “Another problem with handing out the food all at once is that it floods the market, diluting the value/power it has. Right now we are getting community work done by paying with food.”
“Other work too. My wife's been taking our laundry to Mrs. Petrie. And I've been hearing about other people trading things back and forth. Not just food.”
“Correct. Now dumping a bunch of food on people will change that dynamic. Some people won't feel the need to figure out what they can do so that they can feed themselves and their families. We've got a good start going, I hate to put a damper on it. It's kinda like just getting the beginnings of a fire going and then dumping an armful of wood on it.”
“You smother it and the fire dies.”
“Exactly.”
“This is a lot more involved that I thought. Seemed like giving the food away would be a no-brainer.”
“I hear you. And I'm still not against it. I'm just trying to think it through. One thing my wife taught me was that being rich, or being poor, wasn't so much about whether you had money or not, but about how you thought about money. Poor people think money is for spending.”
“And rich people?”
“They look at money as a tool. What can it do for me? How can I use it?”
“So what's your point?”
“That if you evenly distribute the food, very soon you'd have a few people with a lot of food, and a lot of people with none.”
He looked at me quizzically.
“Some of those people will realize they can spend some of their food on things they want. Maybe a bottle of liquor, or cigarettes, or sweets, or sex, or, well anything you can think of. Pretty soon they will have spent all of their food. What then?”
“They won't be able to come to me for more. That's for sure.”
“But they will. Because they knew you used to have all of it, and they are going to expect that you still have some. And you probably will. At least your share. I have a feeling that you will be careful of your share.”
“Great! Thanks for putting me in this position!” He was truly angry at me.
“I really do apologize. Seriously. I hadn't thought it through at the time. But we'll figure out how to deal with that. Of course, this is all predicated on giving the food away all at once. If you don't do that, the scenario will play out differently.
He took a breath and calmed down and waited for me to continue.
“So where was I? Right, the other side. A few people will end up owning most of the food. Everyone will know who they are, so they will be targets of crime. Either theft, or violence. The community could charge them food to provide security and protection, and then take the food and redistribute it to the poor people.”
“Who will spend it on stuff and be back in the position they were already in. Is it an endless cycle?”
“Could be.”
“How do we break it?”
“I'm not sure you can, entirely. I'm sure you could make it much better.”
“How?”
“Education. Teach the poor people to look at resources the same way rich people do. It's a matter of not living for today, but planing for tomorrow.”
“That's not going to happen over night.”
“No. No it's not. But I'll tell you, I'm surprised at what I'm seeing in our neighborhood. People aren't stupid, even if at times they act stupidly. Reality has set in and they know, deep down, that things are different, and that they are going to have to adapt to the new situation.”
“So, we don't hand out the food then?”
“No. I'm leaning towards hanging on to it. We can always change our minds.”
“Who said mine was made up? I'm still not interested in hanging on to it.”
“Understood. We'll take the burden off your hands.”
“You'll get the word out that I'm out of the food business?”
“Yes sir. By the way, I imagine you've been giving out food all along, right?”
“Well, yes, to some extent, but I've been trying to discourage it.”
“Oh? How so?”
“People can only come for food one hour a day, from one to two pm. And we only give out MREs. I think people prefer the fresh food they get from you.”
I winced. The MREs were meant for long term storage and I was hoping to keep as much of them as possible. Oh well.
“Well, they're not really getting it from 'me'. Sadie has a bunch of people working a couple of garden plots. I'm not involved. Not my thing. The people working get paid in food, and then use some of that to buy things from other people. At some point we're going to have to do something about money.”
“Hard to carry around a chicken and a pound of beans in your wallet” Johns joked.
“I don't suppose we could use our old money.”
“Nope. We don't control the supply, so we don't control it's value. The money has to have a value set by an equivance to something else.”
“Could just print your own.”
“Too easy to counterfit. And I'd really prefer if the money had it's own intrinsic value.”
“You mean like coins? At least back when they were actually made of copper and silver?”
“Yes, but we're in no position to mint coins, and I don't think there are enough of the old ones around to use. Certainly not in my possession. Actually, I'm thinking of ammo.”
“Ammo?”
“Sure. It has an intrinsic value in itself. Some people are going to want it by itself. But it's also fairly small, easy to carry and can be given a value to other things.”
“Who sets the value?”
“Everyone. The market. It's the only thing that would work.”
“But you don't control the amount of ammuntion. Won't that matter? What if somebody comes up with a bunch of it? Wouldn't that create inflation?”
“Sure, I suppose so. I'll admit it ain't perfect, and it's only my crazy idea at the moment. We'll see if it goes anywhere.”
“Back to the food, will you move it? I don't want it.”
I thought a moment or two. “We'll make it very public that we are moving the food so people know not to come to you for it anymore.”
Johns visibly relaxed. “Thanks. But won't that cause trouble for you?”
“Sure. Sure it will.” I held up my left hand and pointed to the ring on the fourth finger. “My wife put this on me twenty years ago and I've been in trouble ever since. I've grown used to it.” I smiled while he laughed, as only married men could understand.
I stood and stretched. My arm itched, and I rubbed it. Not as satisfying as actually scratching it, but causing less harm. Finished I stepped over to Johns in his chair and extended my hand. He took it in both of his.
“Thanks for stopping by and thanks for helping me with this situation.”
“No. I'm not doing you any favors, just making right what I did in haste. And my thanks to you for your council.”
“Council? I didn't have anything to add.”
“Oh, but you did. You helped me sound this out and come up with a direction to go in. So, yes, thank you. I'll stop in again soon to check up on you. Let me know if you need anything. And heal up quick. We need you back on your feet. I'll see myself out.”
I turned and left, saying goodbye to Mrs. Johns in the kitchen as I left. Knowing what course of action to take is a huge relief, even if it meant a lot of planning and hard work.
For the first time in a long while, I actually felt hopeful.

 

Ah, survival commerce…and here's a thought: honey packets and mustard packets (the kind found in fast food joints) make excellent currency while they last. honey for fast energy, mustard is high in potassium…old soldier's trick. Now, about that fat toad, where you hiding that boy, we do, DO, want to know. ;-)

 

He escaped four or five chapters back. How did you miss that?!

Zed's not sure what to do with him. He doesn't have any value left. Killing him would be cold blooded. He's been pondering it and at this point just kicking the can down the road.
But something will have to be done before too much longer.

 

Make that boy into soap! A needed commodity…feed the rest to the dogs, they have to eat too! Who's guarding the pos toad? Waste of manpower…and I just know he would be such a wonderful conversationalist filled with enlightenment for all. ;-)

 

Started reading this thread three days ago, great read so far! Looking forward to more, hopefully soon!

 

While they were necessary, I was starting to not look forward to the evening meetings. My life was no longer my own. I longed for quiet evenings at home with my wife.
We hadn't really had one of those is quite a while. Just a matter of time before the negative effects of that lack made themselves evident.
The usual group was there. The addition of Frank and Virgil and their wives made the room feel tight. Crowded. Scanning the faces before I began, I came to one that lit my face up with a smile.
“Jake!” He was on a couch with Fiona next to him. He was still wan and drawn, but markedly improved over the last time I saw him.
“I told him he could attend as long as the meeting doesn't go too long.” Fiona punctuated her pronouncement by tucking an errant corner of blanket under Jacob's feet.
“It's good to see you up. I lost the use of both my right hands.” I held up my wounded arm. “I've missed having you around.”
“I'm healing as fast as I can. I know your ancient self needs me back to do all the stuff you're too old to do anymore.” He graced me with a cheeky grin that made everyone smile.
“True enough. I've been struggling to keep track of the days, and remembering where I parked my walker.”
Moving on, I brought us back on track.
“Lavell, would you give us an update on the training program?” He stood when I called his name.
“Things are going along well, considering we are only a week into this and have limited resources. The Frenchies have organized themselves on our model of six person fire teams. They have eight of them at this point. Problem is weapons. They have a hodge-podge of guns, ranging from bolt action .22 magnums, to lever action .30-30s, and a handful of Mini-14s.”
“That offers some logistics challenges, I imagine” Mr. Johnson pointed out the obvious.
“Sure does, as well as training issues, but Juice can cover that. Bottom line, they are happy for the help and taking to it well.”
“Denise?” she was sitting on the floor, her legs curled under her, next to Lavell. “You should talk with Lavell about including some first aid/trauma care training.”
“Way ahead of you there, Zed. I'm scheduled to go out with the patrol tomorrow.”
“Cool. Thanks. While you're there, try to get a feel for the health issues they may be having. Do they have any health care providers available? Is everyone healthy? That sort of thing.”
“Certainly. I'll report day after tomorrow when I get back.”
“Juice?”
“The firearms training is going well. Stan and I are splitting the work. We came up with a plan and a schedule so we aren't duplicating effort or missing things. Our biggest challenges are the wide range on guns we're dealing with. A lot of them had rifles for goat hunting, but it's a real mish-mash. And most of them only have a couple of boxes of ammo. So we've been doing a lot of dry fire, air guns, and air soft. All of which makes the process more time consuming.”
“Are you able to help them out with ammo?”
“Yes, I have most of the calibers that they need and have supplied them with some.”
“Not for free, I hope.”
“No, no, I've been making them barter for the ammo.”
Stan cut in. “The biggest challenge is that a lot of these guys have been shooting for a long time. With no formal training.”
“A bit hard headed, are they?” I smiled in commiseration.
“Yeah, they sure are. Most of them shoot fairly well, but getting them to keep their fingers off of triggers and watching their muzzles is a struggle.”
“I hear you. Keep at it, you'll wear them down eventually. Talk to George about it, see it he can come up with a reward and punishment system to deal with the uncooperative ones. And all of you guys,” I looked at Juice, Lavell, and Stan in turn, “keep track of who's doing well and who isn't. We may need to have joint operations, and it would be good to know which teams we'd like to have working with us.”
They all nodded in agreement.
“Sadie, would you fill us in on the gardening situation?”
“Things are moving along well. We've got a good group of hard workers that have some gardening experience. People that already had gardens in their yards. We spend the mornings working on the large plot and Mr. Charles, because they are the biggest and need the most work. After lunch we split into smaller groups and those go to the smaller gardens at people's homes. Having several people help you not only gets the work done faster, but everyone’s been able to expand their gardens. Currently we have right at six acres under cultivation. Beans, corn, melons, kale, carambola, papaya, banana. We'll have all the mangos we know what to do with in about a month.”
“Great! Any idea how many people that will feed? And where are we with livestock?”
“It's hard to say, and it will vary from week to week, month to month as things come ripe. And by how much we can supplement with protein from other sources. Fifty to a hundred if everything goes reasonably well.”
“what can you tell us about the supplemental protein?”
“We've gathered up pretty much all the chickens that have been running free. A half dozen families have coops set up with multiple birds. A number of other folks have one or two chickens caged up. We're real lucky we had the government food available.”
“Howso?”
“It eased the pressure for immediate meals. Otherwise those chickens would have been eaten right off. Right now we have almost the same number of chickens as we do people. We've been pooling knowledge and help there too. Before too long we'll have more chickens than we can use.”
“What about goats?”
“What about them? Should we keep them?” Sadie shrugged her shoulders. “They're probably more trouble than they are worth.”
“I thought goats are pretty self sufficient?” Fiona asked
Denise beat Sadie to the answer. “They are. They eat just about anything. That's the problem. They'll get into our gardens and can literally wipe them out in a day.”
Sadie nodded her agreement. “Exactly. So we either have to pen the goats or fence the gardens, both of which are hard work and take resources we don't really have. So we decided it wasn't worth it. At this point in time.”
“Thanks Sadie. Doc, you have anything for us?”
He wasn't expecting to be called and rose hesitantly, but he quickly warmed to his task. “Well, you all can see that Jacob is here with us.” That earned Jacob, who was a favorite of everyone, a round of applause and cheers. He turned bright red at the attention. “Being blessed with youth, he's well on the road to recovery.” More clapping. “As is Mr. Charles.”
“Did you set him up with that nurse?” I asked.
“Nope. He did that all his own self.”
“Man's got game if he can pull that even when he's wounded!” Wilford said appreciatively, which earned some cat calls.
“Anyway, he's doing pretty well and can go back to light work soon. Detective Johns, however isn't so lucky.”
“Will he be OK?” I hadn't had a chance to talk to Sadie about my visit.
“Yes, but he can't do much for the next couple of months.”
I looked around the room. “Keep that in mind people. He stood up to the badguys and paid heavily for it. Do what you can to help him and his family. Keep in mind that they are proud, and not eager to take handouts. What else you got, doc?”
He turned solemn. “We lost Mr. Carrington sometime during the night. He passed in his sleep.”
“Cause?””
“Not entirely sure. I think he just gave up. He was nearing seventy and his wife had died shortly before the event. Common enough in normal times.”
“Do we need to do anything?”
“A couple of his neighbors volunteered to bury him. I grabbed what medicines were there. I looked around and there wasn't much in the house. I told the neighbors to help themselves in exchange for the burial.”
“I suppose that's alright. At some point I guess we need to consider who owns the property in those sort of cases. The community?”
“Did I do the wrong thing?”
“No, no, it's fine. You made a good call. Don't worry about it. Anything else?”
“I've got a couple more patients that may be in trouble down the road if we run out of meds for them. We have several diabetics. Luckily only one severe case. The others seem to be doing fairly well. I attribute it to a change in their diets. They will probably be OK. But well lose the last one if we can't keep him supplied with insulin.”
“Doc brings us to an important point. We are lucky that we have our own doctor and two nurses, and a pharmacist. We went into this in pretty good shape. But we are continuously using limited resources which at some point will run out.”
Grave faces looked back at me, waiting.
“I see two choices at this point. Doc and I were talking about making a trip out west to check on the Rasta farmers.”
“You looking to score some medical marijuana?” Leslie joked.
Doc answered. “I wouldn't turn it down. It can be used in a number of therapies. But I was hoping that they would have some other medicinal plants that we could use to stretch our supplies.”
Mrs. Johnson who was normally content to sit quiet and listen, spoke up with evident enthusiasm. “That's a splendid idea! I know a couple of the 'bush women' in Bordeaux. I've studied with them a little bit and they know their stuff!”
“They sure do” Mr. Johnson backed up his wife. “I started out sceptical, but clinical trials have proven that many, if not most of what they are using is actually efficacious.”
“Ok, cool. I think we need to go out there anyway, just to know what's going on in that part of the island. Lavell, this is your schtick. Plan a recon mission. Find me tomorrow and we'll go over it.”
“You said two choices?” Fiona asked
“Going somewhere else to get medicine.”
“Somewhere else? Where? Isn't everyone in the same shape we are?”
“Puerto Rico used to have a strong pharmaceutical production base. And then there is Central and South America. We've been hearing radio broadcasts from them, so I don't think they were as effected by whatever it was that hit the U.S.”
“You are NOT going to South America.”
“I'm sincerely hoping I don't have to. But at some point, someone is going to have to go. Maybe none of us. Maybe the National Guard will put together trade missions.”
Doc stepped in. “We don't need to worry about it right away. If we can stretch what we have with plant remedies, we'll be good for at least another six months. Maybe more.”
“That's what I'm hoping.” I looked at my wife. “Sweetie, when we started prepping, we knew we couldn't stock everything to live from now on. Our preps were always just a buffer until things settled down. Everything's in flux right now, as power shifts to fill the voids that have been created. That makes these dangerous times because we don't know what to expect, we don't know what's going on.”
“And what you don't know CAN hurt you.” Safety conscious Virgil exclaimed.
“So I guess we better have a real good idea of what's what before we send you out on a voyage, eh?” I gave him my best piratical grin.
Virgil regretted bringing himself to my attention.

 

I remember an article in "Popular Mechanics" Magazine a few years ago that completely explained the EMP bombs that 'we' had or were developing…and then our 'government' decided to stop the project and outlawed them…or so they said; now, back to that fat toad…wanna hear the maggots eating his flesh, and maggots make great chicken feed. ;-)

 

Keith, you seem a little...obsessed with giganto there...

 

Blind fold him and set him up with disinformation so the the gang-bangers and National Guard go at. It wouldn't hurt to let him see some Guards in National Guard uniform.

 

O'h balls…gut the toad out and put his head on a pole; what's with a little wet work, nothing to it?

Skin him out and make leather out of the hide and dog food aplenty…that long pig lard be good for making de soap and sheet!

In a total warfare situation folks get downright hardcore and mean…no quarter, duty is action, no surrender…fight or die! The story is almost there…still playing nice to some folks that never understood the word.

 

Ok Zed, were starving for a few thousand more words, the readers are restless, is a recon in the works to other parts of the island. Some one needs to take those Dogs for a walk or man hunt.

 

Trpophies, I want trophies, a head will do, one with the owners junk in his…O'h, never mind, great read, looking foreword for the next submission.

 

“Anybody have anything else?” I looked around the room to see if I had any takers.
“What are we going to do with our prisoner?” Fiona wondered
“Yeah, he's a drain on our resources. Why are we still feeding him?” Stan added.
I waited a moment to see if anybody else had something to add. I was just about to go ahead when Leia asked, “You have a prisoner? What did he do?”
For the first time, I made note that Fiona and Leia were sitting next to each other. I hadn't paid it any attention. Until now. I should have seen it coming. Guess I had other things on my mind.
A quick glance showed me Sadie had picked up on it too.
I spent a few minutes bringing the new arrivals up to speed on our prisoner, who he was, how we came to have him, and what use he'd been.
“So now that you don't need him anymore, you want to get rid of him? Why not just let him go?” Leia asked.
“Do you know what he and his friends have done?” Stan glared at Leia who, withstood the withering gaze with the armor of her righteousness. People were tensing up, ready to fight.
“Ok, we're getting ahead of ourselves here. First, does he have any value to us anymore?” I directed that to Lavell. Before he could answer, Fiona jumped in.
“Value? Who are we to decide whether anyone has value? He's a human being! Of course he has value. Are you saying that if doesn't have anything to offer you, then he's not worth anything?”
Stan couldn't stand it. “People have worth, just because they exist? Really? I'll bet you think everybody's life has equal value too, don't you.”
Leia took it up. “Of course everybody's life has equal value. We are all beings of creation, with the potential to be whatever we want. Who are you to judge?”
Stan ignored the last. “He was living up to his potential as a rapist and murderer!”
This was getting out of hand, and while it needed to be thought about, I wished Fiona hadn't brought it up. Wait. I snapped my head over to her. She looked away, but she had been watching me, with the very slightest of grins on her face.
This wasn't a spur of the moment thing. Great. She had thought about this ahead of time and talked about it to Leia who lent a sympathetic ear.
I couldn't believe that Fiona cared about our prisoner one way or the other. So this was something else.
Another outburst brought my attention back from my musings. “People can change! Who are you to deny him that? Do you know anything about him? Any idea of what his life was like? How he grew up? How his childhood was?” Fiona was letting Leia do the heavy lifting. A few people were arguing with Leia, backing up Stan. Instead of being daunted, she reveled in her role of protector of the downtrodden.
“Stop. STOP!” I had to raise my voice and say it twice to shake people out of their orientation, to get their attention. “One way or the other, we have to decide what to do with him. Since Fiona brought it up, we might as well do that now. Whether we get any more information from him or not, at some point it will dry up and we won't want him around anymore.”
“What did you do to him to get him to talk?” Leia immediately thought the worst
“Not much really. We didn't need to hurt him. He responded well to getting fed.” Lavell smiled as he remembered the prisoner suffering when he didn't eat for a day.
“What are our options?” Daniels asked
“The only ones I see are that we kill him, or let him go.” I answered
“Kill him? You can't just kill someone in cold blood!” Leia was horrified at the thought.
“We can't just let him go. He knows too much about us and our defenses that could be used against us.” Lavell stated what to me, was obvious.
“We could take the middle ground.” Everyone looked at Virgil. “We could maroon him on one of the smaller islands. He's still alive, but can't harm us.”
I paused to consider that. It was actually an interesting idea.
“You'd still be killing him. What would he eat? And who are we to be judging him this way?” Leia wasn't giving up.
Our prisoner was part of a vicious gang that had attacked us and other people, killing and raping them and then taking whatever they wanted. When we caught him, he and his friends were about to attack our friends the Johnsons.”
“We still can't thank you enough for being there for us Zed” Mrs. Johnson shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if we hadn't been on scene.
I continued. “They attacked us and we fought them off and made our escape. They pursued us and kept trying to kill us. When we won, and had a chance to look through the things they had, all the loot they had stolen from the people they tortured and killed, we found several pairs of panties. Small panties. Like young girls wear.” I looked at Leia, boring into her with my eyes to make sure she got it.
“So who are we to judge? We've directly witnessed some of his crimes. And we are the closest thing to authority or government around. Who else is going to deal with him?”
“You could take him to the National Guard. They actually from the government.”
I didn't know what to say to that, and just stood there blinking for a moment, trying to wrap my mind around it, considering that she had just escaped from them. Then I realized, if it wasn't for Frank, she probably would have been content to stay where she was and submit to the National Guard.
While I was musing, Lavell responded. “One, that's just not practical. How are we going to get him there? It would be a dangerous trip. Do you want to take him?” Leia looked away and didn't answer. “Two, they don't want him. What would they do with him? It's not like they are going to give him a fair trial. They'd either shoot him, or let him go.
Leia wasn't quite done. “Well you should at least give him a trial! He deserves that much”
“Why does he deserve it? He's a murdering, child molesting, rapist. He doesn't deserve a trial. We all know he's guilty.” Stan said what most of us felt.
I thought for a second before speaking. “Maybe it's not him that deserves it. Maybe it's us.”
My pronouncement was met with silence as people thought about what at first didn't seem to make sense. I watched as the lightbulbs came on.
“We should have a trial not for him, but for us, to legitimize what we are doing.” Denise vocalized the thought process everyone was going through. Well almost everyone. Fiona shot her a look.
“You are all trying to collectivize the guilt of killing the prisoner to ease your consciences. The group would be responsible, so no one of you is responsible”
Denise shot back. “It's what societies do. There has to be law and order. That's one of the things society does. And yes, no one person should have to shoulder this responsibility by themselves. It should be on all of us.”
Sadie had had enough. “I can't believe we are spending this much time on this. He's a no good criminal who has tried to hurt us directly. He needs to be put down just like any other predator that threatens us. I'll go do it if no one else will.”
I put my arm around her waist, leaned in a whispered to her. “Let this play out.”
She nodded at my words. I looked at Mr. Johnson who knew what I wanted.
“It's well and good that we do this together. IF and that's a big IF, that is the way we want our 'society' to go.” Mr. Johnson started.
“How else would we want to go?” Denise was truly puzzled.
“We are used to a certain system. We grew up in it, and for it's flaws, its what we are familiar with. Which gives it a lot of appeal, especially in our current circumstances. We live in a society of levels of government, all pretty much the same, where everyone votes for people to represent their interests. And we have someone administer whatever rules those people promulgate, and yet someone else to rule on whether those rules, or the enforcement of them is fair.”
“Checks and balances.” Wilford interupted.
“Give the man a gold star. Go to the head of the class young man.” Wiford colored at the gentle chiding Mr. Johnson gave him for stating the obvious. “Yes, seperation of powers with their checks and balances.”
“Do we need that? Really?” Stan this time.
“I don't know. It's what we're used to. Do you have any suggestions?”
Stan was on the spot. “um, well, why do we need to have representatives? Shouldn't everyone have a say in the decisions? It effects them.”
“Ah, pure, direct, democracy. Sound great, doesn't it? Everyone has a say in what decisions are made. What could go wrong?” He smiled a grandfatherly smile at everyone. “Historically, direct democracy works OK, for a while, in small groups. I'd say we are probably still safely in that size.”
“Well, then, what's stopping us?” Stan sensed the trap, but couldn't quite see it.
“You would be fine with living with the Will of the People?”
“Well, sure, if that's what the majority of people wanted, of course.”
“What if the majority of people voted to take all of your things?” Stan was starting to get uncomfortable. “What if the majority of people decided that Sandy should be made available to have sex with the leadership of the government?”
That was too much. Stan leapt to his feet. “Over my dead body! And I'm going to take a bunch of you with me!” He glared all around at us, even though we had nothing to do with Mr. Johnson's explanation.
Johnson chuckled soothingly. “Take it easy son. That's not going to happen. I just needed to get your attention. And show you how things can go if we aren’t careful.”
“But that would never happen! That's a wild exaggeration!” Mr. Johnson had succeeded in drawing Fiona out. “People need government to protect them from individuals who would take advantage of them.”
Now we're getting somewhere. I wondered who Fiona thought should be the 'government?
“And who protects the individual from the government?” Mr. Johnson asked what seemed to me to be the logical question.
“The courts. People who feel wronged can take their grievances to the courts for redress.” Fiona's professors had done their job well. “As part of any government we form, we would have to have a judiciary. That would protect the individual from other individuals as well as the government.”
Johnson nodded his head sagely. “Yes, that's true, at least in theory. But then I don't have to remember back too far to recall some eminent domain cases before SCOTUS. And who can forget 'Dred Scott'?”
“Of course there will be problems, nothing is perfect.” Fiona countered.
“Why do we need to go through all this trouble? A small group like us? Don't we have better things to do? Why can't the individual just look after himself? Be responsible for themselves?” Doc Shoemacher usually kept to himself at these meetings, but his libertarian bent couldn't take it any longer.
“Because there will always be bullies who will take advantage of others. They need protection.”
Doc shook his head disgustedly. “They should protect themselves. Asking the government to do things for you, that you should do for yourself is the reason we are in such sorry shape!”
“So we should live in a world of 'might makes right?”
“We already do, except it's the government that has the 'might' and wields it for all the weaklings that won't do for themselves.”
“Who will look after the weak?”
“We shouldn't have any weak!”
“Oh! You probably believe in survival of the fittest. The weak should be killed, or at least left to die!”
“I didn't say that. But from what I can tell, we are doing everything we can to encourage weakness. The government certainly wants you to be weak. That's why they do everything for you. So you are dependent on them, need them. How is that good?”
“So what should the weak do? Lay down and die?”
“Why are they weak in the first place? Can they learn to be strong, to look after themselves? Shouldn't we encourage that? Heck, I'm already seeing that happening right here, right now, with the loss of the government assistance, people are taking care of themselves. Some of them are getting pretty creative about it. And without being forced to, they are looking after others that need help.”
“But what if a much stronger individual picks on a weaker one? One that has no hope of being able to fight back?” Fiona wasn't ready to give in.
“Then the weak individual needs to find other weak individuals to band together with in common cause to fight the stronger one. There are always ways to win, as long as you are willing to fight.”
We didn't know at that moment, how prophetic those words would be.

 

Duty is action; Fight or die! Awesome venture into the reinventing of a Republic…as for me, guess I best stand with the Libertine Party…;-)

 

Thanks Zen. I'm ready for another chapter now.

 

Yes, womens kan b soooo hateful at times ;-)

 

Great work! Thank you again for sharing your story with us. I look forward to it.

 

Hum, this will be interesting, going from some sort of peoples court to "Head's on a Stake" I would remind everyone that a state of Marshall Law exists and looters are usually shot summarily. Maybe they need a Copy of the UCMJ that the military uses in these type of situations.

 

Waiting, anticipating, anxious, hungry, mystery, must have fix…must, maybe soon…must! ;-)