Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 262, Wednesday
September 19th, 2018
Chapter
Three: The Repressed
For the average citizen, living under the heel of the Imperial police
was a constant struggle, they had to perform their daily duties with a sublime
degree of mindfulness and pass their days without drawing the attention of the
patrols.
The schools they attended and their houses of worship inured them to it.
They lessons they were given, taught them to accept their suffering as a part
of the natural order, as links in the great chain of being.
The way of life was to go unnoticed, to blend in, these were the keys to
survival.
A family might cultivate these skills, and live unremarkable lives for
generations, only to be cast down by the powers that be, for the sheer pleasure
of it.
A random patrol might decide of its own volition to focus its attention
on a person or family, and once they did they would delight in watching them
crumble.
The state would take everything, up to and including their lives.
It might be a random event, or it could emanate from the Continuum,
issuing a directive, passing it down through the hierarchy to exploit a
narrative it believed the Collective would enjoy.
The people who suffered under these pogroms, they were taught to
interpret all such events as karma, either the fulfillment of a cosmic and
spiritual debt, or payment in advance for an indulgence they might receive
later.
The Imperial schools and the temple both taught them that every action
they committed, and every word they spoke mattered. The value of their words
and deeds was recorded and they would be punished or rewarded, either in this
life or the next for the things they said and did.
There was no mercy.
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