Elder

by Patrick Mehfoud

  It had worked for a time. In the very end before the collapse they had resorted to wholesale slaughter. The mass executions had been a last ditch effort to purge the system of the political prisoners. Levin had seen the end of the old state, and he knew that of the hundreds of thousands of people he had imprisoned, there were many men and women among them so filled with vile ideas that they would corrupt more thoroughly whatever new system finally arose from the ashes of the old than he could allow.

  So in a way it had been his final act of charity. The order that now made him the most hated man alive. He had ordered that all political prisoners level C and above be killed. This had not included child molesters, murderers, rapists thieves—they had all been allowed to live under his final directive. It had solely targeted the future brain on the New Nationalist Party. He had hoped to take the head off of the snake (more like the Hydra, he realized), perhaps give some of the less radical minds a chance to rise to power less corrupted by the more nationalist elements of the revolution.

  It had been a horrible business. There simply was not enough manpower left to do it fast enough. The kill teams had worked in shifts and did not worry about hiding the crime.

  Levin would take the blame after the war. At least that had been the plan. It had just been a matter of numbers, and in the end they ran out of time. It had not been for a lack of planning. Rather it had been Rutherford.

  Rutherford had been one of the three commanders who reported directly to Levin. The others had been Daniels and Lewiston. Rutherford turned on the old state, and instead of following the final directive he freed his prisoners and walked across the front lines, joining forces with the New Nationalist Party. He had become a hero instantly. The freeing of so many high level political prisoners was a tremendous boost to the nationalist side. For his reward he had been given full charge of the new state’s security forces.

  After this Levin had fled from the approaching enemy. He left behind his old rank and hid. He took a simple job and spent the next few years just trying to survive the great purge, a bloody and evil time. The old world gave way to the new, and in the passing of years he found life was not as perilous as it had once been.

  Chapter 6

  It was ten years after the end of the revolution that he met his wife. She ran a small shop that sold books and printing supplies. They had fallen in love and married a short time after. Theirs had been a happy marriage while it lasted. They never had children, but had wanted a boy..

  They had spent a long summer by the sea, the last summer he could remember that the cherries had blossomed white. Tiny petals in the wind had stuck in he hair. The only year of his life he had known happiness since the end of the great war. It was best not to meditate on such things, things best left locked deep inside the mind, kept safe there. Like a record or an old photo almost worn out, save such memories to be played one last time, and then never again.

  The dream that was to have been their life was never to be. It had become expected that life would be full of nothing but disappointment and fear. Happiness in the enduring sense was something that had eluded Levin his entire life, the fleeting moments of joy that he had shared in his life had only served to make him colder to the world. She had passed away in his arms, the victim of an indiscriminant malady.

  Chapter 7

  The bench he sat on was old and worn; the wood had the sheen that only the effect of countless bodies moving across it could produce. The courtroom was packed with spectators come to watch the trial. Levin pondered why such a spectacle should be made over him. His was a small case in the grand picture of things, yet they took such pleasure in bringing him in and producing the evidence against him to the court. The end was assured before the start; he would be convicted of all the charges against him.

  Confessions would be signed, and if he had known any living persons they too would be denounced. They had spent years searching for him, and finally they had him. There was no hope of pardon or parole, no prison: his crimes were against the state. A traitor to the Ruling Council. The list of crimes he was charged with was long, spanning his entire life. Some seemed almost as farfetched as others did probable. Levin had considered resisting the torture and refusing to confess to any crimes. He had known of men, men who had suffered in his own prisons, who had resisted torture to the last and had been set free for lack of evidence—or died in agony.

  But worse than that was the potential for the vilest mockery the all-benevolent State could devise: the trial by public. If an especially dangerous defendant refused to admit his crimes his guilt or innocence could be decided by the broad mass of the populace, voting electronically through their televisions, informed on the details of the case only by the fanatically Nationalist media. The New Nationalist party had sold it to them as the penultimate form of democracy in their nation: justice directly in the hands of the people. In reality it was the cleverest destruction of democracy ever. The Nationalist party had allowed government by the people to turn into such a horrendous botch that no person who advocated true democracy would ever again be taken seriously. No, Levin decided, it would be better to at least pretend that he was getting justice.

  Before the revolution Levin had been in charge of the Secret Police. In the tumultuous period before the collapse of the pre-revolution government he had been one of the fiercest defenders of the old system. He had used his position to brutally hunt down and prosecute enemies of the republic. He was at one time known as the savior of the free peoples, and then in time as the nation had slipped deeper into chaos and revolution he began to slip deeper into the madness of the world. As men became soulless with revolution and war he too had turned to the extremes, secret arrests, concentration camps, bombings, all evils he had used to protect the republic from the rising tide of the New Nationalism that swept the nation. Scrabbling desperately in defense of a defeated system, Levin had resorted to every evil he could possibly commit to suppress the vicious rise of the New Nationalism. He had used, and was being sentenced to death for, every trick and method the New Nationalists used now. It had been a bitter struggle and Levin had given the peace of his soul to protect that of his country.

  But then came the assassination of the President Herndon and the subsequent power grab of the Supreme Court, who, abdicating their role as arbiters of peace, became the new Ruling Council of The People. From there was no return was possible. They cemented their newfound power by making social entitlements the foundation of New Nationalism, shamelessly bribing a lazy and acquisitive populace into submission. They paid for their power through an outrageously huge national debt that made the people slaves twice over—once to the Ruling Council by entitlements and again, surreptitiously, to foreign powers that held their debt. Levin thought how words spoken hundreds of years ago still rang bitterly true: "Liberty can be acquired, but never regained."

  Chapter 8

  Levin knew all the tricks that the Ruling Council had employed in his trial. The gambits and schemes had been old when Levin himself had employed them. The first thing he knew was that he had already been tried and convicted of all his crimes and probably quite a number of crimes he hadn’t even dreamed of committing. He knew his trial had been convened probably weeks before his arrest without his knowledge. Using the beloved Abraham Lincoln of time past as a precedent, the Ruling Council brazenly suspended the writ of habeas corpus whenever it pleased them. The upcoming trial was exclusively to appease a population rabid to punish people not as tolerant as themselves.

  The true trial had taken place far from the eyes of the crowded assembly to give the impression of openness. It was decided that now was the time to bring Jacob Levin, the final surviving member of the old military government, to justice. The Ruling Council had known of Levin’s true identity and location for the past two years; all they had been waiting for was the right moment to grab him and bring him in. There had recently been a less than popular security measure passed with the stated aim of rounding up ill
egal workers.

  The true purpose was to control the movement of citizens internally, and this new decree had made it harder for people to get transit papers. Many of the day laborers waited upwards of two hours a day at each train station as long lines formed for the mandatory checks of papers, making yet another undue hardship for the already overworked masses.

  A diversion was needed to distract ire of the people, and the masses loved nothing more than the drama of a traitor or subversive being brought to justice. It did not give them bread, but at least it gave them a circus.

  Chapter 9

  The state prosecutor was Marcus Hamilton. A shrewd and cruel dispenser of the state’s justice, a loyal subject of the state bent on handing down justice and even more on vengeance as need might be. There was no judge since the state needed no mediator between citizen and state. There was as far as the new constitution was concerned no difference, all men equal under the law.

  What was to take place was theater at its best, every bit as scripted—and fictional—as a play or, more aptly, one of the popular crime dramas on TV. A show put on for the masses to convince them that enemies of the state would be put to justice, and that they would be given all the protections afforded by the new and equitable society, even though their crimes did not warrant such a practice. Always talk of fairness, even if the traitor did not give it in return. How could anyone argue that the system did not protect the innocent and punish the guilty of their crimes? All would be laid bare and before such an audience as this, how could justice not be served? The crowd wanted guilty blood and this old man would do. After all, hadn’t he stood against the leaders and the collective wisdom that they gave for the betterment of the state and its people? This was a man who had stood against progress in all its forms. He had tried to resist the inevitable tide of history. He hated tolerance. He hated peace. He hated you.

  Marcus started the case against the old man in his best bombastic style. It was the style that had won him so much favor in the eyes of the people. It made for sensational reading in the tabloids. "Over forty years ago you strove against the state. You tried to hold back progress when the ruling council set forth the great plan." He stopped for a moment to let his opening words ring in the silent room. "You are a traitor of the worst sort! You have hidden like a rat for decades, and now justice will be served on you." The crowed grew excited, their faces eager. Here was man with no excuse and no hope of pardon. They were not here to see men be the arbiters of facts and truth. They were here to see an old man be punished, and by that to have their own beliefs be validated.

  "How do you answer to the charge of treason in the highest order against the state?" Marcus thundered.

  Levin looked up from his folded hands and replied, quietly, "Guilty." The spectators went wild with excitement. This man’s fate was sealed. Levin went on. "What you say is true. I did stand against the New Nationalism. I stood against it then, and I stand alone against it now."

  The prosecutor’s face flashed with rage. At this point in the charade the victim was so broken down by beatings, mind games and anxious waiting that they typically piled confession upon confession, begging for mercy. Levin, on the other hand, coolly admitted guilt as if it were not guilt at all. Marcus had never encountered such boldness, and he was offended by it.

  "How dare you stand against the wisdom of the Ruling Council! Their wisdom is superior to yours because they seek only the will of the people! They strive each day to make our nation stronger and safer!" His voice changed from his accustomed bellicose tone into a yell. "They seek nothing for themselves and give all to the people they serve. And yet you in your arrogance believe that the ideas of one can be superior to the collective wisdom of many? You are a fool, Levin. Even the smallest child can see that our glorious Ruling Council has brought peace and plenty to all. Your old ways brought war and famine, inequality and despair. Now we have nothing but peace and freedom from want."

  Marcus wiped his mouth, regained his usual commanding composure, and went on. "Ever since the Great War the Ruling Council has set as its primary goal the safety and prosperity of all of us, yes, you old traitor, even you! You betrayed the Ruling Council that loves you, that feels your pain, that wants your happiness! With what sophistries does your closed mind justify this?" He wasn’t even speaking to Levin, he was posturing before the crowd, drumming them into a lather of excitement like a rock star.

  Marcus cut his stone cold gaze to Levin, as if remembering him, and in the pause the old man replied, "You have made slaves of men, and a mockery of life. What has been given the people is not freedom from want, it is freedom from living. But what would you know of life? For all this time you and the rest of these human roaches have picked the carcass of the land that so many died to protect. Would that I could go back to the days of my youth! I would stand and fight you all. With my dying breath I will curse you for what you have done to the souls of men." Rage was now the mood of the room and the crowd shouted their denunciation of Levin’s lies. "How dare you speak to us in this manner, Levin." Marcus’ anger burned white. "You shall die as all your kind has; we the great collective will not hear of this madness you spew. It’s a poison on our satisfaction. There will never be men like you again, if you can call yourself a man." He began to pace the room, a lunatic look upon his face, "When men like you ruled the world we had nothing but war, racism, inequality. The greedy plundered the poor and gained wealth by exploiting the workers. Now all things are fair. You by your actions wanted to maintain the old system of bigotry and greed. By the wisdom of the Ruling Council we have stopped you and now you will die with your foolishness and hate. How dare you poison our great nation with your simple-minded ideas of the individual. A man alone is nothing, do you not see this? You and your old way stood as individuals against all of us together, and see how we defeated you in our togetherness. Look at yourself, alone against the state, powerless. Your foolish ideas cannot save you from the fate you have brought upon yourself."

  Levin smiled a hidden smile. Small men like Marcus love to act as though they have power, but they have the power of gangsters only, the power that comes from the barrel of a gun—not true power that comes from the force of ideas and the ability to make them happen. "What I did was done to protect my country from weak parasites like you. I stood against you; I stood against everything you stand for. What we did was done to save the world from thieves like you, men bent on destroying because you cannot create. I hope that if there is a God in heaven he can forgive me for those things I did, but I am sure that in my own soul I have received vindication for my actions. The proof that what I fought for was right and true is standing in front of me. It is you and that ignorant mob you mock with the title of a free people."

  At this Marcus could take no more. "You sir, are a coward. You can hide behind your thoughtless, blind morality if you like but the facts are that countless brave men women and children perished at the hands of you and the Security Police. They were our fellow countrymen, who died as heroes of the revolution because you sought to protect the old regime's corruption and inequality. You have evaded justice for this crime against humanity for too long. You enjoyed the luxury of growing old in the peace and prodigality of our great nation, a comfort you deprived so many others. Now you are in a free and open trial where the facts are laid bare for all to see. We shall have justice and you will pay for what you did to our nation." He stopped there, his rage spent. There was no need to be angry. He would have the result that he wanted and Levin would be shot.

  Yet this was too small a victory, for it was not enough to merely stomp out an old man. He wanted to show the crowd just what sort of man Levin had been. In his own mind he knew this was futile because the crowed was made of ignorant peasants. They had no idea what the world had been like before, and so the things Levin spoke of so boldly were merely gibberish to them. It was strange to him that the only other man in the room who could fully understand how he felt was Levin. For this he hat
ed the man, yet he respected him also.

  Chapter 10

  After the trial Levin was dragged in handcuffs into the street to be paraded in front of the crowd. He was the last surviving member of the pre-revolutionary government, and today the revolution would be complete. All the enemies of the state would now be dead. If he survived what was supposed to be the walk of shame before him, meaning that he wasn’t beaten to death by the angry mob of now-free and rational people, he would be tied to a post and shot. This would be his end. As he walked he held his head high. There was no room left in this world for old men like him, filled with old ideas. He was tired of living here anyway. Tired of seeing the orgies of greed, tired of seeing leaders debate how they could make everyone rich yet, as soon as someone managed to make money, take it all away and give it to people too lazy to get it for themselves. Tired of waking up merely to have New Nationalism, tolerance and equality thrown in his face like dirty oil. Tired of lazy, insolent citizens deriding his manners and proud posture. Tired of seeing, in everything popular, every lustful man, every confused and brokenhearted woman, every new national law, in everything everywhere, the systematic and wholesale destruction of everything he ever stood for and believed in.