On the rare occasion that a place should be made vacant, the pairs of feet shuffled forward in closing succession leaving nothing but a thin slither of worn rubber between anticipation and disappointment; the head either returning to the end of the line where hope is sustainingly out of reach or wandering aimlessly through the maze of streets and alleys looking for another source, another queue, another locked door waiting to be opened.

  And on every corner, and in front of every building, and under every crooked sign heaving about on its own rusted hinge, waited; forbearingly, a row of men, women, children, animal and anything at all of whose instinct it was, was to be led. They waited for information; of any form, anything at all; maybe a word, a direction, a command, some advice, a directive, an insult, a plea, a waving hand, a glaring eye, a yielding fist; anything at all.

  Collectively they shared a tenacious hunger and they fell upon one another, themselves hinged upon a singular hope and a domesticated politeness.

  Thus they stood, feet to heel, hands at one´s side and one´s breath; present, but never falling on another´s skin. Their primitive obedience strengthened their hope and preserved their expectation of being fed. But like any good dog, they were prone to biting and though apparently docile and innocuous, the fear that furnished the core of their sub conscious being and coupled with their desperation and lack of moral binding and subjectivity meant that these scavenges of information, exhorted by their conscious famine, were always, at every turn, unpredictable.

  As they were walking, a straggly looking disgrace of a man came stumbling up to The Woman pulling on her arm and collapsing by her feet; drool running down his face, his eyes blood shot, the wiry blue veins in his neck pulsing faintly and his frail bones extruding from his loose blotched skin.

  “Please lady. You gotta give me something. I need a fix. Come on lady, I’ll do anything. Tell me something. You look like you know something. I know you know something. You know where it is, don’t ya; the place of light and sound. You know something bitch. Come on, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know, I didn’t mean that, you’re not a bitch, I’m just so… I need something you know. I gotta itch in my brain, come on lady, you can help me out yeah. You look kind. Give me something you stupid fucking bitch” screamed the derelict pulling on The Woman’s arm.

  Marcos swept the man up in one arm and dragged him over to where a line of Famined waited patiently to be fed and proceeded to beat him into silent submission.

  And every morning started in this way.

  Marcos joined The Woman who never faulted her stride, completely unfazed by the wanton desperation that dusted her feet and the brutal violence which swept it away, looking instead to the people frozen in time, waiting one behind the other.

  “There has to be an end to this. This; this god damned paralysation of people. This can’t be how it ends. It can’t just stop. I mean look at that, at least at the end of the day the sheep was being fleeced or the cow was being milked. What purpose do they serve now?” The Woman said.

  “You don’t think they’re damning god as well? Under that opiated heavenly stupor. Haven’t they always been damning? Isn’t that their preserve? Sure, we see them still and silent, but what thunder claps hysterically in their sub conscious?” Marcos responded.

  “I can think of nothing more futile than sitting still, than waiting” she said.

  “I can, joining them in your conscious mind; thinking still. Your feet move in a different direction to your thoughts. As long as you have them in mind, you will forever be walking to the back of that line. You lack focus. You’re infantile and undisciplined” he replied.

  The Woman fell silent in thought and her breath fell heavy. His words drained her conscious trappings and siphoned her emotional reserve. She felt lighter though under the weight of this new emptiness. Abjured of her mal-perception, her muscles retracted, her chin lifted, her eyes widened. She smiled and held firm the hand of Marcos.

  “This new thought”, she said before pausing. “It is not easy.”

  “This new way”, he corrected her “It is defining.”

  “When we speak in positive form; as one, we enforce certainty into our sub conscious, then collectively, we drink from that sub conscious reservoir of love to define the right choices for our people. As long as we focus on one simple image, one simple goal, we will not forget what it looks like and more importantly we will be able to tell when we have gotten there. Like the words of a poem or the lyrics to a song, we must repeat our direction over and over until our instinct has it, that we never get lost.”

  “Still, this is not what I expected” she said.

  “What were you expecting? What are you expecting?” Marcos replied.

  “I guess I always pictured, you know, Armageddon, four horses, nuclear bombs, air raids, crazed dictators, nerve gas, zombies, death squads, chicken viruses, panzer tanks, I dunno, something biblical, catastrophic, like in the old stories, some horrendously violent but romantic honorific expulsion of life. The daring proud citizens standing and rebelling against marauding invaders, defending their homes, fighting for their freedom, dying in some grand display of defiance. Not this. This is just…” she said flatly.

  “Worse” he said finishing her idea.

  “If you stop feeding a kitty, it doesn’t die the next day. It sits around and waits for you to come back. And if it ever wanders off momentarily, it always finds its way back, expecting you to be there. It gets thinner, develops infections, and loses its teeth. Eventually it’s just loose flesh on frail bones with big sad desperate eyes. But even when its natural instincts will it to another door, its domestication always calls it home” he said.

  “Did you have to use a cat? I don’t like that, that’s disgusting. Now I’m thinking of a dying kitten. What the fuck is wrong with you?” she said angrily.

  “Ok. The cat got fed and lived to a hundred, whatever. My point being, ah fuck it. Seriously just, pull yourself in line. We’re almost at The Nest. Just, just, just focus” he said stuttering; stumbling over his indignation.

  “These dogs get a treat” he said pointing to a line of Famined just in front of them. Marcos swept to the end of a line and leant into the ear of an old man holding the tail end of this morning’s expectation. The old man then whispered something into the ear of the boy in front and thus a silent echo slipped through the cold morning air. In a moment, feet were moving and the line was gone, leaving the bloodied derelict motionless on the cold ground.

  “What did you tell him?” she asked, still a little shaken.

  “I told him about the cat” he said.

  “Shut up. Seriously though, what did you tell him?” she asked.

  “The weather” he said.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I gave him a forecast, a prediction. That’s all they want, information. Seasonably cold, damp and overcast with the chance of an afternoon shower. They’ll wake up tomorrow and feel better for a moment. Then they’ll come back wanting more” he said.

  “So what are we supposed to do, keep feeding them every day?” she asked.

  “Exactly, ween them off their addiction. Create a new addiction. Habit cures habit. These small doses keep them less dangerous and for us, in the middle of this, it’s a saving grace to which I’m willing to subscribe. Celebrate every conquest, no matter how insignificant” he replied.

  As they walked about in the crisp air; passing from street to avenue and from avenue to alley way; before, behind and all about them, figures in uniformed dark clothing commanded and detailed; with order and direction, the hordes of queues formed and forming throughout the downtown region.

  The figures approached each line, sometimes from the tail but in general they walked to the head and stood eye front with the first person holding the queue. The men in black stood staunch with their chests flexed, firm and pushed out, their arms pulled to their sides, their hands straight, and their fingers together. They stood side on to the head of the queue, the enormity of their chests visible in the outline of the dull grey light against the black of their shirts and their vulnerable organs, out of threat’s way.

  The man dressed in black waited until an air of suspense had quelled within the group for at his sight, anticipation had turned to a fervent uproar as those from the middle and to the rear fought with one another to have their ears just one inch closer and to cast their eyes on some kind of authority. The men carried a cast iron stare that coerced one and all into quiet submission.

  When the Famined settled, the men would then take a sheet of paper from within their clothing and hold it high in the air in front of their faces and read from it in a loud, controlled billowing voice. At the completion of the passage, the men would fold the paper neatly, put it back within their garments and promptly walk off into the distance.

  In moments, the faces on the people changed from desperation to relief and they took with them, some information that would see them through the next day or two and quieten the howling of their conscious minds.

  As Marcos and The Woman walked through the town square, some unruly and unpredictable queuers were being truncheoned into submission. As a speaker stood before a queue, several men in black clothing adorning white hearts on their chests, approached a disorderly part of the line and picked several feral troublemakers, kicking their feet out from under them and pinning them to the ground under the immense weight of their bodies, their knees entrenched in the back of their necks. Upon sight of this, the others immediately restrained their ardent desperation and folded their arms tightly as if to fight some uncontrollable sub conscious infantile desire to lash about in instinctive disapproval.

  The men with white hearts on their chests brought aboding fear, even amongst the men dressed in black who looked neither to their direction, nor against it. They took the troublemakers by the hair; dragging their lifeless bodies with their allegiant fists clenching unyieldingly and veins thrusting from their arms. The troublemakers put up no fight. They sank into immediate dissention and far from the traffic of people; under the guise of shadowy confines, the men in white hearts committed corporal atrocity to their captors.

  The Woman pulled closer to Marcos as the shrieks and screams from the near dark reverberated through the still morning air sending a nerved shiver through one and all. Marcos didn’t break his stride.

  As they crossed the square they came to the outer ring of The Nest, an enormous wall that reached almost from the earth to the heavens above and stretched from the tip of the town square out in the far stretches of The City centre. On the corner they were greeted by two men with white hearts on their chest, both of them looking and nodding in silent salutation to Marcos, who cast not even the slightest glimpse in their direction. Marcos and the Woman continued along the wall passing an irreverent stranger every now and then but more so, quiet emptiness.

  Every fifty to a hundred meters they would be followed by the subordinate stare of a man with a white heart. The Woman tried to maintain her focus but at every passing was somewhat intrigued by the command brought to her lover and her conscious eye would wander to their direction and sometimes she would allow it to float above them like a flare and she would watch in conscious admiration as her lover walked with her, past an array of obedient soldiers all vying for her lover’s attention or approval. And it was his abandon of care that made her all the more attentive to how much she loved him and how deeply she wanted him.

  The Nest was enormous. It took Marcos and The Woman approximately twenty minutes of brisk walking to pass from the north western tip to the main entry located in the south west wing. The entry to the complex was heavily guarded. There were nine men with white hearts, all armed with cruel instruments standing shoulder to shoulder, forming an arc around the entry point. The men shifted their feet and the arc opened as Marcos and The Woman came walking into sight.

  “Love as one” they said in unison. Marcos didn’t respond.

  “Live as you love” said The Woman as they passed the armed guard.

  A one armed man stood at the door and above him high on the wall in elephantine letters, large enough to spread out across the sight of the entire city were the words.

  ‘…when a city fails its people, its people have failed themselves…’

  Marcos motioned towards the entrance.

  “Brand new day sir, love as one” spoke the one armed man holding open the door and ushering them through with his rounded stump.

  Marcos acknowledged his welcome, holding a direct stare, nodding his head slightly and laying an educated hand on his shoulder.

  “Live as you love” he responded.

  The two passed through the guarded entry and arrived at an open foyer. The area was heavily guarded with one man with a white heart and several men dressed in black beating truncheons against their open palms, the sound of which, like the heart-beat of violence.

  The foyer was small enough to cross in three or four steps. To the front and right were murals of a rising sun peeling out upon an orange sky. The colour made the room feel warm and inviting. The men in black made the room feel outlined and secure.

  The foyer took an L shape and to the left at the end of the room was another door and in front of that door a desk with a woman dressed completely in white and a man beside her, also dressed in white. The woman was an educator and the man, a poet. They greeted Marcos and The Woman with celestial smiles, resting a hand on their hearts, looking adoringly at the couple and guiding them through into the main courtyard, past the heavily fortified exterior ring.

  “Love as one” the man and woman in white said as Marcos and The Woman passed through the doorway and then into the open courtyard.

  The Woman waved her hand royal like as the two entered the belly of The Nest on this dismally cold grey August morning.

  The courtyard was grand indeed. It spread out in all directions for as far as a spent mind could possibly fathom. Marcos and The Woman walked towards an intersection maybe a hundred meters or so from where they entered.

  The Woman watched as the colours on the ground melted and morphed beneath her feet. The rocks had been painted with the imagination of the children and as they walked, they passed over rugged mountain plains, forests of spiny trees and oceans of mysterious slimy glowing sea creatures with giant tentacles and bulbish eyes.

  The Woman loved to follow her feet as they moved above new shapes and eventually; as they neared the intersection, as they fell upon hundreds of happy children’s faces with love in their eyes and the Forever New Dawn radiating from their smiles.

  Her eyes drew upon what she thought in her heart might be joy when she saw these images, something she never experienced in her own youth, but something as a woman, she could never tire of; the fantasy of child at play; albeit a morose parody to their grey conditioned souls.

  The intersection split into three separate corridors that led to different regions within the complex. Each section was defined as a state of being; At Work, At Love, At War, At Peace and At Father, represented by earthly elements of earth, water, fire, wind and void respectively.

  To the left of the intersection were two passages that trailed through the complex and finished at a large open field where children and adults alike attended to The Collective crops, toiling over difficult soil and harsh weather conditions.

  To the right of the field was an enormous warehouse that was divided into three sections. One was a dormitory filled with over two hundred bunks where The Children, the Mothers and the Fathers all slept together as a collective. The second section which was central to the entrance was a large cafeteria with scores of wooden tables and benches stretching across the entire room and in the back corner a small sink and kitchen to prepare food.

  The third section was much smaller but was boarded up. There was no way of entering or even knowing what was kept inside. The room had no door. No entry and no exit.

  To the right of the intersection were two passages that led to the north and south eastern quadrants where the path eventually split into two, with two large buildings housing many rooms serving the heart and the fist of The Nest. To the left was At War, a series of interconnecting warehouses where the sound of stomping feet and crashing fists spilled into the air day and night.

  On the exterior wall was; painted in white, a massive heart and inside it, a nefarious white skull. It was a place of discipline and violence, of ordered chaos and to its right was At Love; where Children sat with their gentle Mothers and learned of being human; knowledge of themselves, their nature and their promise, in the guise of two fundamental states; fear and love.

  The north passage at the intersection was guarded by men with white hearts. Not even the men dressed in black could pass through. For a select few Collectivists, this path led to At Father where strategies were penned and the great eye of The Nest; perched far into the blue abyss, observed and conserved the love of The Children as they lived about their four states; Love, Peace, Work and War.

  The two partitioned, Marcos moving north past the saluting guards along the desolate winding corridor and finally up a rackety ladder then down a series of long corridors to a room with a large door with a chess symbol; a pawn in fact, centred around the ubiquitous white heart and the woman taking the passage to her right, leaving behind the images on the cobble stone courtyard and in the clearing, entering the tranquil complex then motioning towards the first door to her right with a chalk outline of the same white heart, except this time encapsulating in its black centre, a single white seed.

  Nothing was spoken between the pair as they pulled away from each other´s touch, taking their own paths and eventually pressing through hefty iron doors; the silence in the morning air fallen upon by the creaking of rusted metal turning on worn hinges and the massive clanking sound as the great weighted doors slammed shut.