Usually, I find a morning beach walk to be soothing. A joyous comfort. To my husband’s chagrin I occasionally pirouette (badly) down the shore and do a few jetes on my way home. But today, as I looked at the sky, all I could think was….This is the dawn of the Fourth Reich. Today, there was no happy twirling in me; the beach failed me. My eyes watered a little as I trudged out and back. The sand was the same, the surf was the same, but I am forever changed.
In my youth, I read a lot of dystopian fiction. In my young adulthood, I read a lot more. I imagined myself as the protagonist in these stories and was always utterly perplexed. I didn’t understand then how people could just blindly accept persecution and oppression…why didn’t someone DO something, how did they let it get that bad? HOW did they let society become so corrupted. I didn’t realize that it was a choice. I grew up with the illusion of freedom… the privilege of freedom. I didn’t and I don’t understand the concept of choosing to wear chains. I never will.
I’ve spent the last couple of nights re-reading the Hunger Games. The books are better than the movies, they delve into the psychology of oppression, and bitterness and fatigue. I wondered as I read, what role I will be playing in the upcoming freakshow my country will become. A district 2 collaborator? A district 13 isolationist? I’m too old to be Katniss, so I think I’m going to choose to be a Haymitch, locking myself in my house, and drinking the world away.
I always wondered what living in a dystopian hellscape would be like. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.