The BigBrother Borg

Resistance is futile...

A strange dream, harumph, I pull on warm boots, layers, and watch full moon set, a startling deep gold. Fresh snow on the peaks; skier-joy.

I come shooshing back indoors to the dream:

A mask-face trained to limited expression: blandness to threat, beady-eyed at resistance. An author's laptop has been confiscated; her access blocked.

"Why?"

"You give people hope."

"What?"

He hands her a sheet of text. She does a lightning read; it's drivel, an obfuscating mind-fook. He then hands her a key which will unlock her access to writing for world readers.

"Writing must serve a larger vision," he explains. "People are directed to a chessboard of larger good."

She blinks and has an internal flash of the book/film 'The Great Escape' ... impudent Americans in a Nazi POW camp enacting 18th century fife and drum on the 4th of July.

"And if I refuse to take dictation? Even though leaders and media have blazed that swamp-trail?"

"Small irritants leave barely an echo when disappeared."