An Ode of Forbidden Days

 It occurred around 02:30 when Harry got the unequaled craving for milk. Not the cheap plant-based crap children grew up with nowadays like almond or oak. The pure, rich, creamy milk straight from the cow's teat. The last bootleg farm was destroyed fifteen years ago during a murderous raid ordered by the System. Since that day, pure milk ceased to exist.

Harry dusted through the crispy pages of old books scattered within his home. A collection of hundreds, ranging from books on agriculture to the works of Danteand Shakespeare. He firmly believed books remained the ultimate connection to the life and emotions of the past. The pages and words served as a shield blocking our minds against the ruling mace of the System.

Rays of day broke through the windowpanes, and the light gleamed off droplets of dew that raced down the foggy glass. Harry restedDante's Divine Comedyon his mahogany desk and booted his computer. It was an old pre-System device. Battered keyboard, laser pointed mice, the kind that took twenty seconds to start. Once the computer awoke, he began to scour the darkest corners of the net. He rummaged through chat rooms, forums, markets, you name it. There's a trace somewhere, and he knew it. He continued to search, knowing he was just out of sight of the Systems' all-seeing' eye.

The desire pounded through again like a crashing wave on the rocky shore. Milk. That's all Harry wanted. To sip the forbidden fluid. To raise his fist at the System. To remember the man he once was. Once he got the itch, there was nothing that would prevent him.

     "Eureka," Harry shouted. The remnants of echoes bounced around the room. "Dorothy McClintock." Finally, he discovered a solid lead. Dorothy was once the owner of the besieged milking farm and a valued general in the Peoples Resistance. Harry now learned she managed to evade capture, and she survived. All the articles on the direct net verified she was annihilated. A blatant lie conjured by the System. Harry knew the truth. Dorothy McClintock is alive. He deciphered coded communications spread throughout the forums by resistance members. These codes came in the form of passages from classic literature. Only genuine followers of the resistance knew their meanings. The System controls the net and the media; hence, they control the truth. But Dorothy lived, and with her life existed hope, and with hope. Milk.

     She was the answer, the key to the future. Harry pried open the top draw on his desk. From within, he removed a rusted S&W Model 686 Revolver, a pack of bullets, and an old map. He could taste the liquid velvet milk hit his throat, and rush down his tongue. For too long a man went without his fix. Harry, wrapped a heavy dark jacket over his shoulder and shoved the gun into its pocket, grabbed his keys, and opened the front door. A brisk morning gust swept by into the house, he glanced back into the quiet room. "Farewell." He slammed the door behind him.

Harry jumped into his Tesla truck and began to drive. The low fog that dispersed around the hills slowly began to vanish. He drove soundlessly in the direction of town. Life beamed within the valley; daisies blossomed throughout the rolling plains. The land, a luscious hue of greens and golds. Deer and fawn occupied the fields, basking in the morning glow, the snowy peaks of the jagged mountains towered behind. When Harry was a boy, long before the rule of the System, witnessing a wild deer was a rare sight. The fairies of the forest people had called them. The cost of a clean world was high, and humans paid gravely for it.

At the edge of town by the impenetrable forest, Harry arrived outside a barrel-vaulted house. The corrugated iron walls painted a tone of beige, rows of solar panels capping the roof. He launched out of his truck and proceeded towards the house. The front entrance swung open.

"Poppa," Autumn said. She vaulted onto him like a lioness its prey. Harry struggled to support her. With age, strength began to flee his body.

"My word. Look how big you've grown pumpkin. How old are you now? Fifteen? Sixteen?"