Wicked Prompts

COMMUNITY BLASPHEMY

Sprinklers whisked in the background, rat-tat-tatting in one direction and then the other, dripliting tears onto the yellowing square lawns of evenly cut blades, and block-brown walls of brick and stucco, with rectangular tile roofs, and windows that gave transparency to the anxiety behind their reflective dashboards.

The streets were broad and the houses sat back behind the grassy knolls with long sidewalk entrances and two-car driveways, where the children played basketball and roller hockey, and the neighbors watched their speed driving in the leaf-spilled shadows beneath the overhanging trees, and watched their words when they'd had more than one beer at the weekend pool and barbecue get-to-togethers.

Wives watched their lingering glances, and husbands watched their wives, and children watched their fathers and their brothers and sisters, and everyone wondered who would pick up the phone afterward to tell, who and whoever.

They all knew that phones set idling on the counter were listening and cameras saw everything though no one could see the cameras, tiny and pricking through the wallpaper, which was everywhere, interlinked by thoughts strung together by bits of dust, making even the crack in cement smart.

Refrigerators warned of heart failure and toilets screened for cancer. Anxious voices huddled beneath the murmurs of conspiracy they hoped the walls couldn't hear but the stress vibrating the air was suspicion enough. Sometimes only for a police car to drive by and flash a high-beam through the window and sometimes for a black van with a couple of drones circling overhead.

When this happened the whole house was quiet. No one resisted anymore. They went silently, hopeful they could negotiate, and bargain with the callous man or woman moving data, and somehow keep their quiet life in one piece.

The cartoons and sitcoms warned about this kind of thing. Everyone laughed and watched the reality people live it out but never thought it could happen to them. They were cautious with their thoughts, meditating twice a day, filling in the databases with dutiful observations and denouncements, screening the media stamped with gospel and going about their business in a precise, careful, service attitude that kept them too busy for anything else.

When the black vans came for a neighbor, even a dozen houses away, the kids were lined up and the files examined for blemishes. They might be called on to testify and certainly didn't want anything to question the righteousness of their home, or the cleanliness of their linen, and put them in the same place.

Thoughts could be selfish that way. Wayward, well-meaning but treacherous, and idle. Each doubt poked a hole in the carefully crafted fabric of air, meticulously built up to keep them safe, to make them a family. One hole weakened the foundation, led to more holes, and let the air out.

Thought crime started at home, the saying went, in the Book of Order, and there it must end. Thoughts did not have owners. They belonged to all of us and therefore were everyone's responsibility. Vigilance was the community. Gathered together to walk together and think together. As one and indivisible from the other.