Free Haven, and other stories

Flash. The match ignited, dimly illuminating the dark alley. Jack lit his cigarette. Taking a long pull, he started walking down the alley.  "You're brave young-un," a voice echoed in the darkness. Jack looked over, and saw an old man sitting on a staircase. The man smiled at him. Jack attempted half-heartedly to smile back. The old man seemed to be looking Jack up and down, then continued, "What ya gonna do if the night watch catches ya with that thing?" Jack blew a big puff of smoke toward the old man, "Tell 'em where they can shove it. What they gonna do? Put me on civic duty again? Bah, whatever." The old man's smile grew even bigger, "I like y'r spirit young'un. You'd do well in Free Haven." Now it was Jack's turn to smile, as he laughed, "I'm too old for fairy tales old man, Free Haven ain't nothing but a myth." The old man nodded, "That's what they want you to believe, trust me young'un, it be real, just as real as I am." Jack shook his head, bid the man farewell, and continued walking. Foolish old man; who could believe in a place where people were free? Bullocks, not but bullocks.

        Jack hadn’t reached the mighty age of 20 yet (when he could vote, drink in government-approved consumption locations, and get paid more than minimum wage) but he wasn’t born yesterday either. The idea of Free Haven was absurd. Not a tad bit of the planet wasn’t accounted for these days, and none of that which was claimed, was free. Sure, each region different in what you could or could not do, but a place where you truly could just live and let live? Yeah, right.

You could smoke in Euro; drink at your own home, or even outdoors! Drinking at the age of 12 so he’d heard. Porno was legal there, and not just the normal kind that Jack’s friend Daryl had stashed in his secret room. No, in Euro you could watch people have sex with animals, kids, dead bodies -- whatever floats your boat. Jack shuddered at the thought, it disgusted, yet excited him at the same time to think about those forbidden things, being flaunted blatantly in some other part of the world. But visit Euro just to puff on a fag without fear of consequences, or watch some lady let a hound hump her mound? Screw that! In Euro, nobody owns property, The Union owns everything. Everyone works for The Union. Defy them? Break their laws? You become one of the dead bodies getting played with in those kink videos. Or you get shipped to Britannia, where you live out the rest of your days in labour camps. There’s no voting in Euro either. Unlike Americas, they don’t bother pretending that voting means anything. Plus Euro is right next door to New Arabia. Jack wouldn’t want to live next door to a bunch of radical religious nuts with guns and bombs. Not on his life. There was a fair share of religious nuts here in Americas, but they didn’t blow people up for having a different religion. Most of them didn’t anyway.

        How ‘bout the Asian Alliance? More commie bullshit there. Over half the population of the whole planet lived in the Alliance, and they didn’t need any outsiders coming in to pollute their commie paradise. Россия, भारत and 中国 were the three biggest over there. Sure there was 日本 but they kept themselves so isolated, they may as well have not joined the Alliance in the first place. The Alliance had the death penalty too, and unlike Euro, they didn’t dance around the subject. Jack had heard that they had videos with bodies in them too, but that in those videos, the bodies had started out alive. That idea didn’t turn him on in the least. No, that idea made him glad he lived in the good old conservative stronghold of Americas. Sure, smoking might be illegal here, but if he got caught he’d spent a week cleaning the streets, not have unmentionable things done to him while he was alive -- and maybe worse once that life had been snuffed out. Jack shuddered.

        Afrika? Ha! If the rest of the continents had problems with too big of governments, well Afrika had the opposite problem. It was a teaming cesspool of anarchy. There were no fixed borders, no real national identities. Not anymore. Each city and village may as well have been its own nation-state, and even on that level, the local governments tended to change on a monthly basis. Not bloodlessly either. No, Afrika was no place to live.

        Australia? Nobody really knew much about what was going on there. For if the .jp were isolated, well, the Australians were living in their own sub-universe. At least the .jp were members of the Alliance. The .au had no contact with the outside world at all. A few people managed to get out, heavens know how, and from their stories, Australia was no Free Haven, no it was no Free Haven at all.

        There was always the Southern continent, right below Americas. Some of those places were semi-stable. Moreso than Afrika anyway. The fact that there was only one or two independent nations left in the Southern continent ensured there was no Free Haven there. Split up between Americas, Euro and the Alliance, the Southern continent had no real identity of its own anymore. Which saddened Jack. His father’s lineage had come from the Southern, and he’d learned of the culture they’d once had. Some people (Jack’s grand-father amongst them) had tried to keep the cultures alive, or at least the spirit and memories of the cultures. Still, most had been lost. A sad loss, upon an even sadder world.

        As for the Economic Union of North American Nations, as was the official name on the paperwork, it remained a mish-mash of cultures -- kept in check by the ultra-conservative social policies of the governing bodies. Sure, they had elections here, but it wasn’t like you were voting for change. There were no real political parties anymore. They’d ceased to serve any function even before Jack’s grandfather was born, although they hadn’t gone away entirely until Jack’s father was an infant. No, these days you voted for which puppet you wanted to sit in the House of Leaders, and get told by the High Council what to do. If your area was really lucky (or unlucky mayhaps) your Leader would get chosen to sit on the High Council. If that happened, he or she would name a temporary replacement who would serve as your Leader until the next election. Elections were held every five years, always on April 1st. Some called it Fools Day. Seems appropriate, as we’re all a bunch of fools, electing other fools to pretend to lead us. Out of the entire Northern continent, only Newfoundland and Alaska hadn’t joined the EUNAN. Newfoundland wasn’t even affiliated. They were their own little chunk of insanity, smack dab at the eastern coast of a whole truckload of madness. They were a monarchy now, claiming that their King Stephen was the true heir to the thrown of Britannia, and that one day his reign would be recognized by all. Neither Euro nor Americas took the Newfies very seriously, and neither recognized King Stephen as anything but a crack-pot who more than likely had no more relation to the Britannian House of Royals than Jack’s left testicle. Alaska wasn’t really a member of Americas either, but it was certainly an ally. The Alaskans had seized most of the top-most part of the map, and controlled the Yukon and Norwest states. Then there was Nunavut. Contested territory. Both Alaska and Americas claimed it, but neither really pursued the issue. The native tribes living there ran things their own way, and didn’t care too much for politics. Still, even Nunavut was no Free Haven. And where else did that leave? Nowhere. The whole goddamn planet was controlled by one dictatorship or another. True freedom was a relic -- ancient history, something that you might read about in the history books, if the history books hadn’t been revised by the dictators who didn’t want such remnants of the past to be told about. School wasn’t about learning, not really. It was about preparing the student for life in the real world. A life where you did as you were told and never questioned authority, never questioned the way things are. Never thought for yourself.

         Jack wasn’t really bitter. He’d grown up in this world. Never known anything else. Yet still, those stories of Free Haven still buzzed in his ears. As much as he didn’t believe that such a place existed, a part of him wanted to.

        Stupid ideas. He’d reached the end of the alley. He butted out the small remaining stub of his hand-rolled cigarette and stepped out of the alley into the cold night of the city. A part of him really wanted to believe -- in something more than this.