The Energy Company

 

 

They turned the lights off to get our signatures.

We had become so enslaved to the artificial air conditioning, the thousands of mindless babbling clowns on the television screens, the poisonous processed food stuff microwavable in under two seconds while our clothes were cleaning themselves in quiet closeted metal boxes and we let everyone in the world know all about it in real time through blogs and status posts 24/7 via the internet.

But one day they turned off all the lights.

It was 105® outside- We couldn’t charge our computerized telephones. We had no internet connection because the router runs on electricity. Our food began to spoil in our electric refrigerator tombs. Eerily Quiet. No more constant hum.

Then they came to our doorsteps one by one they came and gave us the choice.

We could have our electricity back at no cost ever again and all we had to do was sign a form.

One little form.

A form that stated the dwelling where we slept and its possessions and its tenants were the explicit property of the United States of the Northern Hemisphere to be used under an circumstances at any time in any capacity in any patriotic manner deemed necessary to the safety of the union. It was easy. Citizenry was not enough. We had to make a commitment. If we agreed and signed we’d get free cable television. Free internet. Free electricity. Free central air conditioning. And we could rest assured that there was a 99% chance that f you were over 40 the government of the USNH would never have any use for us until we were dead. They would dedicate our bodies to science on our behalf so we would not have to pay for burials or funerals or plots or caskets.

This was their promise to us as they explained it clearly door to door taking pictures and thumb prints and signatures and smiling and lying.

We would no longer need to use our names once they got our signatures.

We would be referred to by our social security numbers or barcodes.

Barcodes.

If we refused and we were allowed to refuse then, if we refused we would stay in the dark and it was our choice. We would not be able to renew our subscriptions to any services because our money, our unsigned credits were worthless now. Our signatures were not on file so we had become outsiders, outcasts, criminals, common miscreants the society’s underbelly. Un Hemispheric. Treasonous. Un patriotic.

All because we could live with candles and did not need their incandescent bulbing.

All because we wanted to keep our souls in tact.

All because we could be entertained with books and hand puppets and hiking and singing and drawing.

We were shunned.

This was our choice.

So we refused to sign.

And that’s when It began.