Michael is thirty-nine and gay. Like his little niece, Kim, who has a learning disability, he is considered a non-citizen under the draconian Normalcy Laws. Kim’s parents quietly arrange to flee to New Zealand, where the Normalcy Laws haven’t been implemented. As Michael has a good job and has been careful to hide his homosexuality, he doesn’t consider going with them. Instead, he remains behind and goes about his business as normal until one morning when he is confronted by two Black Guards. Hooded, Michael is taken to what he assumes is the Department of Law. Once people are taken there, they never see the light of day again. Elimination is the only punishment in the New World Order. There he is interrogated by The Man, a handsome officer of the Black Guards. In a desperately hopeless situation, is there any hope of surviving elimination? No one ever has in the past, but Michael discovers something about The Man that hints at his situation not being as bleak as it appears. Can he dare to hope there is a way out? Or is he so delusional that his fantasies of freedom have clouded his judgment? Under the oppressive Normalcy Laws, nothing is certain.

Forbidden

“Don’t worry,” said Bevan, rubbing his leg. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I want us to be together.”


“I’m finding this all a bit much. I mean a couple of weeks or so ago—I don’t even know…”


“It’s been three and a half weeks.”


“Then three and a half weeks ago I was going to work, living a normal, boring life. Suddenly I’m arrested and held captive and now here I am, running from the authorities with my captor.”


Bevan laughed. It was the first time Michael had seen him laugh out loud. “When you say it like that I guess it does sound bizarre.”


There was a pause in the conversation. So many things were going on inside Michael’s head, so many questions he wanted answers to. And all the while his eyes were peeled for white vans. With nothing to lose, he asked the most burning question.


“Why did you become a Black Guard?”


Chapter 20