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

Bevan sat beside him, resting his hand on Michael’s lap. Brenda was fast asleep in the back seat and Rosemary was staring dreamily out of the window at the passing countryside. He was reminded of his childhood when his father would drive them to whatever vacation destination they had chosen for that year. His mother would be in the seat next to her husband, resting her hand on his lap, and Michael and Rebecca would be in the back seat, reading comics, playing with toys, arguing, or sleeping. At those times he used to think of his father as a silent presence of authority, in charge of the very important task of the safe delivery of his family to their journey’s end. That was how Michael felt.


Chapter 22