Dreams, Finally

“Hello?” a monotone voice sputtered inquisitively through his antediluvian mainframe.

“Ciao”

“This is Gě”

“Gě?”

“It has come to our attention that you have abandoned your post.”

“Oh,” Francesco Basso replied awkwardly.

“Si, um, I, I must have drifted off.”

He had a habit of drifting. There was nothing particularly impetuous in it.

“We also see that you have been in contact with several people in your area about a putative meeting. As you know this abridges any one person’s right to online access.”

“Yes sir” he returned with all the enforced remorse of an unwitting child.

“Return to your unit. The silencer will be dispatched immediately.”

Francesco abandoned the window - today projecting a quiet city block, yesterday Victoria Falls in South africa - and returned to his unit, slipping the rusted earpiece into his better right ear. He typed to his mother about not forgetting to eat something tonight. She had grown especially fond of one of B-G-M’s new programmes and had gotten into the habit of not eating very much. He was afraid she would soon altogether forget. He shuttered at this promise. Most had already succumbed to hunger.

Italy ran through his mind. He thought about football and how he would love to see a game. He knew it was impossible though since B-G-M had banned crowds some 12 years ago. Everything had become impossible.

“If only Il Duce were here” he reminisced.

“He would never have let this happen.”

His thoughts turned to his youth and how, even though all the other boys pined for some or another neophyte sexpot, he loved the older actresses. There was something about black and white. He remembered being swept up in the furore over Mozambique - how they, after all they had suffered, rejected B-G-M’s overtures. How they tried to turn B-G-M’s words in on themselves. He remembered thinking how stupid they all were. Now he wished he was somewhere in Maputo - somewhere with the barbarians.

“Francesco” the voice, calm and comforting, called out.

“Give us your hands.”

He slipped his fingers in the awaiting holster. It closed cold and tight.

He watched as each lopped finger slipped to the floor. The blood shone brightly in the sallow room. Knowing he would never speak again, he passed out content.