To be free of one's past

Somersaulting over a small street food stand, Jasper tossed backwards whatever he could touch on the bench as he landed on his feet. His pursuers ducked and sidestepped in a desperate attempt to evade the slew of sloppy sauces and food crates that was raining towards them. It was just another hindrance to add to their already hulking, pearly armor and helmets, but they would not stop.

“This is your final warning! Stop or we will have to exercise force!”, sounded a helmet-distorted voice.

The other peacekeeper pitched in, still wiping his visor clean. “Janitor 1376, you have just committed a fourth violation – the Eyes of Devron are recording your every move! Stop before you make matters worse for yourself!”

Jasper scoffed under his laborious breath. He found the description of city cameras as “eyes” a cheap attempt at hammering yet another nail in the ball’s chain for the people. Then again, that was not an overstatement. They did watch every single corner in the grid. They watched, even through the thick soot choking the city.

With his lungs crying for air, his sprint was getting all the more erratic. He now had to focus on his feet. He had to think about their movements. The peacekeeper’s voices were getting to his head. He looked around to find a point of elevation, somewhere to grapple from and disappear. But the expanse of the city streets ahead just kept on unfolding. And as his eyes were racing around, his focus turned away from his feet. An entanglement in their unfortunate dance sent him flying, then rolled him a couple of times until he eventually drifted to a halt on the street’s grinding concrete.

The peacekeepers slowed down at the sight, before one of them lifted his helmet and smugly walked towards Jasper.

“Janitor 1376, you are being apprehended for the following violations. Violation one: Challenging your assigned community role…”

Jasper looked to the back of his hand, where a faint “J” and the number 1376 under it were now barely visible underneath a scab of irritated skin. Attempting to erase this was an act of revolt in the eyes of the magistrate.

The peacekeeper continued. “Violation two: Leaving your assigned corrective facility without the Magistrate’s permission. Violation three: Removing your Pendant of Allegiance and replacing it with an instrument which defies the Magister’s orders…”

Jasper snapped. “An instrument? Seriously, man? It’s a picture of my fiancé! My family”! He pulled out a copper heart-shaped locket, discolorized and nearly decrepit, from underneath his shirt. Extending his dirt-covered, trembling hand to show the peacekeeper, he opened it to reveal the picture inside. “You remember what family is, right? Or did they wire that out of your memory too”?

Standing over him imposing as ever, the peacekeeper did not flinch. In turn, he also pulled out a small, rectangular box attached to a chain and opened it. A feeble blue light emanated from inside, and a feint voice riddled with radio static could be heard from within. “Rejecting the Magistrate’s broadcast is rejecting his rule and order”, he explained. “Our past does not matter and we shall not pursue it. We look only to the future”.

“How the hell do you build a future without lessons from the past?”, cracked Jasper’s voice.

“We value progress. Progress is not found in the past”. As if programmed to switch the topic, he continued. “Violation four: Disturbing the peace and interfering with the workstation of a City Vendor Worker. As a Janitor this is outside your area of activity”. With the push of a button on the rod he held, the peacekeeper activated its electric tip and continued. “Janitor 1376, you are now being apprehended to be brought before the Justice and Order Council. Until a verdict is reached, you will be kept in the Chambers. If your verdict is guilty, you will remain in the Chambers for the duration of your sentence. You do not have the right to speak to the Council. You do not have the right to challenge the Council. You do not have the right to invoke witnesses that are not called by the Council. Provided that you accept to be subjected to corrective procedures, you have the right to sustenance and sleep during your incarceration. The Council’s decision is final”.

Jasper hung his head in a display of surrender. “I understand”, he mumbled through his teeth as he stood up. The other peacekeeper began approaching for the arrest. As he was closing in, the first one turned Jasper around to handcuff him. Jasper clenched his heart-shaped locket in the palm of his hand, and turned his head sideways so that his captor could hear him. “But you must understand too”.

With a rapid movement, he crouched and moved his body outside the peacekeeper’s grasp. He locked his own arm around that of his captor and swiftly twisted it to turn the electric tip against the peacekeeper’s exposed neck. With yet another lightning move, he turned his torso sideways, bringing his combatant’s skin in contact with the rod. His unconscious body thumped to the ground amidst the smell of seared flesh.

His partner’s screams penetrated the uneasy stillness of the nightly curfew. “Halt! Halt immediately! Stop or you WILL be met with lethal force”!

He charged at Jasper like a bull in berserk, his electric rod set to the highest possible voltage level. As his hands were flailing, clutching onto the blackened ether for momentum, Jasper found his opening. He tossed the rod he had pulled from the other guard’s generously senseless hand to hit the assailant at his visor, temporarily blinding him through the shock before his eyes. With the precious few seconds he had bought, he sprinted past him and ran into an adjacent alleyway; but a dead end boxed him in.

A miser for time, he besieged the first door he could find with this shoulders, falling almost face-first to the floor as he shot it open. His eyes slowly constricted to adapt to the mellow candlelight and sedative scent of hyacinth in the room, dazzling him down from his heretofore adrenal senses.

“There’s no need to rush, friend”, said a softly-spoken voice. “The sermon is only just starting in a while”.

Jasper turned to face her. She was an indiscernible figure, dressed in a black cowl and robes, a dim blue light emanating from underneath them. There were a couple of others dressed like her as well, but the room was brimming with folks dressed pretty much like him; shirts, the occasional sweater, and just some normal trousers. The dim blue light, though; that emanated from every single one of them. He kept hearing the same chant: “Progress through order. Order through obedience. We look only to the future”.

Jasper’s heart was racing. The charm broke quickly enough. I need to get out of here.

The cowled woman looked at Jasper’s clenched fist and noticed the chain hanging from inside it. Noticing the absence of light, she asked, “Is your Pendant broken, friend? We can repair it for you, just in time for the Service too”.

Jasper stuttered as he rummaged through his head to find some words to say. “No it’s… it’s nothing. I can do it myself, it’s honestly nothing”.

“Ah, a technician then?”, she inquired, fixing her gaze on Jasper’s hand as she scanned it for clues. “No, a… Janitor? I can’t see clearly. Did you scratch your hand on the job?”.

Jasper’s jaw widened momentarily as he gulped down what seemed to be the last of his composure. “Uh, yeah… Yeah, I did. Just a minor accident but I’ll have it fixed”.

“Your supervisor should have fixed it immediately. You can’t walk around classless”, the woman persisted. “Let me see your hand”.

Jasper pulled back. “Listen, it’s honestly nothing”.

All eyes were now on him. He could try and control the tone of his voice, but he could not control his copious sweating. Her ears now deaf to what he had to say, the woman tenaciously grabbed his wrist and asked him to open his hand. The “MP” on the back of hers gave away that she was a Magistrate’s Priestess.

Jasper used what little energy he had left to resist. He tried to look into the priestess’ cowl, but he could not discern much other than her fine garnet eyebrows and honey-spotted green iris. As if entering a trance, his grip loosened; he squinted his eyes and tilted his head sideways, ever so slightly. His mouth was moving, but he was not saying anything.

The priestess slowly pulled her cowl back. Then, almost as if only just realizing her frustration, she snatched the locket from Jasper’s hand in a furious gesture. He did not react. A puddle of tears formed atop his bottom eyelid. His mouth was opening even wider in confusion as his brows pushed upwards and against each other, desperately looking for answers to a cryptic question.

“He’s the fugitive we’ve been warned about. Call the Peacekeepers!”. She turned her head back to face him. “And make sure he doesn’t run away again”.

As the mob stormed a disoriented, almost paralyzed Jasper, the priestess walked away from the crowd and stood in front of the altar glass. Her reflection rose above the candles prancing in the background, and she opened the heart-shaped locket.

It was a picture of a man and a woman. Marred by the beating as he was, Jasper did not resemble that man anymore. But the woman… She had garnet straight hair and playful freckles on her cheeks, with almond-shaped green eyes, infused with an exuberance of shades of yellow. Save for the wrinkles which had marked it, the reflection was just the same as the woman in the picture.

She pulled it out. There was a note in the back. To Jasper: Here’s to five more years of us. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love you. -Claire.

A group of three peacekeepers, among them the one Jasper had blindsided just minutes prior, entered the sermon room. The priestess quickly turned her head around, almost in disagreement with her body which wanted to stay put. She looked at the peacekeepers top to bottom, then at an unkempt Jasper who was almost beaten to a pulp and unable to stand on his own. She nodded in a reluctant, yet abrupt gesture, for them to take him away. Once they were out of the door, she turned to the crowd.

“Let us gather to praise our Magister, friends. Our past does not matter and we shall not pursue it. We look only to the future, for progress is the only thing that matters – and progress is not found in the past”.