CHAPTER III

Saying “Slade’s country” feels boring now, so I should name it.

You must understand that all earlier and future events have been made up by me, just like you sometimes make things up. Here is where we are different; it becomes real whenever I make something up. The same cannot be said about you, at least not here. Here, you can only observe.

I am going to name the country Nonce Republic. Nonce used to have many meanings, including “a stupid or worthless person.” But I have changed the word’s meaning since I can do whatever I want. It now refers to the third-world country where Slade lived; hence, Nonce Republic does not refer to a country governed by stupid and worthless people!

Slade saw a man in a black uniform and a black beret. He was with an old gun with signs of rust on it. Slade shook his head in dismay as his vehicle passed slowly by.

Slade remembered his parents telling him he had been in school since he was about 7 months old. He wondered why people wanted kids so much, only to dispose of them after a short while.

Schools were supposed to be places where kids were taken to become more intelligent and to learn more about how the world worked… But sometimes, they were brainwashed. Here is an example:

Teachers wrote on blackboards using something called chalk. Chalks were made from limestone. Limestone was a type of rock called sedimentary rock.

Those poor kids believed the lie. Not the part about rocks, for that was true, but the part about the police being their friends and all… Slade also thought it accurate as a kid, but not anymore.

Slade remembered something that happened when he was thirteen years old. It was one-fifteen in the morning, and he was supposed to be asleep. Each person was supposed to be doing something specific at a particular time and age. It was as though their lives were being controlled just like they controlled robots! Those who refused to behave like robots were deemed recalcitrant.

Robots were intelligent mechanical beings designed to look like humans or other creatures and were usually made from metal. Humans built them to carry out tasks for them.

Humans were also designed, but they usually argued about who or what created them.

Anyway, humans were not robots-although, some humans thought they were in a simulation and that beings of higher dimensions controlled them-but, they did behave like one!

I will neither confirm nor deny my status as a god or as a being or a higher dimension. Neither will I confirm to what extent I have power to other the steps of my creation once I've made them!

Stars fascinated Slade. He was trying to see how many he could count before sleeping. He estimated about fifty-three the previous night and was about to begin when he noticed some movements in front of him. It was at the neighbour’s house next door. He could see the house clearly through his window.

He observed for about 30 seconds when he noticed that the people moving had masks on. Thieves! He thought. He had heard a lot about them. He rushed to his parent’s room to tell them about what he had seen. When his parents got to his room to look, the thieves were no longer outside, but they could hear some noise coming from their neighbour’s house.

Slade’s parents did what citizens were supposed to do at such a time: they called the police. Some other people would have tried to confront the thieves, but Slade’s parents were not that brave or stupid (depending on whom you asked).

The thieves were done in twenty minutes and were out of the house. The police did not arrive until after two hours! They claimed the roads were so bad they could not get there in time! They then proceeded to ask Slade’s neighbours to support them with any amount of money they had so they could buy fuel which they claimed their vehicle was about to run out of! They also asked for money to help investigate the crime thoroughly, more than they would normally do!

They never caught the thieves.

Slade heard his parents talk about how the police were cowards and greedy and were not ready to make sacrifices for the people they were supposed to protect. At that point, Slade began to realise he had been lied to in school.

Slade thought again about when he was a kid. He remembered that the police used to stop vehicles at checkpoints. A handshake between the police officers and the drivers mostly followed this. Slade used to think that that was the police being friendly. He found out later that what he thought he knew was far from the truth. He began to call those types of handshakes “moneyshakes.” That was the police collecting bribes from people they were supposed to arrest or caution.

The nature of policing in Nonce was so terrible that even people who had all the necessary documents and had nothing to fear from the police still paid money to them once they asked to avoid any form of trouble that might arise from displeasing them.

Slade was in a vehicle with his parents and brother one afternoon when he saw the police threaten to shoot a driver if he didn’t come out of his car. They pointed their guns at him to show that they meant business. Slade was afraid, and he was shivering. His brother noticed and said, “Get your shit together; we will be all right.”

Shit here meant “wit,” and wit meant senses. Proper thinking results in organisation. But it was pretty hard even for some adults to think appropriately when someone might be killed before them.

Slade’s mother had repeatedly told both Slade and his brother to stop using vulgar words. This time, she only looked back and gave him a nasty look.

The driver, being threatened by the police, later heeded their request. He was hit on the head with the bottom of a gun, and while being dragged away from his vehicle, he screamed: “I have every document I am supposed to have as a driver, and I have no money to pay you crooks!”

According to Slade’s dictionary, a crook is a person who steals, lies, cheats, or does other dishonest or illegal things; a criminal…

The dictionary definition of a crook applied perfectly to the police in Nonce.

Slade came to the same conclusion about the police.