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the other side
5 April 2006 15:11I had a dream last night that I was a member of the special police force in the extreme military dictatorship of China. I had a strip of red stickers and one of green stickers, and if I red stickered someone's store, it would lose all its business, and the people inside would be carted away. If I put a red sticker on a person, they were as good as dead. If I put a green sticker on a place, it would remain unmolested, and if I put a green sticker on a person, they were to be left alone by the travelling random brute squads. We were allowed to use them with impunity.
I'm not sure I was a member of the genuine task force, I didn't speak any Chinese. Nor was I Chinese. Everyone I met talked to me in accented English, but I got the feeling that if I met a contingent of special police and they talked to me in Chinese and I couldn't understand them/speak it back, I was as good as red-stickered. My 'beat' was a small strip of sort of carnival like proportions. There was a man who built wooden carousel horses--I had to red-sticker his shop for some reason, probably because he was being a dick to me, and I had to keep up the pretense of being a real member of the special police who was actually supportive of the regime. He begged me to take it away, but I knew if I did, they'd catch me and kill me for being a revolutionary, so I had to leave it there. The next time I came back, the whole space was empty--they even took the horses. One time I had to red-sticker an entire alleyway. Gone.
And I'm pretty sure I was operating by myself--I didn't have any allies or anyone to call, I was just doing it.
I eventually get a list of people and their locations in the governmental prison, a kind of map. And then I knew that my last act as I guess a revolutionary under cover was to free these people. They were all from my strip too, and I knew I'd promised earlier to free them if they ever got put in prison. It was written in purple or blue crayon on college rule paper. I was getting ready to. Then I woke up.
I'm leaving out the dirt, grime, senseless violence, extreme fear of being caught and not being able to do my job, sorrow at having to hurt and possibly cause the deaths of all these people and that I couldn't tell them that I was really on the side of the revolution or I'd be compromised. Some hated me, some tried to bargain with me for their own life in exchange for lists of supposed revolutionaries, some yelled insults and got carted away, some slipped me loaves of bread in exchange for a green sticker for their family house.
Interestingly enough, we talked about military dictatorships in my Latin American Women Writers class today.
I'm not sure I was a member of the genuine task force, I didn't speak any Chinese. Nor was I Chinese. Everyone I met talked to me in accented English, but I got the feeling that if I met a contingent of special police and they talked to me in Chinese and I couldn't understand them/speak it back, I was as good as red-stickered. My 'beat' was a small strip of sort of carnival like proportions. There was a man who built wooden carousel horses--I had to red-sticker his shop for some reason, probably because he was being a dick to me, and I had to keep up the pretense of being a real member of the special police who was actually supportive of the regime. He begged me to take it away, but I knew if I did, they'd catch me and kill me for being a revolutionary, so I had to leave it there. The next time I came back, the whole space was empty--they even took the horses. One time I had to red-sticker an entire alleyway. Gone.
And I'm pretty sure I was operating by myself--I didn't have any allies or anyone to call, I was just doing it.
I eventually get a list of people and their locations in the governmental prison, a kind of map. And then I knew that my last act as I guess a revolutionary under cover was to free these people. They were all from my strip too, and I knew I'd promised earlier to free them if they ever got put in prison. It was written in purple or blue crayon on college rule paper. I was getting ready to. Then I woke up.
I'm leaving out the dirt, grime, senseless violence, extreme fear of being caught and not being able to do my job, sorrow at having to hurt and possibly cause the deaths of all these people and that I couldn't tell them that I was really on the side of the revolution or I'd be compromised. Some hated me, some tried to bargain with me for their own life in exchange for lists of supposed revolutionaries, some yelled insults and got carted away, some slipped me loaves of bread in exchange for a green sticker for their family house.
Interestingly enough, we talked about military dictatorships in my Latin American Women Writers class today.
