THE PRESENT

I squirm. I cannot sleep. I keep having nightmares of what my dreams will be. That I will not be able to feign long enough and be sentenced to death, that we will not be able to carry out our coup d’état. I am continuing the work of a generation and the weight of our plan causes me to shiver. I know I’m not alone but tomorrow in that test room I will be. I wonder if we’re truly ready. If I’m truly ready.

My name is Luz and I am part of the resistance. Let me tell you about how our society is structured after the fall of a farce representative democracy in 2020. We make decisions based on our collective dreams, our collective aspirations. We chose this path decades ago- it was the cry of the old resistance. “Let our dreams shape society, let our aspirations be the future!” My ancestors fought for this. They couldn’t have imagined what their dream would become.

A group of rebels back then decided to work with a group of techies. Techies were people who worked for surveillance companies of the ruling class. Together they designed a new technology that could reveal someone’s biggest dreams and their true aspirations. This new technology could sift through the uploaded data and design a society (economy, laws, culture, systems like education, health care) based on a common denominator. It seemed foolproof, would do away with the labor and stress of a representative democracy and let all of us participate in shaping our world. The government’s role would be simply administrative.

The idea was simple: At the age of 16 each everyone would be subjected to the Dream Reader. Our dreams would update as our consciousness does- creating the potential for fast changes to take place. Our ancestors fought for this technology. Many ancestor activists and organizers died in the struggle, with the richest powers attempting to shut down the project each step of the way. But the insecurities created by capitalist alienation pushed people in the millions to subject to the Dream Reader. People felt they were spinning their wheels in the dark in their 40-70 hour workweeks, many feeling a lack of meaning. The promise of seeing your dreams and aspirations was enough for people to betray party lines and take a risk.

They won and Dream Reader became our compass. Things improved quickly. Our imagination was young and immature, got rid of hourly wage for living salaries across the board, work-hours decreased, schools were reshaped, fast food places were replaced with healthy food choices, homelessness was abolished. The imagination of the majority was focused on improved conditions- the “American Dream”.

But the powers of the world wasted no time in striking back. They invested in a drug called ImagiEnhancer. This new drug promised to connect you with your ancestors and inner child; open up the possibilities of your imagination to help your dreams bring you increased health and wealth. As always they co-opted our language and got us to self-harm. The drug was addictive, and instead of opening the imagination it closed it. It kept people from imagining things that did not yet exist. By the time we realized the funding source it was too late. Many progressive alliances had purchased and distributed the drug, hoping it would take the place of all the grassroots organizing that would be required to move our collective imagination to justice.  

Fast forward to today, Dream Reader is now a tool of the oppressor. They use it to measure the resistance in each of us to coordinate political executions and keep the “peace”. If your dreams and aspirations don’t fall in line with the conservative regime you are first sent to electroconvulsive therapy and if that leaves you too fucked up you end up on the electric chair.            

ImagiEnhancer is now in the vaccines we receive as newborns. Only those of us immune to the drug have the capacity to resist the backwards vision implanted in us. Those of us in the resistance have trained ourselves to control our dreams for when we are plugged in at 16. We have Dream Boot camps in hidden parts across the country where we teach the immune how to trick Dream Reader. Our philosophy is simple: if we are dead we can’t resist.

Tomorrow is the day of my test and I am restless. I have been preparing for years but I still fear. There is a loud knock on my door. As I get up to answer I see a red dot appear on my wall. Snipers! I duck and crawl as the shooting begins. The room so loud I can feel my ears ringing. Ramona bangs my front door open and signals for me to follow her. We have been discovered!