Tar and "Feathers"

    As if life weren't hard enough on the good side of main stream America, 2028, Adam Lutz peered from between the bars on the wagon he shared with about fifteen other unfortunates.  He looked past the jeering crowd and onto the storefronts and facades of downtown Palinburg, Minnesota.  It used to be Northfield, the town that had enthusiactically put an end to Frank and Jesse James' infamous crime spree one hundred and sixty years before, but had been rechristened as a tip of the hat to some new world order and its founder.  It was all a far cry from what Adam had known growing up in the seventies.  Outwardly Northfield/Palinburg was the picture of what had defined Middle America.  Now it could have been Middle Earth.  Minus the magic.

    They were passing one of the many suicide parlors, an idea Adam had thought ridiculous when they were first introduced.  Now he was starting to see the sense in them.  They were meant mainly as a tool for population control, or a way out for those who felt they could no longer contribute--or those who didn't like the new way of things.  The administration had lobbied long and hard to remove (legally, at least) the stigma of taking your own life.  They had campaigned for it almost as hard as they had for repealing term limits for "public servants".

    Adam returned his attention to the wagon and to his fellow ne'er-do-wells who all looked at least as sullen as he felt and who all sported a placard around their necks emblazoned with an "S".  Adam's was black on a white background.  It stood for "Smoking", though the pronouncement was hardly necessary seeing how he was already covered from head to toe in a viscous black goo.  Tar from the cigarette he had deigned to smoke in secrecy (he thought) a week ago in his own apartment. 

    You see, nobody smoked anymore.  In this enlightened land, it was less a choice than a proclamation.  Officially this archaic habit had been banned in all corners of society...Indoors and outdoors, in all spaces public and private.  They had trained a generation of school children to report any and all infractions, be it their friends, their teachers, even their own parents.  It was a moral obligation.  All of it now was about moral obligation.  To health, to the environment, to future societal prosperity.

    He had taken every precaution so as not to get caught.  He had obtained his smokes on the sly--from out of state and thoughtfully packed in coffee grounds to conceal any scent from the dogs, cordoned off a smoking room, sealed his windows with duct tape, he'd draped what furnishings couldn't be removed with plastic dropcloths to prevent absorption of any odor, rigged up an empty toilet paper roll by stuffing it full of fabric softener sheets to serve as a sort of ciggy silencer, blowing drags through which would dissipate the smell adequately enough.  He had even dismantled his federally mandated smoke detector (a felony) giving himself somewhere in the neighborhood of ten minutes before the Bureau came knocking to find out why the signal had been interrupted.

    All of it had been for naught.

    Turns out the tobacco in the cigarettes contained a genetic modification which caused it to deliver on the outside of a user what was normally delivered internally, and further, to draw toxins already present to the surface.  With each puff Adam took, dollops of tar erupted from his skin.  He tried to wipe them off but managed only to smear it.  Even a trip to the bathroom and a furious attempt to wash away the evidence was met with failure.

    The nightly public service announcements had been heralding a new weapon for combatting "the continuing plague of nicotine abuse".  This was it.  They had pledged to "out those who would flaunt the greater good in private".  And they had.  Adam Lutz's epiphany had cost him precious moments and someone began hammering at his door.  The Bureau!  They had come to investigate the smoke detector.

    "You're pathetic!"

    "I hope you die!"

    He was back in the wagon cage with the other crooks, being paraded through town with the "stained".  There were other smokers, certainly, black "S", white background, but this ride was by no means limited to that minority.  Dark blue "S":  Sodomy, pink "S":  Sexual Deviance, red "S":  Stealing...

    Strangely, whatever the crime, there was a different colored "S" for it.  Perhaps due to budget cuts, no telling, but somehow calling murder, "smurder" kind of took the edge off of it.  Adam managed to smirk at the thought.  Beyond that, he failed to see any humor in this situation.  They were being carted off to be reeducated.  Berated in the meantime.  Scoffed at by passersby who, by sheer odds would be taking this same ride.  Just a matter of time.

    "Bureau!  Open up."  They would hear it as Adam had.  And then it went something like this:

    "Bureau?"

    "Yes!  Bureau.  The Bureau.  You know good and god damned well who we are!"

    "There's no trouble here."

    "We'll determine that.  Open up."

    His mind racing, Adam pressed his back against the door as if he were attempting to hold back some deluge on the other side of it.

    The knob rattled.  "Open this door now!"

    "I...I..."  There were no words.  Helplessness was overtaking him and Adam slid down the door, leaving a nasty black streak like some giant, smoky slug trail.  The door thumped as the Bureau tried to force it.  There was another thump and Adam's helplessness turned to desperation.

    "I have a hostage!"  He cried as he pushed himself off of the door and faced it as if he actually did.

    The thumping stopped and there was some muted commotion in the hallway.  Doubtless they had taken some defensive stance out there, and then a voice.

    "Look, it doesn't have to be like this."

    Lies.

    The voice continued.  "If you unhand the hostage, no one will get hurt."

    More lies.  When the Bureau burst through that door someone was definately getting hurt, and it was no mystery who it was going to be.  That wouldn't be the end of it, either.

    "Let's talk about it, Adam."

    They'd talk him right into the interrogation room...

    "We're here to help you."

    Probably torture a confession out of him...

    "We can work this out."

    Then whisk him off to a reeducation camp.  He should have taken advantage of the suicide parlor.  Either way he was coming out of this a dead man.

    Simultaneously, a window shattered behind him and the door splintered before him.  He threw his blackened arms skyward.  His time was up.

    As if life weren't hard enough on the good side of mainstream America, 2028.