They said it would all be over.
Or at least that's what we thought. It seems that things have been the same for years and nothing has been done to stop it. No one has stepped up or stepped out. Not a thing. Sometimes I question human nature. Sometimes, though, it seems natural, almost as if no one can do anything about it, or maybe there isn't anything to be done in the first place. I don't know. The world around us seemed to change so fast. Almost as if it was meant to be. And yet most people don't even know the reason why or how it happened. I think of it as evil intent. The suffering of others. Taking everything from everyone, throwing them in stockades, making them think pure necessities are privileges. They kept us from everything that we wanted and limited what we needed. They especially kept us from freedom and choice. Schedule. Schedule. Schedule. The routine of the day, get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, work in kitchen, work in the factory, work, work, eat lunch, work, work, work, eat dinner, work, work, work, work, sleep. Same everyday. And if we broke it, we were punished. Lots of people were gone, picked off, missing, or away. But we knew what happened to them. We all just had to live day after day, until it was over.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, one of our rare "free times", if you consider being in an 80' by 80' courtyard surrounded by barbed wire "free". The cracked concrete on the ground boiled as heat jumped off of it. The sun beamed down on the courtyard mercilessly. There was no shade. Nothing to do either. There were concrete benches pushed up against the fence. A single tree sat in the middle of the courtyard, its shadow too small for shade. Two people sat facing the fence looking out into the yellowy-white desert landscape, distorted by the heat of the hot day. They leaned back until their heads touched the ground behind the bench. Slowly turning, they both rolled off the bench and lied flat on either side of it. Staring at the gray sky. Without hesitating. The first one sat swiftly up, and reached out to touch the fence. Coming within a centimeter of touching it, he stopped, pulled back his hand and stood up. The second person stood up as well. I watched as they approached the tree in the middle of the courtyard. Their feet stopped right before sliding underneath the shadow. One person whispered to the other. Immediately he took a step backwards, shook his head and the walked away. The other person remained standing there and then faced the tree. Then he  took a step forward, reached out with one hand and jumped up the tree. He was climbing it. There was a scuffle of the guards and then several of them came running through the gates to pull him down and out of the tree. They grabbed him by the leg and thrust him down hitting him with batons and then dragged him through the gates and into the building that stood next to the courtyard. That was one of the big restrictions, no climbing. No one else would have dared to try something like that, especially not me.

A few minutes later a bell came on over the loudspeaker. For a moment everyone looked up and then shifted their view towards the ground as they stood up. I did the same. We all walked through the gates and down to the factories. Huge industrial warehouses of material, metal, wood, plastic, and so on. It was our job to move the material to the other locations to be manufactured. All day everyday thats what we did, move things. Get in lifters and move wood. Get in cranes and move metal. Carry plastic. I usually used the lifter to move wood to the saw mill to be cut. Some days were different though, I sometimes carry plastic, but people like me are not permitted to use the crane, the younger ones. Only the best people can do that. When we reached the warehouse there was three men standing on a platform waiting for something. That something happened to be us. We all halted and stood perfectly still as they circled around us looking for anyone who doesn't deserve to be there. They grabbed a few people who appeared weak or tired and then left. The rest of us continued to move. I jumped up onto the lifter and drove it to the pile of chopped down trees. Scooped a couple of  them up and then began to make my way down to the saw mill. The only relaxing time was driving the lifter from the warehouse to the sawmill. Even though the seat was metal and you had to keep one hand tightly clutching the ignition swich, it was the most relaxing thing you could do. It didn't take long to drive there with the trees. I flipped the switch that dumped the trees and watched as they went up the conveyer belt. I turned around the vehicle and drove it back. It was unsettling looking up and seeing fifty guards staring at you every second. There were more guards than usual that day, it seemed as though they were watching everyone closer, as if something was wrong or threatening them. At that time I had no idea. For the rest of the day I worked moving things back and forth between the buildings. I was walking down the ramp after getting off the lifter and stowing it. We were not supposed to talk until free time. From behind me I heard a voice.
"Hey," I tried to ignore it until I responded
"What?"
"Do you know why these guards are always watching us?"
"People like you, talking when you not supposed to,"
"You don't know do you?"               
"Know what? Of course not, no one ever talks to me,"
"It’s over," I began to slow down as the man passed me without even glancing.

Later that night we walked to the mess hall for dinner before more work and then off to the housing to sleep. We approached the door just as it began to open and we flooded in. It was just getting dark. We pushed our way in to get to the front. We all wanted food, but sometimes we didn't get it. Most of us gave it to someone who needed it. I for one usually got my share in time. This time we arrived late. We pushed our way through the crowd of people and grabbed a bag of food. It was the same thing every night. Bland tasteless mush, all thrown into a bag. I walked over to find an empty seat at one of the splintery wooden tables. As I walked around I saw the man who spoke to me earlier in the day. There was an empty seat across from him. I rushed over there to get it and then sat down. He gave me an odd stare as if I was crazy.
"What do you want?" he said in a low voice
"What do you mean over?"
"This is not the place to talk about this, be quiet,"
"No, I need to know what you mean, just speak quietly." The man glanced around the room searching for guards watching. He then turned and faced me.
"Wait here," He stood up and walked towards a group of people leaning against a wall. He whispered to them for a moment, they all glanced at me. He walked back over to his seat and then sat down.
"Do you consider yourself secretive?" he squinted
"Not really, sure I keep secrets but lots of people do," I looked confused. The man leaned back and exhaled.
"Just about everyone in this room knows what's happening tonight"
"What do you mean?"
"They said I could tell you. I mean, earlier I thought you knew, but we are ending this tonight."
"Why didn't I know, but everyone else did?"
"We only told people we knew, and they told people they knew, you must not know anyone or someone would have told you."
"Guess not, I don't talk to people that much."
"I got that from our conversation earlier," the man stood up and turned around about to walk away.
"Wait," I said stopping him in his tracks "How will I know what to do; what are you doing?"
"You'll see what to do,"He started to walk away again,"Just be ready at twelve tonight" He walked away and disappeared in a crowd of people. I opened my bag of food and began to eat it. By then all I was thinking about was what they were planning. We all then stood up to work again. The doors opened and I walked outside into the chilling air and darkness.

Near the end of our last work session of the day I kept thinking that this is the last time I have to move wood back and forth between the warehouses. After taking the last load of wood the the warehouse, I was stopped by guards. They approached me with batons and lights.
"Get out of the vehicle," one of them yelled. I immediately got out and stood next to it. Another guard walked up next to me and smacked the back of my knee with the baton forcing me to the ground. They started searching the lifter for anything that I might have.
"Alright, your vehicle may be clean, but you are still dirt," they kicked dirt upwards on to me before leaving. I got up off the ground and walked to the housing. Even though things were grim, we still had something to hope for. Something that would come after tonight.

The large steel doors to the housing swung open and I limped to my bed, my legs still sore and bruised. I laid down in the bed and closed my eyes, waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I suddenly woke up from rattling. Several people were waking others up while trying to be quiet. It was time. I jumped out of the bed and landed hard on my legs. The bruises still ached. The steel doors were locked from the outside with there was no way out. Someone on the other side of the room motioned for help. I ran towards them.
They pointed towards a large metal bench in the back and we ran over to it. We began to push it and reveal a small crudely cut hole in the side, just large enough for someone to fit through. The man squatted down and crawled through silently. I did the same. Soon everyone was out of the building. The guards seemed to not be out at the time, however we all expected the worst. The last person out of the building carried all the thin sheets from the beds. Two others helped him carry them. We all ran towards one of the warehouses, a large open one. After everyone had safely gotten in, we waited. Moments went by while nothing happened. Then finally a man walked in.

"The cameras are down, lets go," he spoke in a hushed voice, then left. We all followed him. When we exited the building there were dozens of other groups of people, waiting. We all moved together. We came across guards laying limp on the ground, beaten by the people who they beat. We all gathered at the front gates to the courtyard. The large, rusty, barbed, spiked, locked gates appeared to be immense in our presence. The lock was turned and pushed open, the gates swung open with the push of a button. we all ran towards the edge of the courtyard. To the fence. Barbed and spiked, hovering over us as if there was no way out. How, I thought, how would we get over this? Then I remembered the men with the blankets. They came running from the back and up to the fence. Everyone moved out of their way and made room. They threw sheet after sheet over the 20 foot fence until all the barbs were covered. Then they tied the blankets together and made a rope, threw that over and began to climb. As soon as the first person lifted a foot, the alarm sounded. Everyone scrambled. I lunged towards the fence, and grabbed on. The barbed wires were still there and I could still feel a sharp pinch, but the sound of guards was motivation enough. Everyone flooded on to the gate and began to climb. As we climbed, the fence sloped and bent. There were so many people at the top that the rings bent and the fence broke, falling to the ground, cutting my legs, but allowing everyone to flood out. The guards arrived too late. They began to shoot their guns at everyone. I jumped from the fence just as a bullet came towards me, missing me by a foot.
I landed on the desert ground and ran. Everyone did. The guards continued to shoot. I had made it, but for a second, just a second, I doubted. It was gone. All the emotions had left me and the fear was gone, replaced with a new feeling. For the first time in years, I felt joy, happiness. No anger, no pain. Most of all, as soon as my feet hit the desert ground I felt freedom. We were all free.