Escape
I’m standing in line with the other pasbies, just like I’ve done every day, three times a day, since I’ve been here. I know something’s about to go down. There’s a feeling in the air, adrenalin in the sweat, whatever it is I don’t know but if I was a dog I’d be barking and running away. As it is, I know better so I just stand in the line, holding my tray, waiting for food and for whatever it is to happen. There’s nothing else to do but wait.
Then, suddenly, there it is. In another line, behind me but in earshot, I hear a shout. We all do, for a moment the synchronised shuffling goes out of step as we all turn to look.
Its a fight. Through the passing whispers I work out what’s going on. Somone’s nicked the hat from someone else and now its vanished, of course it has. Hats are a valuable commodity, particulalry for working the fields. The bloke whose hat it was, he’s now screaming blue murder. You can tell by his face that he’s lost it, he’s reached the point where he doesn’t care what’s happening to him anymore. I’ve seen it before, we all have.
Nobody expected the law to go through, mind. Even as they were building the camps nobody thought they’d actually carry it through. But then came the first wave, targeted on London, Brimingham, Manchester and Glasgow. Overnight whole estates were just emptied of kids. Anyone with an ASBO, which in some places was all of them, was picked up, chucked in a van and taken to Camp One.
I was one of the second wave they pulled in. I went to Camp Three first, but then they worked out that they could be more efficient if they merged all the camps into one. By that time they’d proved it worked, and rigged the legal system. They must have done, otherwise how come none of us have ever left?