It was a Friday

It was a Friday. The authorities said that people had to remain indoors – for their own safety you understand – unless they needed food or medicines. Or the permitted amount of exercise. Most people obeyed the authorities, but some didn’t.

On that Friday some had ventured out early. They knew that was the best chance of finding food and avoiding contact with other people. The authorities forbade contact with other people unless it was essential. Though no one really understood what that meant.

The authorities permitted people to take exercise. And early that Friday some people took the opportunity to exercise. But an hour at most. And you had to exercise on your own or with a family member. But you had to keep moving. You couldn’t stop and sit on a park bench and soak up the spring sunshine. That wasn’t permitted by the authorities. Walk, run, cycle, but don’t stop. Keep moving. Don’t linger. Keep going. Keep moving.

The authorities liked to see the streets empty. They liked to see the public spaces empty. The authorities would have preferred it if everyone stayed indoors all the time – for their own safety you understand. But that wasn’t practical. Hence the grudging allowance of shopping and exercise or urgent medical appointments.

As it was, early on that Friday morning, very few people were on the streets when the authorities took a man through the streets of the city to a piece of waste ground in a suburb you were wise to avoid. That’s what the authorities did nowadays. “Don’t take them to a police station. It’s safer outside. Away from prying eyes”

Had anyone been around to see the man being taken away by the authorities, they’d have been surprised that he didn’t resist. He went peacefully. He didn’t shout. He didn’t spit in the soldiers’ faces. He didn’t curse. He went peacefully. “Led like a lamb to the slaughter” as the old saying had it.

The man being led by the authorities must have known what fate awaited him on the waste ground. Everyone knew that if the authorities took you to the waste ground you didn’t come back alive, if you came back at all. The authorities had ways of making trouble and troublemakers disappear.

There on the waste ground, early on a Friday morning, the authorities set about their work. Their work of finding out answers. Their work of teaching a lesson. Their work of punishment.

And there on the waste ground, the waste ground in the suburb you avoid, the man who had helped the authorities with their enquiries, died.

The authorities arranged for his body to be buried, without honours, in an unmarked grave.