There. Right there. Can’t you see? Alongside the house, lying upside down and not looking too well. In fact, looking rather dead to me.

How long ago was it that you were in flight and feeling free with the sun on your wings and a song to sing so right at the ready? How long ago was it that you were just flitting about in search of food or perhaps new shelter? How long ago was it that your little bird heart beat and your life was still along for the ride?

Maybe less than a day.

But then you may have looked up just as you struck the window. Maybe not. Many have committed such an act before here at this house- our fault for the reflective nature of the panes selected. Mea culpa I suppose. Some have survived as if merely concussed (can so small a brain even be concussed?) while others have met their fate as they met the unyielding glass.

And each time it happens we are startled at the sound which is loud and quite intrusive I might add. That is when we are here to hear it here.

We are all somewhat disturbed while you, dear bird,well, you are either concussed or quite dead. It is so.

So sad but it happens so often that one might assume the word would spread not to do that any longer- “fly that way, too fast, over there, and you may die!” could be a warning spread but maybe bird creatures are more selfish than that or do not communicate among the species.

Funny, our cardinals never seem to smash into the windows- the females just peck at them in the belief that they are attacking a threat I suppose. Are they smarter fliers and just dumb peckers? Ah…

In any event our fake owls and hawks have done the trick to stop the pecking (and it makes a very bad bird saliva mess on our reflective window panes let me tell you) but not to limit the kamikazes.

Here today, dead tomorrow.

And then there is the foolish robin-like bird which rests upon the chimney pot and either stumbles (do birds stumble or trip?) or tips or is pushed into the flue and has little choice then but to go down along with gravity. These aren’t Harriers you know, they are birds. Okay, I suppose that a humming bird might figure out how to get out but this is a dumb robin-like bird. No offense intended but I’ve seen you all in action out there.

My dog hears it first, a-fluttering away in the flue just about the closed damper. At first I figure it is a rodent or squirrel but the fluttering of wings betrays the identity. Bird. Perhaps one of the crazy swallows that I had seen earlier buzzing the house.

But swallows never seem to smash into the windows and the purple martins we have nearby that buzz me as I mow the lawn on my trusty tractor are so controlled, so precise in flight (often just missing my bobbing head) that I figure neither would be stupid or careless enough to fall down a chimney flue.

Could be a bat. Oh crap, not a bat. We don’t even own a belfry.

All right, I kind of already told you what kind of bird it was but so what…leave me alone and just read on.

So what to do? Leave it and hope it figures a way to ascend the 25’ or more it managed to descend? Leave it and know that it will die but likely stink to high heaven? I suppose if it died we could light a roaring fire and roast it but our smoke detectors are set to respond to the smell of roasting avians. So then you’d have smell AND noise.

No, I must secure a method to secure its release, dead or alive.

Oh the ideas that come to mind but the best are not possible as I just don’t have the material or the time to implement them. And still the poor winged creature flutters noisily while my canine searches her own brain I suppose for a method to get past the fire screen and up into that chimney to see just what it is that teases her so and maybe eat it first and ask questions later.

I must release it and then re-capture it in order to set it free. Somewhat of a cruel approach as the poor creature, at once ecstatic upon its release, might be a bit upset again upon re-capture. Still, it is for its own good yes?

No way to capture it though- just don’t have the right materials.

Think. Think. Think.

I know, I have it! Block off all of the exits from the room, open one window wide and then release the bird in the hope it will be smart enough, and not overly concussed, to find its way again to freedom. Will it work? Well, we’ll have to see.

All secured. Now to open the damper carefully and slowly. I don my leather fire gloves (don’t want to get pecked and, besides, don’t falconers wear leather gloves?) and have my trusty broom at the ready (figuring the startled creature will likely fly right at me upon release and that is then to be my Maginot Line of defense) as I lean in to open the damper. Be at the ready!

But I don’t open it slowly as dampers are heavy and difficult to open slowly. They are for me at least as I now know. Bam! Slammed open as always.

No noise; no response; no nothing. Just the sound of the happy birds through the wide open window. Convinced that the poor bird’s heart gave out sometime during this process or that I smashed it to death with the damper (that would put a damper on things, so to speak) I move to close the opened window as I am now fearful of a kamikaze bird from OUTSIDE flying right on past the missing target and into the room and maybe then UP the chimney. (At least I thought enough to shut the dog up into another room.)

But then I hear it- new fluttering from the flue and life! I quickly re-open the window and step back. I begin to speak as if that might give the addled critter a sound to target. I wait, but not for long.

At once I hear a louder and frantic flutter of frantic wings as the robin-like bird blasts forth from the fireplace and into the room- freedom! It starts straight across the room toward me but then, as if by plan (my plan of genius!), it appears to detect the call of the outdoors and its friends and enemies alike and does an amazingly quick u-turn in mid-air and flies toward and out the open window to freedom!

Freedom.

I quickly close the window and wish the creature the best of luck in the days ahead. Hopefully it won’t turn all kamikaze as a result of its near-death experience.

So a tale of two birdies. One alive and one not so much so.

It is instructive and sobering to think that you can be flying, free and easy, and turn to see- or maybe not see- the instant of your final demise. On the other hand you can fall hard and become trapped in what seems to be your final demise and face the internal terror of that imprisonment only to find, completely unexpectedly, that you have been released to fly free again. Death and freedom are funny that way.

I guess you just never know.

And there it went, in what seemed a flash.

Divide and conquer is surely a time-tested strategy that often always works. It pays to stick together it seems.

Once upon a time, maybe in the way-out west, there lived a country that housed some people who once believed in limited government and personal freedoms. The folks who ruled them indeed did not share these beliefs.

Such new and alien concepts were sacrosanct to them, so much so that the people chose to enact and protect those beliefs with a covenant that they called a “constitution.” And they signed up to make it so.

It was a very original and, at the time, very radical approach to forming a government that they begrudgingly knew must exist in order for them to preserve and protect their little country from those who would destroy it from without.

But then something happened. While the little country grew and became prosperous, time after time succeeding indeed in protecting itself from those who would work to destroy it from without, there arose a movement that sought to weaken and ultimately destroy it; from within. And no one knew why this would be so very much desired.

No one could actually and easily see just how this came to pass as it came to pass quite slowly and over time, based upon ideas of progress as envisioned far across the sea and far away from the place on this earth where this country resided.

The educators began to instill what the politicians and social proponents would strive so hard to enshrine completely. And still, few of the non-educated would take notice.

Until it was too late to turn back the tide, that is. It flooded over the poor little country in a flash. Some wiser voices rose in protest but it was by then far too late.

Government was expanded until it began to control every part of the people’s lives.

Programs were begun and expanded in the name and guise of social justice.

Minority positions took complete precedence over majority ones and special factions were stitched together politically to form an increasingly belligerence consensus.

Voters, while voting was still allowed, were found wherever and however possible. Thus remained in place the guise of a free republic, or, at the very least, the appearance of an open democracy.

Organizations that once worked as counter-balance and even ballast against the pounding waves of change-for-the-sake-of-change were attacked and ultimately disallowed and summarily dismantled.

This went straight to religious groups, youth organizations, opposing political parties, conservative educational institutions, and even so far as the family structure that had garnered the little country so well and for so long.

And there was often the evil specter of what was called capitalism which was savagely attacked, along with its resident organizations of large and small merchant businesses- corporations the large ones were called.

The community organization was formed but it was not so much a community as it was a stitching together of individuals who were only allowed to gather, to organize, to protest, and to speak out as so allowed by those in power and solely for the purpose of continuing the attack on the old and successful system.

Until those organizations were too no longer needed for any purpose and, at which point, they were also outlawed by decree.

Freedom had come and freedom had gone and in its place was rooted progress-for-the-sake-of-progress, taught at the youngest ages in what passed for schools, and later inculcated at the advancing ages in what passed for a freely chosen position in the community.

All that was needed was provided and when it was not available the definition of what was needed was simply changed so that it could still be satisfied by convenience by exactly what was provided. No more and officially no less.

No personal freedoms whatsoever remained; no right to speak freely; no right to arm oneself; no ability to teach other than that was allowed to be taught; no choice of a career or life calling beyond what was allowed and allocated; no ability to change was any longer allowed now that change had served the purpose for which it had been conjured up.

There was no God and there was no individual any longer.

The family unit was taken apart and trivialized in its importance until it no longer existed either. And this was the final and concluding death knell to what had been so long before.

And whether or not you were allowed to be born was based on the results of genetic analysis. Elimination became swift and easy and no longer objected to by anyone.

And when you were allowed to be treated for malady or disease was determined by a panel of the faceless and the nameless.

And where you were allowed to travel was indeed restricted. In fact most movement beyond that necessary to support the state was strictly prohibited.

And when the economics of things so dictated, the right to remain living beyond a certain point was finally removed. Birth rates and death rates become a model of efficiency and their projections a symbol for institutional exactness and accuracy.

It was indeed not really much of a surprise that, in the end of things, the little country that had been overtaken from within was then overtaken from without.

And it became, as with the other such little and obedient countries a simple part of the global community that has presided over what remains there are of this now-fading and falling planet known as Earth.

Even that was no longer an issue of any significance as those who ruled determined that in order to save that planet from extreme devastation, unavoidable conflagration, inescapable inundation, and all subsequent ruination that the simple elimination of the human infestation would lead to self-saving desolation.

And so it was to be.

This story is really much longer than related here and there is so much more detail but the fact of the matter is that there are few who care to listen any longer and fewer still who choose to care at all.

And so it is.

I Wish to…

Dear America:

I live in another country but I know your language. I know it quite well. I know it perhaps better than most of your citizens and that is interesting if not rather sad. Why is that do you think?

I know your history and I feel that I know your people. In my mind I have walked to the edge of the Grand Canyon; I have stood before the silent figure of your Mr. Lincoln and felt his greatness all about me; I have walked the streets of your vibrant New York City and visited it’s many wonderful places; I have run into the waves crashing in on your beaches in the sunny states of Florida and California; I have driven a car from coast to coast and stopped, without papers needed, at all of the little towns and simple attractions across over 2000 miles; I have witnessed such openness and beauty in the endless fields and the many farms; I have cheered at your games of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and, yes, of course my own beloved soccer; I have traveled down your mighty rivers, climbed your lofty peaks, hiked your deepening forests, and sailed your greatest lakes; I have felt the freedom of selecting my own home to live in, of voting for the person of my own choosing, of being able to go where I choose and say what I feel. I have lived within you for all of my life and yet have never been able to bring myself, actually, to your welcoming shores.

Until now.

Now I have been given such a wonderful chance to finally depart the land of my birth, where I was born and raised with such restriction and such want and need that went always unattended. Now I have been given the opportunity to finally realize my deepest dream of coming to America.

But I do have some questions for you. I do have some concerns.

I have heard that some of my rights to speak out, to speak what is on my mind, will not be allowed; that the rules have been changed recently and no longer follow your wonderful Constitution. Is this true?

I have been led to believe that now a man, or a woman, is indeed treated according to the color of his or her skin but for different reasons than what so many died to help eliminate. Is it true that the balance of opportunities is no longer in balance and that people still separate on the basis of race and that this is done not by the people of no color but by those who would have one believe that slavery still exists? I thought this slavery was an evil thing and had been eradicated but it seems perhaps I was mistaken.

Is it now also true that the Christian faith, one that I have had to practice in strict and dangerous silence unless I wished to be executed, is now under more than a little oppression? That the only religious activities free from censor are those belonging to the Muslim faith? That Christian religious expression is now being censored by those who believe in something else and also those who believe in nothing else? Could this be true of a country that was founded in part to escape such censorship and persecution? Could this indeed be true of a country that was founded in large part based upon those Christian principles?

And I also understand that a man or woman must already possess power and resources beyond simple reason to be able to contend for and attain public office? How does this ensure that those with no means are properly represented in your representative republic?

Is what I see on your entertainment channels really what is being presented to and consumed by your impressionable young people? Do they really do these things and act this way?

Is it also true that I will not be allowed to decide where and how my children are to be educated and that your institutions of learning are now filled with the type of propagandists that I had hoped to leave behind me? And that they are actually more sinister and devious than the blatant and visible influencers that we have here in my country?

Is it a fact that your information outlets are now largely state aligned or controlled and that many efforts have been made to demonize or even outlaw those with a differing viewpoint or those who simply wish to report and relate the truth?

Is it in fact now true, my dear America, that your wonderful Constitution, the one I have managed to read over and over and over again, is being attacked and systematically dismantled?

Is it the truth that I will not be able to express my belief in a family that consists of one man and one woman who come together to have children whose upbringing and future are solely the responsibility of that man, that woman, and the children themselves when older? Is it true that your government is now so very intimately involved in how the children are taught, and fed, and treated, and influenced? Why would they wish to have such control and why would you move to allow it to happen? Dear, dear America…

Is it now a fact that I would be not allowed to express my opinions on things like your gay marriage laws? Or that I would be not allowed to be critical of your President because I would be accused of being what you call a racist? Or that I will be not allowed to have free choices regarding the medical treatments for me and my family since they would be controlled and allocated by appointed officials? Or that I would have no say in what is being taught to my children at their schools? Or that I would be called a sexist if I said that I did not believe in spending my tax monies on things like birth control and abortion? Or that my first and final position of employment would more than likely to be with one of your government institutions? Is it true that if I did not have work that I would be taken care of and all needs provided and how exactly do you do this? Or that I would be made to go through your strenuous but fair methods for gaining entrance to your country while those who have entered illegally will soon simply be stamped as citizens? And that more and more of the information coming to the citizens will be in alignment with and controlled by government officials? And that the strength of your military will continue to be constantly eroded even at a time when it seems it is likely to be needed the most?

Oh, these things I have been hearing of late my dear, dear America and these things have me worried beyond what you might imagine.

You see, many of these things are what already exist in my own country except for a few exceptions. Only one religion is allowed here and not believing is not a choice. Sexism does not exist as our women have no rights. Gay relationships are punished in the extreme- it is simply not even allowed. Freedom of expression is not allowed to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Economic opportunity is not available as only the very privileged are given the chance to succeed; they are actually guaranteed success though no one is allowed to openly discuss this fact. We have no free elections here. Life is allowed at the discretion of the state here- it is not guaranteed. Freedoms are not provided; allowances are.

Why have you done all of this my dear America? Why have you let your government grow so big and their influences to grow so strong and pervasive? Why have you put into power the people who only serve to move you and your country farther away from the basic freedoms once protected by the stewards of your wonderful Constitution? Why have you allowed and even coerced your religious beliefs and institutions to fade while allowing the decadent and demeaning segments of your culture to flourish? Is it all about money, power, and control? Why do you continue to allow your tremendous economy and entrepreneurial spirit to fall behind that of other, more oppressive, nations? Why do you work to subjugate yourselves to the whims and wishes of the lesser regimes that exist across this tarnished world? Where is that shining city on the hill that your Mr. Reagan described so beautifully when I was in my youth?

Why, my dearest America, why? I do not understand. Here, the all-powerful government, the leadership grants to us allowances; there, now, with you it is the people who are giving the allowances to the government so that it can grow large and devour what remains of your freedoms. Why, why..?

For now, I suppose that I will continue to live in the land of my dreams within the secret recesses of my mind. That America never changes. Staying here is not what I would have wished to do but at least here I know what we are, and that is terrible, but I can have some slim hope for what might come. From the depths of the pit even the slightest of light provides hope. With you, my dear America, I have seen in my mind and known in my heart what you have once been to me and the millions more like me, but I fear that I see, with little hope for any change, what is too soon to come. Why do you decide to descend into the pit from which so very many of us seek escape? Why?

Such a waste, such a travesty. You were the last, best hope of mankind my dear, dear America but it seems that you have decided not to be.

I hope my English was good enough…

I know no one is listening.  I know that no one can hear me here in the dark.  Still my voice continues in this silence.  Or at least in my own head it does.

I feel the walls as they seem to move closer all around each and every day.  I so very rarely see the sun and when I do it burns my eyes.  The darkness grows and I can no longer tell the difference between day and night.

My muscles used to ache but I really cannot feel them anymore.  They no longer work and they no longer ache.  I do not know how I am able to move from place to place within the smallness of this cell.

I do feel my bones.  I feel bones where I never knew any existed.  They do ache and they do make sounds that seem to me so loud to me trapped here as I seem to be in this too-small and too-dark and too-lonesome a space.

I know what they want.  They want me to simply give up, to finally give in.  They want me to stay quiet, to toe the line, to bring to silence any who would follow.

Why didn’t they just simply kill me and get it over with?  Well, I can only think that they wish me to suffer, that they desire me to serve as an example to others who would follow.

There is precious little time to pen this note before I am again confined to total silence and complete darkness.  I wish that a message from me might work to inspire those still awake who might be moved to action but I fear I have few words to so move those who remain.  I fear that nothing I might communicate would matter much anymore.  In the darkness my voice is silenced.

I feel the tear, the single tear, for that is all that I can produce in here, as it rolls so slowly down my face.  I might feel its sting if I could feel anything any longer.  I had such belief that I could make a difference, that there would be those who might be persuaded to rally to the cause but they never came.  They never came.  And now I am left alone here in this tomb, left to die and then rot away with everything I once believed in.

I wonder what happened to my children after they were taken from us.  I wonder what happened to my wife after our children were taken, after I was then later taken as well.  What happened to my wife and what happened to my life?

What happened to all that we were and all that we might become?

There was silence then and it merely grows stronger now as it surrounds and devours me.  Here alone.  Here in this tomb.  My tomb.

In my silence I know that they have won; I know that they have prevailed.  I know that I have failed and that all we stood for is now lost to time with so much else over the centuries.  Gone.

In my darkness I know that I have lost and that all that was attached to me is lost.  Gone.

Yet, somehow, somehow there remains a trace of what I once was.  Somewhere deep inside, in a place that is not yet still completely quieted or completely darkened, there still exists barely a spirit that will not die before me.  It awaits my imminent passing.

I suppose it is that small trace that they are still after..

I took a careful look through the stash he was showing me and from what I could tell everything looked good.  Still, as I was very unexperienced in such trades I was nervous and more than a little scared.

“So, kid, how’s it lookin?” the guy asked.  He wasn’t helping my nerves much.  He was very dirty and dressed in raggy clothes- I was at least somewhat clean- and he kept wiping his nose with the back of his hand.  It seemed to me that he had a drug problem although that was mostly illegal unless approved by the State.

“I, I dunno.  Looks ok I guess but I’m not sure.  Is it all here like I asked?”

“C’mon kid, I ain’t got all day.  Sure it’s all there.  Would I risk it?  Would I risk having you rat me out to the Greys?  I got a life to keep goin’ here and I need to survive.  You got the trade stuff?” he asked, appearing now a bit nervous himself.

“Yeah I got it in the box there” I answered, indicating the beat-up carry-box I had brought in order to help avoid suspicion if I was seen.  At one time I had heard you could be seen everywhere by the many electric eyes that had been set up everywhere.  But now, even though it was very illegal to do it many had been ripped out or destroyed by the Streeters.  The ones that remained often broke down or were not monitored around the clock as they had been in the gone days.  Only in the richer areas owned by the Inners were the eyes working and active and watched all the time.  For the most part they didn’t care about things down on the roads and in the alleys where we all were.

“Lemme see it, quick!” he grunted.

I pulled the box over and slowly opened it by my feet.  He looked inside.

“It’s all there” I said.  “It’ll last you a good couple weeks if you’re careful with it and don’t share none of it.”

“Great.  So, are we done?” he asked, again with a growing amount of nervousness.  Or so it seemed to me.

“Well, Jally said you were good for the stuff and that he trusted you so I guess so but I need to know where I can get something to, y’know, something to…”

“Put this in so you can use?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Look kid, that’s real tough to do.  They used to have them computers and some bigger players but they mostly disappeared.  And besides, they need power and even if you found one that worked and found someplace to plug it in that worked they would be able to detect it and track it and find you; maybe find me too.  They don’t watch the eyes much anymore but they are REAL worried about their power stashes” he explained as he rifled through the box which I had handed to him.

“So what can I do?  Tell me because I’m kinda new to this and don’t know” I tried to explain.

“Kinda new and kinda alone kid cuz nobody messes with this much anymore- they all just gave up.  But you seem kinda okay so I’ll tell you this.  Go up to the west end near what used to be called miller’s end, near the old broken down truckyard.  Ask around for a dude name of Banky.  He might be able to help you, find one of them old smaller players that used batteries.  But then you need to find some good batteries and you also need a set of them old wirephones you plug in to listen” he offered.

“Okay I’ll do that” I came back.

“Gotta run kid.  And remember you don’t know me and this never happened.  Don’t mention my name to Banky if you find him.  Just tell him you heard of him in the alleys and leave it at that.  Later kid” he said as he locked the box under his arm and ran off down the crumbled concrete of the narrow alley.  I noticed that he couldn’t wait though as I saw him quickly grab some of the trade stuff from the box and stick it in his mouth.  He must have really been hungry I imagined.

Now I had another challenge.  I had to get this other box of trade stuff back to the safe place.  Safe place- hah, I thought to myself, as if anywhere was safe.  The box was being loud as the devices inside rattled with each running step.  I tried to be careful as most of them no longer had cases.  I didn’t want to break anything even though I didn’t even know how any of them worked.

As I got closer to the safe place I thought about when I had first heard of these things from the old man.  They used to put music on these things and called them see-dees though I never learned what that meant.  People once were free to pick what they liked and buy it and then listen to it on a thing, what the old man and trader called a player.  But the old man told me that the Bosses one day began to listen and let some stuff be sold and some not be.  If they didn’t like what the music said or how it sounded they destroy it, everything, and the guys who made the music or the see-dee would be arrested on the spot so they all had to start being real careful.  And then the Bosses started to let some other groups help make the decisions in case something the music said was somehow offensive to them or someone they knew.  Or maybe they just didn’t like it for some reason.  Some of the see-dees were put out anyhow with the help of some of the underground people but even that stopped when the Bosses started arresting the people who they even thought might be involved and those people weren’t seen ever again so far as anyone who knew them ever knew- and no one who knew them ever had the guts to ask where they were.  So the players and then the see-dees disappeared and before long the music was gone as well.  There wasn’t no music anywhere that I had ever found.

I knew the moment the old man told me about all this that I just had to find out more for myself.  I had never heard about see-dees.  And I had never really known what music even was.  All I knew was what the old man had told me not long before he was taken away himself.

Now Open Closed for Business

There is a tale of a saloon in a small western town, somewhere.  The exact year is not known but it was some time ago.

Gathering inside this saloon were outlaws of many types but each of whom had committed at least some sort of petty theft or minor infraction within recent memory.  All were therefore, by the book, wanted by the law, even if just for vagrancy as prosecutable by the law.

It seemed though that this growing group of outlaws actually performed some services that were argued as being beneficial to the town.  Their very presence tended to scare off the local, wild natives, some of whom would, from time to time, come to town and cause some minor disturbances.  The group of outlaws might also be used when needed to perform certain labor functions that the good people of the town chose not to do themselves.

One day the sheriff, pressed by the townspeople to do something, entered the saloon and took a seat at a table and ordered a whisky.  As he slowly consumed his drink he thought long and hard about what to do- well maybe not so hard but definitely long as he ordered a second drink, on the house of course.  At that table the sheriff had an epiphany- he would allow the outlaw group to remain in the saloon, without prosecution or persecution.  It would be almost impossible to enforce perhaps but he would inform them that they must stay in the saloon in order to remain in the town.  He would also ask them their names and where they had come from though he would have no way to confirm their answers.  He would ask them also if they had been involved in any major crimes such as murder or arson or cattle rustling or the like but he had no way to confirm that either and, in any event, it would be a huge challenge he knew to effectively prosecute any who might admit to such a past transgression.  Still, if he just asked, the townspeople might be convinced he was doing his job.

It was a decision borne of pure genius he believed and solved many problems.  There were far too many of these outlaws for him to handle, to run out of town.  The owner of the saloon gladly took money from the group and did not wish to send them away as long as the mostly behaved.  Local businesses that used some of these outlaws to perform the functions that no one else in town would do were happy with the easy, cheap source of labor.  The town people in general were wary of such a presence but a number felt, like the sheriff, that allowing them to stay would be the best solution.  What harm could it do as long as they were made to stay in the saloon?

It came to pass that, after the sheriff’s decision, anyone committing any so-called petty or minor crime in the town could not be prosecuted or would not be prosecuted.  There were already so many such individuals at the saloon that it seemed best to just allow such transgressors to join the other transgressors.  Live and let live.

As word of this arrangement was passed out into the frontier more and more came to the town.  There really wasn’t much of an effort to keep anyone out or apply any of the vagrancy laws that had been so useful and effective in the past.  It was just too much work and, besides, as the sheriff thought, they might just help him to remain as sheriff if they knew they had his support.  And the saloon keeper loved the business.

These were not the same citizens who had founded and originally populated the town.  In fact they were not citizens at all but there soon some who argued that they should be.  Their motivations for doing so were unclear but may have been humane in nature, which was odd, for very few were taking a position that they should now be prosecuted- it seemed far too late for that- just simply sent away or in some way made to abide by the original laws as established in the town’s charter.

Over time, rather quickly really, the character and essence of the town changed.  The things that had once made the town prosperous and successful faded away and were replaced with new businesses, new ventures that better suited the skillsets of the outlaws.

Over time the town was no longer much distinguished from the other towns in the territory other than that the laws were much more forgiving for anyone who entered.  It might be noted that the original laws as they applied to the older citizenry remained as established.  Older citizens were prosecuted, newer ones were not.

Over time the saloon was renovated, made larger and with facilities and amenities that helped support the growing outlaw group residing inside.  The saloon owner rather cleverly worked with the sheriff to arrange it so that this was paid for out of the town’s community chest.  Again many might have reason to protest but very few actually did.

Over time additional facilities and amenities were made available to the still-growing group but these were provided outside of the saloon.  These were also paid for by others without their specific consent or even their knowledge.  All well and good thought the saloon owner, the sheriff, and a growing number of recently established local businesses.

Over time the outlaw group, a few at first and then more soon after, were allowed and even encouraged to leave the saloon and take up residency in the town.  Citizenry quickly followed, limited at first but not, in essence, for very long.

Over time a number of the original citizenry left and along with them went a good portion of the annual contributions to the community chest.  No problem there though.  The town council, now actually consisting of some of the older and more established outlaws, determined that the answer here was not to locate new sources of business income or even to cut back on spending- they would just borrow from other towns.   This worked for a while.

One day the territorial marshal came to town and upon seeing all that had transpired in such a short period of time he made an attempt to set things right, reminding the town of their original charter and the plans and intentions of the founding citizens.  The man was arrested in short order and tried in equally short order for attempting to incite a riot.  The justice of the peace was none other than the saloon owner.  The marshal was sentenced to death by hanging and although the territorial government protested and threatened retribution the town had some time ago begun to ignore any such inconvenient intrusions or laws and so the marshal was strung up and thereafter used as an example to others who might seek to upset the new order of things.

From then on the sheriff ruled with the saloon keeper providing the background support and muscle needed to insure compliance.  The emigration of the older citizenry was stopped by decree and more immigration of the same sort was widely encouraged.  The town grew but then something happened.

Over time, rather quickly actually, the town became much less prosperous than it had been before.  There were still businesses and there were still good people, even among the recently citizenized outlaws, but the level of the skills no longer supported the newer and very successful ventures that the town had been established around and also become known for in the territory.  Things teetered slightly out of kilter at first and then fell abruptly to the side made possible by the new changes.

And as long as the sheriff and the saloon owner held power there was nothing that could be done to alter the course of things to come.

Over time the sheriff and saloon owner passed on- one was killed, murdered actually, but the perpetrator was not arrested or tried- and the town moved even further down the path it had seemingly so willingly set itself upon.  And like many other similar towns in the territory it soon became mostly irrelevant and then just seemed to fade away and off the maps altogether.

The town founders had known, often by direct experience, that this is what might happen, indeed was likely to happen, without a new type of charter.  That is why they established the charter they did.  And for a long period of time it was a good charter, some said a great charter, and it served the town and the people of the town quite well.  But as often happens, some say always happens in time, changes come along and lead to more change, none desired, and for all the wrong reasons.

There is barely a trace of that town left today.  The intentions of its founders and the reasons for its demise are all, like the actual town itself, lost now in the depths of time.

Today it is only the tumbleweeds and swirling dust devils that pass through.  And even these do not stay.

Last night was a night filled with things in no way related to sleep.  I fell asleep okay but woke up around 2:30 in the morning and then basically just stayed up.  My son’s Kindle started playing Dean Martin singing “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” at 2:31.  I found the darn thing on the kitchen table and although the screen was dark I managed to get it to shut off.  It was weird.

Our television has been doing this turning back on thing for some time but generally not in the middle of the night.

After I shut off the Kindle I felt a shiver start in my neck and shoulders and then move down my back.  The hair on the back of my neck and head stood up and I felt a very strange sensation.  As I climbed the stairs I stopped with a start at the figure that suddenly appeared at the top- then I realized it was my wife.  I assured her that everything was all right and we both rather uneasily went back to bed.  She fell back to sleep.  I did not.

I was certain that I felt a presence somewhere in our house so I got up again after about twenty minutes and checked out the upstairs rooms.  Then I went downstairs and there, in the office, the Kindle started playing again and as I went to turn it off once again I was stopped and startled by a voice that spoke over the Christmas music that was playing on the darn device.

“Please, leave it.  I prefer it to be that way.”

“Oh my God!” I managed to stutter as I froze in my tracks and wanted to run but could not.

“It is all right.  I am not here to harm but to listen- to this music.  I am also here to correct your opinions, to alter your apparent course.”

“What?  Huh- I mean who are you, what are you, why are you here in my house and what the hell do you want?” I gushed out, scared to death but beginning to feel that I must stand my ground and must protect my family from this intruder.

“I am someone you have recently thought or wondered about.  I am or was the President of the United States.”

“What!?  What do you mean?”

“I am he and I have come to visit you.  I wanted to make it on Christmas Eve but I was scheduled to come tonight instead” the figure said to me, his head bowing as he spoke.  I took this opportunity to rush the man to try to take him down.

I wound up on the floor by myself.  I had rushed the man and encountered nothing but a feeling of cold energy as I passed through the spot where the man stood.  Encountering no human form I simply shot through the empty space and then on to the floor, banging my head a bit on the table by the window as I tumbled.

“I am of a human form no longer” the intruder said from somewhere behind me.  I rolled over, with some pain, and looked up and back to where he stood, where it stood, in the place it had originally been.  I was now rather terrified but tried to maintain calm.

“Must be a dream” I said, softly.

“Not a dream, just me as I am here” it responded, having somehow heard what I had said.

“Who or what are you?”

“I have already answered.”

“It is hard to see you although you are just over there. Can I get closer?”

“It is not possible, it is not allowed.”

“Are you Washington?”

“I am not sure who that is but, no, although I have lived there of course during my time.  In the White Castle.”

“You mean House.  Mr. Lincoln?”

“Not he either, although I have heard the name before somewhere in the past.”

“Are you Roosevelt or maybe Wilson?”

“Neither of those either.”

I was growing frustrated; impatient with an apparition of all things.  I changed my questioning.

“Who are you then?”

“You do not know me then?”

“I don’t know!  Kennedy maybe?  Can’t be Clinton because he is still alive!”

“Is he, this Clinton?  I did not know.”

“Then who, who?”

“Are these names, this Washington Lincoln Roosevelt Wilson Kennedy Clinton all names of Presidents?  Are they from the times before?” it asked with a bit more serious tone or sinister sound, if such was indeed possible.  I was confused and I was scared.  My fear did not seem to be coming from the apparition directly but more so from something he seemed to have brought along with him, something that was emanating from his rather amorphous form.  It felt filled with both terror and hopelessness at the same instance.

“Yes, yes, they are all past Presidents.  You don’t know?  If you are what you say, the President of the United States then how can you not know the past?” I asked, feeling as if I was screaming but knowing that I was not.

“I have gone by that name but it is in name only.  Or it was, long before there was me.  I am not your past and I am not your present.”

“Then you are my future, OUR future?” I entreated.

“I suppose that is close to the truth.”

“You are a future President?”

“I suppose again, that is close to the truth as I can reveal it.  But this term, this name of President- I have been he and there have been others but it is an old name and it is a name only.  It is not really who we are or will become.  The name was kept even as the divinity of the place occupied was revealed to all- first to One and then to the One’s heirs.  They were indeed the ones that were waited for as it had been prophesized.  So it came to pass and so it came to stay.  And so I have come to you this evening to allow you to understand this is what is and what will be.  There is no alteration possible” and with a slight wispy sound the apparition spun slowly and then vanished completely.

I was left alone there in the dark December night with Christmas Eve and Day, and all of the future still before me, already now determined.