Totem, Part IV

Finally, he began: “It was the year 2012, a year of unrest that it began. I was many years younger than I am today and by 2015, the upheaval was so bad that martial law was enacted. When that didn’t work, they arrested people and moved them into camps for their protection.”

“What is a ‘camp,” Grandser?” a child asked.

“It’s like a village,” the old man answered, “Only we were made to live there and could never leave.”

“How did you get food then, Grandser, if you could not leave?” another little voice asked.

“Men brought it to us at the end of our work day,” Grandser answered, “And I was put in Camp Nine.”

“How many is ‘nine?”

Grandser held up all eight fingers and a thumb.

“I was there until the year 2020, the year of the Grand Pan,” he said, “I escaped during that year when prisoner in the camp began rioting. I was to be killed because I had killed a man who stole my food…”

“I would kill a person who stole my food, too” another small voice spoke out.

“Shh,” hissed Junior, “Let Grandser continue and quit speaking while he is talking. Mind your elder!”

“But what is the ‘Grand Pan,’ Junior?”

Grandser rescued Junior before he could answer, “It killed many people, more people than there are now in the whole world. Men, women, children fell dead quicker then they could be buried. This is what I believed started the rioting — this and fear.”

“But what was it that did the killing?”

“Something that you could not see unless you had a special tube to look through?”

“A tube?”

“Like a hollow tree, only much smaller like this,” Grandser demonstrated, holding his hand up to show the size of what he meant, using his index finger and thumb.

“You do not make sense, Grandser,” a boy near the back started, “Something we can not see? A tube that is a hollow log? I think you are lying!”