We all took pause and checked out the sunlight glistening off the pond and then we were told to move on into the camp whereupon we were to be separated according to sex.
To my surprise, the men with the machine guns were relatively sincere and somewhat awkward – they were young men following orders and they didn't want to treat us badly – but they seemed to feel they needed to act as though they were mean and tough. When one of them shoved me through the gate, I didn't take it personally and I let him know with a knowing wink and a grin. We were, after all red blooded Americans - and I think some of the lads were a touch confused as to why we, the people – their people – their neighbors, grandmas, fellow softball leaguers, et al. were now being herded into these giant concentration centers...more like cities…
I am certain they trusted their bosses' assertions that we were indeed the most befouled, wretched, and criminal element untrustworthy with citizenship and by far a grave threat to the status quo called the United States of America. Undoubtedly, though a few at least pondered the actual danger posed by the 85 year old man in front of me who walked with a cane and said nothing nor projected an ounce of menace….or the young woman with two children hanging off either sweat-panted leg....
But that is neither here nor there – for they did their duty and marshalled us into our new home: we would all now be citizens of this enclosed prison of a city; no longer having a name but only a number…our identity simplified into a series of digits and our happiness socially engineered and our thoughts manufactured and installed into our brains and soon they would erase the word "liberty" with "security" in the new dictionary and nobody would remember what it meant anyhow…
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