�You, worker.� The officer said,
�Yyes,� replied the worker, the first word he had spoken in a while. His speech was more a croak than a voice, scratching out through a rasped dry throat.
�What is your name?� the officer demanded,
�Name?� was all the reply he got,
�It doesn�t matter.� The officer dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. �What matters is you. You�re old. You cannot keep up, and it is no longer economical to keep you here. The government has happily supported you for years whilst you frittered away your working life, and now this has to end. We cannot maintain your place here. You must leave, tomorrow.�
�Where shall I go?� Was the reply offered,
�Why should I know? You are a free man, you can go where you wish.� The officer seemed more gruff now, as if the worker had already used up too much of his time.
�Will I be fed? Paid?� The worker was anxious, or as anxious as his long starved emotions would allow, he would not find much elsewhere if he was removed from here.
�No. The state has supported you whilst it could. Now you have nothing to put back into the state, why should it place investment in you?�
The officer left, leaving an unstill corpse behind him.
*
The worker left, his possessions in his pockets and his savings in his socks, for safety. Crime wasn�t rife, it was too complex to be attractive these days for idea famished minds, but safe was better than sorry. Clich�s were to be believed, for if not, why else would people say them?
He walked, direction unknown. Uncared. He had a little food, hard bread, and some grain. That was all he was given. Water he drank from brown ditches, or taps left for when the summer droughts came and normal water supplies were unusable. He wasn�t going anywhere he knew of; he had nowhere in particular to go. He was too infirm to work, too alive to die. No one was happy to see him, their soulless eyes passing him by as if he were nought but an empty food packet.
Thus he continued, his back creaking ever more towards horizontality, his essence waning. One man stopped to give him some food, but thought better of it when he realised he was little better off.
*
For some time he walked. Alone, cold and hungry, but not bitter. Why should he be? The system was inarguable, for there was no need to drag down workers with the feeble. It was logical and utilitarian. Fair? For some, if you saw it that way, yes.
He came upon a fence. Here there were men, armed and tall. They did not see him until he was close; such was their guard. As he approached, they called out to him and asked him his name. He did not reply. They let him through though. They had not the will to stop a man leaving the irrigated area to trek into the dust of the abandoned lands. They had no reason to, for he was unable to help them, frail as he was.
He trekked for a long time. How long cannot be told, days merged into nights of hunger and thirst as he walked, the unending terrain further depleting his spirit.
He came upon an oasis one day, a small break in the dust. Here he stayed. There was a clear, clean lake of water, its taste like an ambrosia of the mortal world, its beauty cleansing him. He stood straight for a while, the water sluicing the years off of him as he breathed the air of this small slice of joy.
After a while he found a small seed, fragile and weak in the heat. This he planted in the soft ground near the edge of his lake. Why, he did not know, but it seemed right.
*
A time later, long time or short time untold, another man came upon the same haven. He saw a small plant, a bush already bearing fruit. Sat next to it, his face brown from the sun, was the old worker. The newcomer slowed, to see what would happen. The old worker didn�t move, so the newcomer moved closer, becoming more confident,
�Hey, you there!� the newcomer called.
The old man stirred, and lifted himself up with obvious difficulty and pain. He looked, calmly, peacefully at the intruder.
�Yes?� The word emerged from the old mouth like a noise from a long abandoned and rusted machine, creaking and hollow.
�Hello, I�m lost, could you help me?� the newcomer asked, approaching the old man.
�What with?� The old man answered, �I am not much use. Sorry.�
�I�m looking for civilisation, do you know the nearest place?�
The old man smiled and paused awhile before speaking. He considered his life and his experiences before answering as best he could. When he spoke it was almost a whisper. He gestured towards the plant and a word emerged. �Here.�
�What?� the newcomer was confused. �Who are you, what is this place?�
The old man lay back down, and the newcomer stepped forward a little, his bulk blocking out the sun to the frail ex-worker. Finally the old man shut his eyes and spoke,
�I am me. We are here. That is all you can live for.�
With that he gave a long, contented sigh which seemed to never stop, draining all the air from his body, until all that was left was a whisper on the breeze, and a peaceful memory.
The newcomer never left.
*
In time more people joined the newcomer, and he became the old man. A plant still grew where the first man had planted the seed. There grew around it a small grove of such plants, and men and women lived there for many years. They did not thank that they lived in freedom, for true freedom can't believe there could be anything else. Were they happy? Perhaps. They ate what they grew and aged at ease with each other, and maybe that is all they needed.