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This morning was all-in-all pretty normal. I woke up, checked to make sure no one was beneath my bed before putting my feet down into my slippers, brushed my teeth until they felt clean (3 times on average, 4 this morning, not too outrageous. At 6 I get nervous), hopped on my bike and went shopping at the grocery store. No problems.
Maybe if I analyze in more detail:
I woke up at 6:52, glanced around the room to make sure I was alone and that all the doors were shut and locked and that the radio was off and that there was no hair left on my pillow and that the mirrors were not turned toward me. Had a look underneath the bed to make sure no one was hidden there. I used a special mirror on a hanger I had construed for the purpose.
By 7:05, I had unstuffed the paper in my shoes and replaced it with my feet, and I was off to the bathroom. A quick shower sufficed, which was good because I don't like enclosing myself in such tight quarters for very long. I brushed my teeth four times.
7:53, I'm out of the bathroom and pulling sets of clothes out of my closet. I knew that I was going out today, so I set aside an hour last night to pick out clothes so I'd be ready. I pulled them out of the closet, then out of their protective plastic covering I got from the laundromat and put them on. I tied my shoes with triple knots, making sure the first one was a square knot. That's very important, other knots can get really stuck if you're not careful, but not a square knot. It always comes apart easy. I put a travel pack of Kleenex in my pocket, opened the door to my apartment and used one to close it back. I went down to my bike which had three locks chaining it to three posts in the bike rack. This keeps other peoples' bikes from being too close. I wiped down my seat, handle bars, and pedals and began my second bimonthly trip to the grocery store to buy:
3 Jars of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter
2 Loaves of Wonderbread
14 Bottles of IBC Root Beer
3 Boxes of Solo Plastic Flatware
1 Gallon of Hiland 2% Milk (Exp not earlier than 2 weeks away)
4 Boxes of Moore Push Pin Thumbtacks
3 Spiral ring College Ruled Meade Notebooks
2 Boxes of Parker Ball point pen/pencil sets
14 Pairs of Hanes Men's underwear
7 Packages of Hanes Men's undershirts (2/pack)
2 Sticks of Oscar Meyer Salami
1 Tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Margarine
2 Bottles of Advil Pain Reliever Medicine
1 Hallmark Mother's Day Card (One that ideally says “Thank you for being my mom”) because Mother's Day is this month
My prescription
When I got to the store, I was immediately aware that Shelly was not there. She was not at the cash register where she usually is and she was not in the Women's Garments section which I could see from the door. I stood there for a second trying to think of what to do: Shelly is the only person I know who works there, and she always helps me and I'm always out of the store within 30 minutes which is good because I don't like being in crowded places for very long. But Shelly was not there, so I had to find someone else to help me. I craned my neck looking for Mr. Takanawa or Mrs. Blanchard or Mr. and Mrs. Starr or Dr. Pasternak, but I didn't see anyone I knew. Luckily, expecting a crowd, I had gone early in the morning when the crowd would be lighter, but there was still a lot of people milling around, and I knew that the longer I stood waiting for someone I knew to come help me, the more people would come to the grocery store to shop, and the more uncomfortable I would get. I felt my deadline. I had an hour max before it would become impossible to do anything. I looked at my watch: 8:25. So really I had 35 minutes before things escalated to a boiling point that I would not be able to handle and I would have to go home and I don't think I have enough things to last another two weeks until my next grocery store trip. I had factored everything to last for exactly 14 days, and while I always had a little bit of peanut butter left over in my last jar I would always throw it away when I came home with the new peanut butter. I started breathing heavy trying to think of what I could do to get out of this situation or how I had met Shelley in the first place like if I had talked to her first or if she had talked to me and whether if I had talked to her first if I would be able to do that again with somebody new or if she had talked me first if anybody else working would be that nice and I was thinking about my deadline and 9:00 and it being 8:27 now and I was still no closer to getting anything done and I was wondering if I should go home right then and give up but I also thought about my prescription and how I took the last pill last night and how I needed it right then but I couldn't get it because nobody would help me. So I decided this was important and that I would have to help myself so I went up to a clean looking cashier with spikey blond hair and his name was Greg and he finally asked me if he could help me and I said, “Yes, Greg. I need 3 jars of Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter, 2 loaves of Wonderbread, 14 bottles of IBC Root Beer, 3 boxes of Solo Plastic Flatware, 1 gallon of Hiland 2% Milk (Exp not earlier than 2 weeks away), 4 boxes of Moore Push Pin Thumbtacks, 3 Spiral ring College Ruled Meade Notebooks, 2 boxes of Parker Ball point pen/pencil sets, 14 pairs of Hanes Men's underwear, 7 packages of Hanes Men's undershirts (2/pack), 2 sticks of Oscar Meyer Salami, 1 tub of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Margarine, 2 bottles of Advil Pain Reliever Medicine,1 Hallmark Mother's Day Card (One that ideally says “Thank you for being my mom”) because Mother's Day is this month, and my prescription.”
Greg looked crazy at me so I told him everything again and he asked me to slow down but I explained that if I slowed down I would run out of time and it would be 9:00 and I would get claustrophobic which is where you can't breathe when there are lots of people around and I don't like being claustrophobic and I asked him to please help me. Greg still had a look of craziness, but then he changed it into a smile. I like smiles from people I know because I know that they are probably smiling because they are happy or being nice, but when people I don't know smile it makes me a little nervous because I don't know why they are smiling. Maybe they are making fun of me or maybe they're being conniving or maybe they're being nice. I made myself think about Greg being nice as he said he would help me get my things and get out by 9:00, and I didn't think about him being mean or conniving and that calmed me down a little, especially when he ran to go grab a cart.
Greg came back with a cart and said, “Okay, now what was the first thing on your list?” and I explained that I could only think of the list as a whole so I started rattling off the whole list again and he jogged off with the cart saying to, “follow me to the peanut butter aisle,” and jogging was pretty fun. As he pulled the Skippy's Peanut Butter off the shelf, he said that he felt like helping me was kind of like a game where the goal was to get me everything I needed and then checked out and out the door by 9:00. I liked that he wasn't grudging or anything. Greg seemed pretty nice. In 15 minutes (a new record time) we had gotten everything but my prescription and we were at the pharmacy and Greg was at the window saying, “I need to pick up a prescription for...” then he turned around to me and asked for my name. I froze because I didn't want to tell anybody new, especially someone I just met 15 minutes ago, my name and I started breathing heavy as Greg said, “They need your name to go get your prescription.” But the pharmacists saved me. Luckily they knew my face and went to the back to get my prescription, telling Greg that they knew whose it was and that it was no trouble.
The trouble started when they came back and they said, “Here's Mr. Wymer's prescription,” and they handed Greg the bag and he handed it to me like he hadn't just heard but I heard and now he knew my name and I started breathing heavy again. But he kept smiling and acting like he didn't hear anything so I started thinking maybe he didn't hear my name and as I checked out with him at register #3, I started to calm down. He put my groceries in paper sacks smiling the whole time and hurrying as well. When he finished and I handed him my cash he asked what time it was, so I looked at my watch and told him it was 8:49. “Yes,” he exclaimed, “we did it! With time to spare!” and he helped me take my things out to my bike. I had 3 bags, so like I always do, I put two in the front basket and one (with the milk) in my backpack, and I rode home, deciding not to give Greg and the fact that he knew my name a second thought.
But now, having arrived home, and having found the envelope slid under my door while I was gone, I know that I was mistaken about Greg not hearing my name. He had heard and he'd already told the Council of Anarchists and they had already tracked down where I lived and probably knew everything about me and he had probably told them everything about my shopping list and everything about my bike and what I was wearing and what I would be eating and what they could poison the next time I went shopping so that they could take my notebooks and they probably knew what I check when I wake up each morning and how many times I brush my teeth (3 on average) and they were probably planning something to get me and to kidnap me and steal my notebooks. My apartment is no longer safe, it has been compromised. After all these years of paying my rent with cash and staying off the grid, one slip, one instant where I decided to approach Greg instead of Latricia or Jennifer (who were both not as clean, but not as likely to have ties to the Council) and it's all ruined and everything is at stake.
I know what's in the envelope. I don't even have to look in it to know that it's an ultimatum and it says, “Bring the notebooks to us or we will kill your mom” or Shelly or Mr. and Mrs. Starr or Mr. Takanawa or Mrs. Blanchard or Dr. Pasternak or maybe even me. I feel horrible that I've involved them through my carelessness and I think through all my options.
I could run away but then they might start killing everyone I know to find out where I've run off to and my mom would know where I was because I have to send her the Mother's Day card and it would have a return address and if they tortured her, I'm sure she would tell.
I could stay and face them or give them my notebooks but then they would find out all the secrets I know from the codes that people put in newspaper advertisements and radio commercials and they would know all the government's secret plans which would put the government at a complete disadvantage, and they could put together the cipher and use it to decipher more messages. I can't let that happen because I'm a patriot.
I could destroy the notebooks and face them but then they would torture me and I would never be able to keep myself from telling the cipher, I would never be able to withstand the torture.
So I come to the only logical conclusion: I have to destroy the notebooks and kill myself. It's the only answer that extricates everyone and makes sure my notebooks don't fall into the hands of the Council.
I gather up all the notebooks, 1052 of them, and put them in a big plastic bag. I haul the heavy thing down three flights of stairs and hoist it into the trash dumpster, getting a little bit of garbage on my hand, but I don't wipe it off because this task is too important. I can't let them get hold of my notebooks. It would be the end of America. So I douse the trash in lighter fluid, which I had defiantly asked of my neighbor (I figured since they already know about me, there can be no further harm done), and I light the garbage on fire. As the heat engulfs my notebooks, I can see the plastic melt off and the flames twist around the tiny metal spirals. I watch as page after page disappears into fiery oblivion.
Then I go back up to my room and open my bedroom window, first making sure that one of their spies is not already beneath my bed planning on stopping me before I can jump out. Nobody's there, so I lean out and look down the three stories to the ground. It's 9:05 when I jump off the sill and into the empty air.

I wake up in a room I don't know, unable to move. My muscles feel heavy and I can barely move my eyes to look around and see that I'm in a hospital room. My mom sits on my right and beside her sits a doctor with large frame glasses that I can't see through when the light hits them just right. I can barely hear them through the drugs that they've apparently got me on, but the message is loud and clear: the Council has kept me alive to tell them the cipher and they have my mom. In my head I am screaming and running and tearing at the bed, but all I can do is move my right index finger a little bit and out of the corner of my eye I can see that the doctor is smiling.