The Friend Who Was Silent

The Dystopian Writer, when Dystopia came, said nothing.

He used to be a good neighbor, with puppy eyes and a shiny brown beard. Nectarios—name and face like a Christian Orthodox priest, except he wore shorts most of the year.

He was a loyal friend.

Whenever he made muffins, he’d make extra and bring some over. When my son got sick, he drove us to the hospital and stayed with us until the end. When I wept, he wept too. When I fell, he held me. You don’t often say “I love you” to another man, not where I grew up, but nothing else seemed appropriate.

When he got divorced, I was there for him, and we’d spend long evenings and weekends getting drunk in his garden. He had my back, like a brother, and I had his.

I mourn for our friendship; so does the neighborhood.

I write this with a heavy heart, and as I look over my laptop, I see my wife and my neighbors, Ioanna and her husband, sitting on the sofa, mourning in silence for the people we’ve lost in the past few months. We isolated ourselves from those who’ve been silent since Dystopia came, and it hurts; it hurts to cut your people off. But if you had seen what we’ve seen, you might have done the same.

You’d think—judging by the amount of science fiction on our bookshelves—that we’d have been better prepared for this. We thought it’d come at night—with a bang, with fire.

* * *

Dystopia came in broad daylight; not with armies and tanks, but with people of science, tanned bodies in suits, lawyers and bankers with freshly washed hands, human faces with android manners. With mouthpieces that repeated:

“There is no magic money tree. Except for us.”

And:

“Don’t let your left hand know what the right is doing. Compartmentalize.”

Repeated daily like mantras.

Dystopia seduced and bribed; it orgasmed with sensationalist writing and ads. It gave awards to its cheerleaders, who in turn made podcasts where they lectured us on how this was actually not a dystopia, not at all what was happening here, and in return Dystopia fed them well and gave them privileges the rest of us could not imagine.

At night, Dystopia put us all to bed. And if your teenage son had disappeared in the morning, they would say he was an antisocial boy, a threat, but you wouldn’t know if he was also a pair of quality organs, an experiment, or other unspeakable things. And if you happened to get him back, you’d get him half, or broken, or sick.

The writers had predicted this. My friend certainly had. I want to believe he had.

* * *

Nectarios’ novels nest in our bookshelves. His latest, on the bedside table.

In The Thirst of Dragons, a young girl fights the tyranny of a monster collective—an allegory for the past junta of the Colonels. His fantasy tale, The Friend Who Spoke Truth to Power, was recommended by the president of the strongest military nation in his Summer Reading List.

In 1984 Plus One: An Orwellian Fantasy, the neighbors of a poor Athenian district snitch on each other—a timely exploration of class and betrayal.

The latter won a prize. I was envious, but in his acceptance speech he spoke against artistic censorship and in the first page he had a dedication to my son.

“I’m proud of you, my friend,” I told him, and he hugged me more tightly than my wife would. I expected so much from him. I really thought he’d say something.

We both witnessed it. The surveillance, the intimidation. “One cop on every street,” they said and, when they ran out of human ones, they took the androids out of the kitchens and the care homes and re-programmed them.

“Don’t worry, Nectarios has been writing,” Ioanna whispered the first week. “He’s going to grill them alive, the bastards.”

Days later, an android officer dragged Ioanna’s son across the street. It held him against one of the city’s new electric fences. After he stopped moving, it took him away. We don’t know for what.

The android patrol in the street was constant. In the homes we’d had inspections on and off, but not like this. The fences surround us now. The park is off limits. I miss our long walks there. We’d lie on the grass and stare at the sky. Some days, the kids would join us too, but my son was no longer with us; neither was Ioanna’s, neither was the park.

We haven’t seen any kids lately. Ioanna can’t cope.

She just flew across the street, cut her wrist, and wrote FUCK MY COUNTRY on the side of her home in blood.

But she doesn’t know exactly who is in government, and no-one in the neighborhood knows either, and the android comes eventually and takes her too.

* * *

A month passes and still no mention of the Dystopia in his social media. What is with this man? His feed is full of the usual stuff. Writing advice. Witty comments on social issues. Cat pics. Outrage for countries far away, China, Iran, Australia. As for the Dystopia that is here, the Dystopia next door, nothing.

“No magic money tree,” they repeat in the news, the same slogan I’ve heard all my life from those who had access to the tree, except this time there’s a magic android tree too and they’re milking it day and night.

Resentment poisons me.

I take it with me to work, and in the bathtub, and in bed. It sits heavy on my chest at night like a sleep paralysis demon. I realize I resent my former friend for not speaking. I thought of punching him in the stomach and telling him off for being a coward, for lying to me all these years, lying that he believed in things and that he cared. But I try to find peace and censor these thoughts.

The grandmother living in the basement flat complained that “He brought The Dystopia here,” as if Dystopia was the Evil Eye, and by writing and talking about it, he jinxed it. When they told Nectarios that old lady blamed him for it, he said nothing. He retreated to his little room, cracked his knuckles and kept writing. That same evening, the android patrol came to her door. They flooded her flat. Made an example of her. Either for believing in the Evil Eye or for being a bad neighbor.

* * *

They renovated the grandmother’s flat. Meanwhile, Nectarios is strolling in the street like nothing extraordinary is going on. There’s a new car in his garage, and the local android stands outside his gate, like his personal bodyguard rather than the neighborhood’s.

They must have given him the old lady’s flat, because he invited the neighborhood to a party—we all got a card—but no one knows for sure because no one went. You can hear the 90s pop from our family room.

He used to throw the best parties. The neighborhood’s favorite Dystopian writer. It feels like yesterday that I read him, that I admired him, that I wanted to share with him my secrets.

* * *

Did you know—you must, if you know of him—that his writing style was praised as “subversive, witty, profane”? That his latest novel spoke “truth to power” and held fictional characters “accountable”?

His books featured dieselpunk, mirrorpunk, metafiction; a non-hierarchical relationship between sentient forests; a hypersexual moon; watermelons that were part-machine and fought with melons. All the what-ifs! And did you know he wrote poetry from the perspective of penguins to raise awareness of climate change? He was genuinely worried, it depressed him.

He was very depressed.

He wrote things that sounded cool and profound. He studied the trends and met the expectations. But who knows if his life amounts to anything, given that when Dystopia finally knocked on his door, he said nothing.

* * *

The neighborhood is silent. I miss our friendship. Wonder if he misses it too. Just yesterday, Nectarios walked past my door. I noticed from my window; he paused, saw me, waved. Maybe he was being nice, maybe he was uncomfortable. I closed the curtains, hoping he got the message.

* * *

The android patrol is parading the chained children today.

My wife is in the hospital and missed it. She took a few pills too many, hoping to escape from this constant dread. The other neighbors are gone—either someone reported them or they found jobs outside the city.

There are only two people in the audience as the parade passes our street: Nectarios and I.

I can’t focus on the spectacle as my fury, my anger with him, causes me to fixate my eyes—my entire existence—on his. He isn’t wearing shorts, no, but a neat pair of pants and a white shirt. Even shaved his beard. He is lost in thought.

“Don’t you see the children?” I bark at him. I lose it. I leap towards him like a hound. An android grabs me before I can tear his eyes out. “Are you seriously not going to say anything? The disappearances, the torture, and now this?”

I can’t hear the android officer. Here sir this, please sir that. It’s protecting him. Its AI diagnosed me as a threat to the good citizen. It offers to escort me home, but this is still by my pavement—I am home.

Nectarios wants to respond. He looks surprised.

“Who says I agree with this?” he says, with the tone one has when explaining that drinking bleach is not a great idea. He is annoyed with me, but still generous enough to explain. “But it’s complicated.”

The android kindly adds the context I was missing.

“The young adults,” it says, “are being paraded to give an example to potential radicals. They have all been captured because of the chaos they were causing—breaking drones with hammers, tearing down the fences, throwing an android into the canal. They were destroying public property, and as punishment, have been turned into public property themselves.”

It is all one plus one logic for the android, and I ask if the lawmakers behind this are still human, but it won’t clarify.

My wife hasn’t come back from the hospital. When I try to call, they refuse to connect me. When I try to leave the house, the same android won’t let me. Someone from the neighborhood has reported me, it says, for antisocial behavior and idealism.

* * *

The Dystopian Writer, during Dystopia, had a great time.

Years after we’re both gone, they will be teaching his books in schools as an example of subversive art; of the fearless flame of the creative mind.

As for me, I’m trying to finish these notes. I don’t know for how long I’ll be on house arrest, but I doubt they’ll keep me here forever. They’ve been moving fast with the others. There’s no internet. The house machines are off. The AI assistant too, and the old droid in the kitchen that could use an upgrade or a resurrection.

I grab the book next to my bed—it’s my neighbor’s. It’s his first novel about the suffering of young people in a dystopian society. He protests against their mistreatment and calls himself a pragmatic warrior of truth.

I can’t take him seriously. All I can do is daydream that, in the near future, I will see him moved around in chains too, and with all our former friends from the neighborhood we will spit on him and even . . .

Ah, the doorbell. I can see from the window who it is. How kind of him. He’s bringing muffins.