To Be a Seccie: A short story set in tanlariewis
The year is 1910. In the corner of the room, a small bedroom in the Gfiewgjknsiorjgiostanian town of tanlariewis, an elderly man is sitting on the chair, hair white and hands wrinkled, looking out of the window. Aside from his chair and a simple bed made fom pine wood the room is full with books and clothes that were in fashion during imperial times, decades ago.
Downstairs, his family is celebrating the day of the republic, the revolution that overthrew royal tyranny in 1852, but he can't bring himself to join them. This day brings it all back, the memories, and much more. He sees it as a twisted way of practicing hak, honoring the memory of the past.
A teenager appears in the doorframe.
"Grandpa, why don't you come downstairs? Are you afraid the seccies will turn up again to complain? We will sing quietly, closed the curtains and my sister cashed in a favor with a town hall clerk. No department will bother us today."
His grandfather doesn't even turn to look to him, still sitting there, silently.
â "Well, at least it's not the imperial Security officials we have to worry about anymore. Those seccies seemed to have been really scary. So, are you coming?"
For a moment, not a sound is audible in the room, except for some birds singing outside. They are interrupted when the man finally speaks up.
"Sorry, young patriot. I would really want to spend time with you and everyone else, I just ... have some things to do. A few tasks to complete."
â "On our country's rebirth day? Even I got off today... and I work in the chemistry manufactory. We are never short of work. There's this new 'factory' they are building in Dillariewis and..."
"I promise you I could meet you next freeday."
â "But then I'm going to my meetup at the temple for people who hear voices... The old tradition of listening to the voices of spirits, you know. They are really nice there and I don't want to disappoint everyone waiting for me, so I can't just skip it. I recently learned it goes all the way back to the first king who founded the first temples!"
He pauses, the momentary bout of enthusiasm quickly disappearing when he saw his grandfather wasn't smiling as normally when hearing his grandson talk.
"The first king ..." the elderly man repeats and then mutters under his breath: "Darn Brotanoda, you caused this all. You thought you needed an army to control not just the land and the bodies of the people, but also their minds... When you believe your destiny is to be above all else it's no surprise you begin to see everyone as an enemy, with even the voices in your head becoming paranoid."
â "Grandfather, what are you murmuring there? At least tell me what's wrong. Is it because of your experiences with the Department during the revolution that you never seem happy on this day? Why have you never talked about them anyway? Is it because you don't trustâ"
"No, no, it's just not a nice story to tell children, that's all. In fact, it's a rather depressing tale, as everything involving the so-called Department of Security. But I guess you're old enough now, and since you want to hear it so much..."
â "Can it really be worse than the things I already heard in temple school when I was small, or that co-workers sometimes tell me about?"
"It's just very personal and might make you feel ... conflicted. I'm sorry."
â "But why would you be sorry ... What would you have to be sorry about?"
The grandfather doesn't speak at first, instead answering with a hug. After a moment of hesitation, he speaks up again.
"Nothing. Just that I couldn't avoid telling you. And for what I'm about to show you. Let's go outside."
â "But the celebrationâ"
"It shouldn't take long."
A short trip down the memory lane
They leave the bedroom, move past the festive table with buckwheat pancake casserole ("an old royal recipe, too good to be just left to them" according to the grandmother in the house) decorated with tiny flagpoles and pots with seedlings in them, and enter their garden, surrounded on all sides by colorful walls as almost all gardens are in town. There are several flower and vegetable beds, but the dominating feature is a single fir tree in the middle. It is decorated with ribbons, family memorabilia and medallions with photos in them.
The man puts a hand on the shoulder of his grandson. "Our ancestor tree shows us the past as we like to remember it. Our proudest achievements and values. But you need to keep in mind it's not all there is to our past for every one of us. There's always a lot you'd like to not think about or forget." The grandson is silent, eyes drifting to various spots on the tree. Some show him as a small child, running around. He can't do that anymore, not since a few years.
"Now, since you wanted to see that past, too, let me show you it."
They walk through the creaking green portal connecting their home with the outside world. The street they're standing on now is small, a residential neighborhood. Walled gardens of various sizes and colors line it on both sides.
To the left, and the city would eventually give way to lush buckwheat fields, supplying the many watermills in the industrial part of town at the river.
To the right lays the way to the center of the city, with several high-rises looming in the distance, nearest of them the Department of Security headquarter building, a centuries-old impressive, tall structure made of brickstones with a large tower at one end and smaller domes at the other, surrounded by smaller houses and colorful walls shielding an extraordinary large yard that made the complex resemble a fortress.
Closer to the two, near a street crossing and a bus stop, is a graveyard. One the elderly man is walking to, holding the hand of his grandson tightly.
"It was on the day news reached the town, much smaller at the time, that the monarchy had been deposed and the king had fled the country. With no telegraph lines, road blockades all over the country and the Deparment putting the town under lockdown, it was delayed by almost a week." He takes a deep breath.
"The Department might not have been the official government, but everyone knew they were the ones pulling all the strings. It wasn't even a secret. Being a royal agency meant they only answered to the king, and some were convinced even that wasn't true, that it was more the other way round."
A moment of silence follows that the teenager does not dare to break, letting his grandfather continue.
A fight of fears
"I was your age then, working as a clerk in a seamstress store, your grandmother's. When the Department realized their source of legitimation was gone and their existence possibly threatened, they were suddenly scared for probably the first time in their history.
The lockdown was tightened, a curfew enacted and gunmen were put in front of the walls of their complex. Those weren't blue and white at the time, in fact almost none in town were. They were grey, and like the gunmen meant to protect the only security the Department really cared about: its own."
Standing in front of them is the portal to the local graveyard, large and imposing, painted black and with ornate depictions of the deity of chaos and misfortune, part of a duo that keeps the world in balance.
"The gunmen weren't just shielding their already nigh-impenetrable fortress. They tried to control the entire larger perimeter around it, and were so patroling the streets up until this crossing, even watching the sky in expectation of an attack from a balloon. Or maybe they expected celestial forces to strike them down and thought that they could take on those, too.
Hubris had always been their main source of power, whereas I like many other people in this town would want to say we preferred spite. In reality, it was often anxiety that kept us going.
We didn't even know who was all part of the department. All we knew that anyone could be pressed into 'service' at any point, and if that happened, you couldn't talk about it, or you wouldn't see daylight in this country again."
He pushes the portal open, which opens inaudibly. The entire area in front of and behind it is spotless, with the portal itself having recently gotten a new coat of paint. The city is clearly making sure this place is being kept in good shape.
"Many who could had started carrying weapons, if they hadn't already. I was among them. Mostly just simple, very old weapons, from past eras. We knew they were no match to the cutting-edge technology of the department, I guess we just didn't want to go down with no fight. All the old ideas of honor that for better or worse have disappeared now, like the blue skies of this town that vanished behind all the factory smoke." the elderly man continued after a moment.
â "Were you in a confrontation with the sekkies? And I thought my encounter was bad enough. I had a friend who liked to listen in to the telegraph wires of their headquarters, but one day we were busted and while tried to keep them from arresting her, they were too much for me and broke my legs.
I couldn't walk for so many months, but during my stay in the hospital I began to hear her voice in my head, she kept talking to me and building me up again every day, until I eventually had recovered and could go home." He smiled softly.
"I never saw her again, as she was apparently moved to a prison far away, but I know she's still keeping an eye on me with the help of a spirit. It's something I like to talk about at my meetup."
His grandfather put a hand on him, smiling back. âWith young people as brave as you, thereâs really some hope for this country.â
But the smile became a frown as soon as the man answered the question he had been asked.
"I was in a confrontation, yes. Having been a hunter in my free time, I had hoped it could prepare me a bit. But that was wrong. Very wrong. Nothing had ever been like walking outside that night, anxious, expecting the worst, wishing I could simply be in bed already."
They reach the graveyard market, mostly deserted aside from a lonely stand of an elderly lady selling flowers. It is evident she had no other place to go, even today.
The man bought some gorse and buckwheat flowers, not exchanging a single word with her in the process, and then moved on.
"Even walking with a co-worker was terrifying. All the department officials on that day were armed. Their guns were the best in the country, not even the military had managed to obtain these newest expensive overseas models. What if it came to a confrontation? And then it did."
He pauses for a sigh.
"We were almost at the crossing, coming from the direction of the city center, when I spotted someone running to us from the right. He was armed, with a crossbow, and shouted something, still coming closer.
We tried to stop him, and he did freeze, but after a moment I realized he was preparing to shoot, but by then it was too late and he had already fired it twice in my direction. The person at my side must have noticed me being dazed for a split second and threw themselves in front of me. Two crossbow bolts hit her in the chest, one into her heart. She died almost immediately."
The man is shaking in his entire body now, reliving the scene in his head, turning silent and trying to focus just on walking, face distorted in pain.
â "Grandpa! Are you okay?
"Y-yes. Sorry, it's the age." It wasn't a total lie. If it weren't for his age, he wouldn't have lived through any of this.
"The sight was grisly. The blood. The death. The weapon. I had no emotion or thought left in me at the moment but rage. A burst of adrenaline made me fire at the man standing some feet away from me and my hunting experience finally seemed to come in useful. I shot him. He dropped dead on the spot."
Ways of remembering and ways of forgetting
They were entering a part of the graveyard dedicated to the victims of the 1852 revolution, with many plaques naming the people who had died at the hands of royal forces.
"But... but as soon as the adrenaline had dissipated I was simply horrified. At the same time, my mind immediately began to rationalize and justify this taking of a life. It was like I was stuck between the fronts in a war that took place entirely in my head.
And to be honest, it never really ended. There have been what I call armistices, when your father was born, when he married your mother, and then when you came into this world. It's all calmer then, but I still carry it with me and something can always bring it back fast."
His grandson just looked down.
â "So... that's why. Why you were sitting alone today." He hugs the man, eyes welling up, and just mutters "I'm sorry."
"Don't be" he answers. "This is my battle to fight. And I brought it upon myself."
A few more steps past blooming trees and they reach a small pavillon with a single grave altar in it.
"In living memory of the anonymous hero of tanlariewis, who held off Imperial Department officials trying to go to the city government fortress to prevent the state chancellor from signing the surrender document to the republican forces.
Died at the hand of a Department Street Patrol." the grandson read the writing on it.
The grandfather puts down the flowers on top of the altar.
"There. That's most of my tasks done."
â "Oh. Are you coming here every year to pay homage to the heroes of the revolution? Was this maybe the one that saved your life?"
"No. That's the person I shot."
The man looks at the altar and then into the distance, the clear sky.
"Now I just need to think of a way to honor the woman who I was on patrol duty with, since Department employees that never renounced their membership don't get burials here. Or anywhere."
(Image source: taken by the author)
