Flight of Fancy

The forest was very quiet when the agents left. David and the three members of his family that had come with him could not find any words to describe the situation. Even the forest could feel and reflect their sunken spirits. There appeared to be no bird song in the air, only the slightest of winds could be heard through the mostly evergreen trees. It was as if the atmosphere itself became oppressive.

They stood there a bit longer, looking confusedly at each other, not really certain what to make of it all and what to say.

Finally, Ana broke the silence: “What the hell was that about? Who do these people think they are?”

It seemed as if she wanted to say something else, but couldn’t find the words. David could understand, as he was struggling to find any coherent thoughts. But then again, he was probably most personally distracted by the whole situation. Nobody else had a clue what was going on.

They all shrugged their heads. Even David managed to shrug his, to at least give the appearance that he had no idea what was going on. Although his whole body screamed to share his secret, for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Something still didn’t feel right.

But he was very afraid. The Americans seemed to know something, and they caught his eye when he flushed. He was feeling mixed emotions. In a way, he thought that there might be something to their whole story, perhaps the device was dangerous and he shouldn’t have been meddling with it in the first place. Could it be a bomb? A nuclear device? Some of the components were rather strange, but nothing smelled of a bomb to him. But it definitely had something to do with the thing he had built.

A sense of dread started gathering in him as the realisation dawned on him that the device could be lost forever. The Americans were driving a big car and the four of them could quite easily lift it into the back. How foolish he had been not to have hidden it better!

“I need to take a piss,” he said to the group. “This whole thing got me all freaked out.”

The others merely nodded their heads, apparently still in a state of shock.

He went through the forest. He didn’t really need to urinate, he merely wanted to check the forest if it was still there. It wasn’t too far, but far enough not to be seen from the road.

He came to the sight and even his last hopes faded. Where the device has been, there was literally nothing. He was 100 percent certain that this was the place. The leaves on the ground were even flattened from where the device had been positioned. But now it was gone.

He waited a bit longer and actually urinated onto the ground, so that the others could hear that he actually went, in case they were listening. He zipped up his trousers and had a look around, regretting losing the device, even though it was apparently not working. But if they wanted it so badly, it must be important! He still had the plans. Perhaps…

No! No time for such thoughts now. There was still a chance the agents in unison with the local authorities could put one of them or all of them in jail. With that, he turned around looked round again and walked back to the group. He did not, however, see a little device on a spruce tree that was following his every move.

*******************************

Jack Dawson was livid. He would be literally fuming at the mouth if it wasn’t for the other three. But now that he was alone in his room, the expression on his face was unmistakable. If looks could kill, he would be a mass murderer by now.

The forest revealed nothing, even though he was sure that the family was hiding something. He didn’t want to go back empty-handed. One of the female agents (he forgot which) told him that the young man was acting suspiciously when they mentioned the specifics of the situation. So it was a good precaution to plant cameras all over the little forest.

Even though they had all the necessary paperwork to go back whenever they wanted, cameras were a more efficient way of finding out if the family was hiding something. Whatever had been there once, might have been moved. It was only prudent to observe them for now. It was a shame they couldn’t plant any cameras near the house, the farm or inside the buildings themselves, but they would not get the permission to do that. Not yet! Not unless there was probability or any suspicious behaviour. For now, they would have to do with the forest cameras.

**************

When they came home, the family had a long conversation about what was going on. They were all in agreement that this was police brutality and that they had no business intruding on them like that and causing them distress.

“Fucking Americans,” the uncle had said.

Although it wasn’t meant as such, it was a good observation about the USA intruding again where they had no business intruding. But the world was fucked up, and they all agreed on it. It was all run by an elite, using USA as its police force over the whole world. This was proof of it. The family had done nothing wrong. Individual members had merely expressed the opinion occasionally that America had no rights interfering in foreign countries, which was being done for profit.

Here was the proof that the Americans were spying on us, through social media like Facebook. But to go so far and to send actual agents here to harass and threaten innocent people was stepping over a line. It was becoming a police state, the whole world. Freedom of speech was bullshit, any rights were bullshit. As long as you did what you were told, as long as you had a job, as long as you didn’t ask any awkward questions, you would be okay. The whole mainstream culture was meant to numb people anyway, with news stories that were nothing but propaganda written by corporate drones, with the music industry that was producing clones who couldn’t sing, write or think, but only show off the various body parts which made the world go insane. And everyone wanted to be like a celebrity. Most people wanted to be airheads who only care about their looks and don’t care about anything what goes on in the world, like clean drinking water, pollution and so on.

After that whole discussion, David felt a bit better. He knew his family was on his side, even if they didn’t know what he had done. He was still concerned about his future. The device had obviously been found and someone would probably need to be held responsible. He didn’t want to go to prison, but if push came to shove, he couldn’t let anyone else from his family take the fall.

As night approached, he knew it wouldn’t bring any rest. Still, he lay in bed to at least appease the wife and keep up the pretence that he didn’t have anything to feel guilty of.