The Department of Corrections, Book One

Officer Alexio Grohowski had already left for work, had already left for the DOC. Just another day at the probation office violating We the Peoples constitutional rights for the Karpian State’s profit. Karin Grohowski—a stay-at-home mom, let the twins skip school today . . . without telling Al.

Karin stood in front of her kitchen sink, depressed, washing this morning’s dirty breakfast plates and cutlery of slimy egg and sticky grapefruit residue while peering through a garden window full of fragrant homegrown herbs. Shiny soap bubbles floated before her face, each reflecting her distorted image back at her, like the same mirrored planet in (hopefully happier) parallel universes. Her angry eyes narrowed, burning a hole into the fiberglass hull of Alexio’s new red bass boat—and into its new aluminum trailer—that now occupied half of the driveway: the half that had, for years, been her minivan’s parking spot. She now had to park along the busy street. She felt sick, a heavy feeling, like someone had dropped anchor inside her stomach. Her wet, squeaky, yellow-rubber-gloved hands clenched and unclenched, twisted and strangled the green and yellow sponge under the running faucet like it was Alexio’s scrawny Polack neck. The sponge squirted hot, soapy water all over her “Kiss the Cook” apron (her favorite apron).

The television set was audible from the living room. The television set was acting as the twins’ babysitter/substitute teacher for the day. Another government-created, ultra-imbecilic, ultra-competitive, commercial-filled reality-television show—designed to brainwash the mindless surface masses into competitive toilers and happy consumers—rambled on and on . . . The twins’ impressionable minds were being brainwashed by the for-profit corporations’ commercials. Brainwashed at a young age into thinking they could buy happiness by purchasing the worthless products advertised during their favorite television shows. Brainwashed to grow up worshipping materialism—not God.

I’m gonna kill him! Karin thought, still fuming about Alexio buying the pedestrian bass boat. He had lost a portion of his monthly bonus, for a reason he could not reveal to her, the portion that they had allocated to buy the damn bass boat, and the money she had saved up for her fabulous sunroom addition, he used to cover the loss on his bass boat’s cost. Her addition would be postponed—again! She was pissed off at him—again!

This last-straw event, the postponing of her sunroom addition—again, called for a celebration. A secret gift to herself. She would bake Alexio a “special” chocolate cake and decorate it with a red bass boat made of thick red icing. A token of her affection to greet him when he got home from work, got home from a long day at the probation office. A little reward for being such a “wonderful” husband and father.

Wiping her now rubber-gloveless hands off on her favorite apron, she opened the pantry door and pulled out a dusty laxative—a huge chocolate-bar-like laxative, just like the one advertised on for-profit television a hundred times a day: State television equals EconomicThink/EconomicBehavior. Half-listening to the television set, half-plotting Alexio’s long, long evening on the toilet, she plugged in her cake mixer and . . .

The sonic booms from military aircraft passing over the house, shook the house. The subterranean Karpian military’s mission creep going unnoticed by the mindless surface masses.

Karin left the beautifully decorated cake (fifty percent cake, twenty-five percent icing, twenty-five percent laxative) on top of the dining room table. Beside it, a handwritten note:

Alexio, honey,

Went to pick up dinner. Twins and I will be home shortly.

Don’t eat any cake, saving it for dessert.

All my love,

Karin

Knowing the inconsiderate asshole would devour the cake upon finding it, knowing he would spend sunset to sunrise on the toilet, she sniggered. Then she removed all toilet paper and all reading material (his bass fishing magazines) from all of the home’s bathrooms.

Next, using Alexio’s battery-powered drill, she drilled hundreds of tiny round holes through the bottom of the bass boat’s fiberglass hull. Al’s next fishing trip would be a quick, sunken, wet one.

Their perpetually packed suitcases already in the minivan, Karin and the twins drove away for the last time, never to see “husband” and “father” again. Driving under airships shadowing the nation. Passing military convoys loaded with armed soldiers, passing through military checkpoints/for-profit tolls that had materialized overnight, passing through space and time, the three had embarked upon their exodus, embarked upon their long, dangerous drive from Orlando to Arizona where Karin’s sister Margaret was anxiously awaiting their arrival.

Unfortunately, Alexio would never return topside from the subterranean DOC, would never return home to eat his laced cake. He had been unexpectedly placed on combat alert, to perform his Karpian duty, because the Surface War was about to be launched. He knew his wife, twins, home, and new bass boat would soon perish with the rest of the mindless surface masses, would soon be turned to death-black ash along with the finally usurped United States of America.

Back at the Grohowski’s abandoned, patriotic house—the cake and note still atop the dining room table, the television set still on, both patiently waiting for Alexio to return home from the DOC. A prerecorded and repeating TNN BREAKING NEWS ALERT had interrupted the regularly scheduled for-profit television programing on every channel—to introduce Dr. Franz Johann Karp, his armed forces, and his agenda to the nation, to the world . . . Directives and a curfew were now in place.

A world full of narrow minds, as narrow as the television bands they watch, nothing known beyond what they are told. The subterranean Karpian State’s coup d’état shocked the surface world’s mindless masses.