Censored
Harry Pine has done his time. Thirty years have passed since he was banged up for a crime he didn’t commit. Can he survive in the changed world after so long inside?
I didn’t know what to expect when Charlie opened the door. He smiled, something I’d rarely seen and I tried to smile in return. Of all the guards in this damned place, he was the kindest. He’d only struck me once.
“You’re free to go Harry.” said Charlie as the door opened, a sliver of daylight widening before me. For the first time in thirty years I saw the world outside. The driveway to the prison was as dirty as I remembered and a few yards away squatted the gatehouse, the barrier painted in familiar yellow-and-black. Beyond it the road sloped away over a steep hill, leading to Lord knows where.
I breathed in the morning air and looked up. The sky was a clear blue as far as I could see, an infinite expanse of freedom. Something caught in my chest and the tears came. I hadn’t expected them. Charlie held my arm.
“You OK Harry?”
He seemed to care, a new novelty. I rubbed my sleeve over my face and glanced at him. He looked old. How long had he been here? Ten years? Fifteen? I couldn’t remember. However long it was, I’d been there longer. A wasted life, taken from me by a traitor I’d been a fool to trust.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’ve got my life back, haven’t I?” I snapped. Charlie’s smile faded and he let me go. I stepped through the door and stood there for a moment on the tarmac, cradling my small bag of books. Reading had been my one escape and by then I’d read them many times. But I was grateful for the gift. Apart from the clothes on my back, they were all I owned.
I could hear the sea in the distance and the faint call of gulls. The air was fresh and clean. It was going to be a beautiful day. I turned to Charlie. “Thank you son.” I said and meant it. We shook hands and I smiled, trying to make amends.
“I hope I never see you again.” I added.
Charlie tapped two fingers to his brow in a small salute.
“Same here Harry. Same here.”
I walked away from the prison and down the hill. I tried hard to remember the name of the town in the distance, but it escaped me. Then I remembered the letter I’d been given. It showed directions to the local shelter where I could claim a bed and a meal. I read the address which finished with the town’s name: Bainham. Had I lived there? I stood a moment and tried to recall. Nothing came. Perhaps after all this time, I’d finally lost my marbles. Nothing for it but to find the shelter. I read the directions and started to walk.
It had been two days since I’d taken the room. Mrs. Haggard, the owner, had been wary of me at first. What the bloody hell did she expect? I was an ex-con, banged up for murder as far as she was concerned. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. Every time I came downstairs to leave the house, she’d appear out of nowhere and demand I showed her my pockets. Silly old cow. As if I’d be trying to nick anything from her. I had bigger fish to fry. Finding out where that snake Sully had got to was my first priority, and I wasn’t going to let Haggard get in my way. Whoever she married to get that surname, I wonder if he’d realised how appropriate it was? I’d never seen anyone quite so crumpled. Unlikely she’d ever been a looker.
On that day I decided to visit the library. I’d re-read all the books the warden had given me, despite knowing them word for word. Now they were finished again and I needed something new. Reading had been the only thing that had kept me right. Without it, I think I might have actually killed someone inside.
Mrs. Haggard had given me directions to the library. I should have remembered it, but the route was unknown. Everything had changed. The world was noisier and everyone much faster. I didn’t understand half of what they were doing. So many people looking at small transparent cards that they held out in front. Nearly everyone had some sort of mask on, like a strange pair of glasses covering half their face. I’d asked Mrs. Haggard about it and she’d just waved her hands around saying something about fake reality. Not content with covering their faces, people had little plastic buds in the ears too. The crowds looked forever like a busy swarm of bees. How on earth they could see where they were going was beyond me.
Eventually I found the library and went inside. The last time I had been here was well over thirty years ago. I’d never really thought about books back then. Well you wouldn’t in my line of work. Much more important to understand people, and what could a book have told me about that? Plenty it turns out, but I’d had to do those thirty years inside to appreciate that.
There was a young lady on the reception desk as I walked in. She too had those weird masked glasses on, but as I walked up to her they became glassy and clear. She smiled at me.
“Can I help you?” she asked. She was very young, early twenties perhaps. If I were a younger man, I’d have turned on the charm. No point doing that now.
“Yes my dear, I’d like to take out a book.” I wasn’t used to asking for things outside of jail and forcing myself to be polite. I’d have to get used to it. The girl gave me a strange look from behind her huge glasses.
“A what?” she asked.
Christ, had everyone gone stupid since I’d been inside? It’s a library for goodness sake. It looked like this might be harder than I had thought.
“I want to take out some books.” I said. “I’ve not read anything new for a while and I’m, uh, between jobs, so I thought I could borrow some.”
“I see.” replied the girl, “Well, we don’t have books anymore. We’ve not loaned those out for years. If you want to read something, you’ll need a visor.” She tapped her clear goggles. “Don’t you have one?”
She must have been exceedingly dumb. It was very obvious that I didn’t have a visor. But it wouldn’t be fair to have a go at her: this was a new world and I was green as fresh grass.
“No love, I don’t have a visor. Where can I get one?” I said carefully.
“Really?” she replied, arching an eyebrow. She wore a row of silver studs above it and they glowed in different colours as she spoke. “I thought everyone had one by now.” She pointed over to some tables in the main reading area. “There’s a few over there that are free to use. You can’t take them out of the building, but you can read in here for as long as you like.”
I looked to where she pointed. A circular group of tables ran around a central wooden column. At equal points on the column there was a hook with a set of goggles on it. A few people were already seated there, visors over their faces.
“That’s grand, thank you.” I said and started to walk towards the seating area. But the girl called me back.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll need to register first.” She pushed a transparent panel towards me, which lit up when I took it.
“What’s this?” I asked her. I’d seen many of these panels as I’d been walking around the town. People were always using them, in all different sizes. I hadn’t really thought about what they were.
“Just fill in your details on the form and hand it back. I can process it right away.” said the girl. I looked at the panel and it darkened slightly. Now it showed some text and boxes asking for my name, address, that sort of thing. Clearly form filling hadn’t got any easier. I tapped the screen and waited for a response. Nothing. I looked up and the girl had her hand over her mouth. She was stifling a laugh, I could tell.
“Uh. Sir. You don’t need to write on it like that.”
I stared at her.
“Right love. Well what do I do then?”
She held up both hands and motioned them towards her. “Just bring it towards you and think about your details. The slate will do the rest.”
Now she was talking nonsense. I know I’d been inside a long time but there’s no way they could have made a computer read minds. But I did as she asked and sure enough the address of the shelter appeared on the form. Mrs. Haggard’s name had even been included as Owner and I hadn’t been thinking about her. Pretty impressive. I handed the slate back to her and she tapped it. The slate cleared and I could see the information had now appeared on the inside of her goggles. She moved her fingers around before her, the goggles cleared, and she smiled at me.
“Thank you Mr. Pine, you can now use a visor to enjoy a book of your choice.” She had adopted a formal tone. “Please be aware that the neural and audio interfaces are disabled. You’ll need to use your hands.”
I thanked her and walked over to the reading tables, taking a vacant seat between a skinny young man and an older woman. They both had visors on, the goggles dark from this side, but I could see a bright glow within that leaked out and bathed their faces in sickly pink light. Their immersion seemed total.
I lifted a visor and placed it over my head. There was a thin flexible strap connecting both sides and it pulled tight automatically as I adjusted the goggles. I looked back over towards the girl at reception. Curiosity was all over her face. She smiled and then waved her fingers in front of her and indicated I should do the same.
I sat back in the chair and brought my hands up. The visor switched from clear to dark, but I could still see my hands. I flexed my fingers, testing. A small glowing dot appeared in the centre of the goggles, then expanded and quickly became a selection of options, drawn in soft white text on a pastel blue background. I scanned through the options: Books, Films, Music and many more. I could do much more on this than read! No wonder everyone was plugged into those things so much. But I wasn’t interested in anything else, I just wanted to read a good story. I waved my fingers as the girl had shown me, and I could now see my own hands within the visor. The sensation was very peculiar. I could see my hands and I could see the selection of options, but the table wasn’t visible, nor the surroundings. Now I could also see that the options seemed to be hovering a short distance away. I pointed my finger tentatively at one of them and the text enlarged slightly, becoming bolder. I moved my finger and the entire experience seemed to shift slightly, as if it were all painted on glass and I was pushing it from side to side.
I tapped my finger on Books and a new list of options opened then, genres by the look of it, and an extra option to search. There were hundreds of categories and they faded away towards the edge of the screen. I waved my finger up and down and the list scrolled away. I beckoned it and the list returned. The response was so natural, so fluid, that for a moment I forgot why I was there and I lost myself. This was incredible! There had been nothing like this before I went inside. Smartphones, sure, and I’d heard some vague things on the news about, what was it, virtual reality? It had never interested me back then. You used a phone to stay in touch, to plan a job, or to call in the heavies when shit went south. It was just a tool. But this visor? This was something else.
I tapped on Search and the other options faded away. The screen was now empty. What to do? I tried tracing a line with my finger and the screen showed it back to me, glowing softly. It was waiting for me to write something. With my finger in the air, I traced the word Hardy and tapped the small button marked Search. I’d never quite understood why Thomas Hardy’s works captured me so.
A new list appeared, titles of Hardy’s famous books, followed by lesser known works: collections of poetry and the like. I tapped Jude the Obscure, the display cleared and I was looking at the first page of a novel I had read many times. Now the text was dark on a cream background, exactly like the paper I was used to, yet it was floating in front of me. I turned my head and the book stayed exactly fixed. I waved my fingers and the pages flicked over. I let out a long sigh, smiled and started to read.
It wasn’t long before I came to something strange. Several words were blacked out, Mr.Phillotson’s explanation to Jude about obtaining a degree. I recalled them clearly from my previous readings:
You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching.
But the sentence now made no sense at all:
You know what a ______ is, and a ______? It is the necessary hallmark of a man who wants to do ______.
Why would this be redacted? Perhaps this was some old damaged copy of the book that had been converted to use within a visor? I flicked the pages and quickly saw that huge swathes of the book were redacted in this way. It didn’t make any sense.
I closed the book and the previous selections reappeared. I tapped Tess of the D’Urbervilles and quickly scanned that. It too had hundreds of redactions. What was going on? I closed that book and returned to the category selections. This time I chose something really obscure: Medieval Pageantry. Selecting the first book I could find, I started to read. Nothing had been redacted and I read the first page unhampered. As I started to read page two however, a redaction appeared. But this time I was sure the word had been visible before I had read it. I continued to read, and sure enough, words were being blanked from the book as I read them. What the devil was going on?
I pulled the visor off and hurried back to the girl on reception. She was painting her nails, although they changed colour instantly when she tapped them with a little stylus.
“Miss, what’s wrong with all the books?” I asked.
She looked up from her nails and frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The books are censored. I can’t read them.” I replied.
“Oh that. Well yes.” She seemed unconcerned and returned to her nails. They switched from a deep burgundy to bright orange as she tapped them with the stylus.
“So how am I supposed to read them?”
She looked up at me and laughed. “I thought it was strange when you said you wanted to read a book. I don’t think anyone has read one for years. No point.”
“What do you mean there’s no point?” This was getting ridiculous.
“Where on Earth have you been?” she enquired. “Don’t you know about the auto-censor?”
“Auto-censor?” She could clearly see my confusion as her expression softened.
“You really don’t know?” She put down her stylus, and motioned for me to take a seat.
“I’ve been… off grid.” I said as I pulled up the chair.
She raised her eyebrows slightly and the silver studs did a colourful dance as she explained.
“It’s the bloody government. They censor anything they consider… inciting.” She leant forward slightly as she said the last word, her shoulders hunched, as if she were trying to keep a deep secret.
“Religion, Education, Empowerment, anything. Ideas that might cause people to do bad things.” She wiggled her fingers then, imaginary quotes. “They control it all centrally in some kind of digital fortress.” She pointed at her visor and tapped it with a perfectly manicured fingernail.
“It started with books. Everything was recalled and digitised under the guise of ‘making knowledge free’ or some such nonsense. Then films and music got the same treatment. Visors became the only way to get entertainment. Of course, it was all safe stuff, sanctioned and clean.” She picked up the stylus and recoloured her nails. “I doubt anything is uncensored these days.”
I couldn’t believe it. How had people agreed to all that? In my day there would have been a revolution.
“That’s crazy,” I said, “There should have been riots!”
The girl shrugged. “No-one seemed that bothered.”
“I don’t believe that.” I was incredulous.
She shrugged again. “It’s what happened.” She placed the stylus on the table and I glanced down to see that her fingernails were now a distasteful green. Then she smiled at me.
“Anyway, enough of the history lesson. I’m afraid you’ve been automatically reported to the police for reading inciting material.” She had stopped smiling now and was peering at me intently. “There’s a heavy penalty.” she added.
I thought about that for a moment. I thought of the guards and the beatings. I thought of the disgusting food and cockroaches in the showers. But most of all I thought of the books in the little library, and my desk in the corner where I signed the books in and out for all the other lost men. I could practically smell the paper of those books and suddenly I wanted to be back there, in a world that I knew and where I really belonged.
I placed the visor carefully on the desk and sat back in my chair.
“That’s absolutely fine.” I said.