Jeremy rolls over in bed, legs and arms sore. His head still misty from his day prior. The sun has started rolling its beams of light through the window. His blinds do little against the cascade of morning light.

His dog, Tidus, barks and whimpers at the foot of the bed. Tidus is making it very clear that he wants to go outside, and requires someone with thumbs to make that a reality. Jeremy, however, refuses to donate his thumbs. This is a day that he wants little to do with.

The night before had been busy. Jeremy was in charge of making sure that business went well in his department. His department, in this instance, was being a decoy. The plots were not nefarious, or he did not think so. He was to distract onlookers, security, and anyone else who would otherwise tamper with what the event planner was concocting in the background. Usually, it was just harmless tagging or some superficial defacing of a government monument.

Last night was different.

The original plan, from what Jeremy was told, was to simply tag a wall. Victimless crime, more or less. The wall in question was erected to celebrate the corporation coming to power over the citizens in the area. The actual takeover was quiet, and the corporation did little to be considered corrupt. Their intentions actually seemed to be for the greater good, and most people were happy.

Keyword: most.

The economy was swapped from a monetary focus to that of a point-based system. If you had x-amount of points, you were just given things to keep your life at a certain comfort. You could work your way up to a higher echelon, but it was very easy to falter. To make it less fair, faltering could be against your will.

Disability, mental health, and region swapping. These were just three ways that things could turn in a heart beat. If you were walking down the street, and were stricken down by something resulting in a broken back, you would go onto some sort of recovery program set up by the state. If you were high in the ranks of society, you could expect a shift in your day-to-day, but that is about it. If, God forbid, you were in the lower tier, you could assume that everything you knew or held dear would come crashing down around you. Not only would you lose everything that made you feel human, but you would actually be forced to depend on things that are in place to hinder progression.

So, what was Jeremy doing? He was working with a group that wanted to raise awareness of the practice of this corporation. He was to run interference with the forces that would stop any sort of progress the rest of the group would be making with the wall. He was told that they were just spray painting and generally defacing the exterior which points towards the masses. He was to ride his wheelchair up and down the street, asking for help opening doors and crossing roads. The kinds of things that people assumed that people needed when they were as broken as he appeared to be.

His evening was going well, until he heard the blasts.

Two explosions rang out over the otherwise calm night. Jeremy was not harmed by debris flying through the air, nor by any glass erupting from storefronts. It was the cascade of panicked humans who forgot any compassion and pushed him out of the way. He hit the ground, his chair one full metre from his body. It had fallen onto the side, which made it cumbersome to right. All of this would have been a non-issue if it happened in the safety of Jeremy's house; streets being pounded by hundreds of people is hard to prepare for.

No one offered to help him. It took the better part of an hour to right himself, and that was after many failed attempts.

That was a brief overview of what Jeremy had to deal with last night. Today was a new day, but that fact does not mend his sore muscles. Mend his joints from the forces they were not used to. Mend his already fragile ego from feeling dejected and used.

Tidus barks, and pulls Jeremy out of the fog his mind was in. Jeremy needed to let the dog out. In that moment he figured that keeping his head to one plan at a time was better than circling a drain of remembrance and rerouting. What was done is done, and no matter his roll, he could not change a thing.

Jeremy transferred into his wheelchair and rolled towards the patio door, all the while making sure that Tidus is behind him. He opened the door for the dog, who thanks him with a playful snort in his direction. Closing the door, Jeremy lazily rolled towards the kitchen. Coffee is the only thing that he craves. He places the cup under a filter and drains water through the beans. The whole process takes about five minuets, in which time Tidus makes it clear that he is ready to come inside.

He places the mug full of the hot coffee between his knees and rolls over to open the door. As expected, he is greeted by the big, slobbering face of his best friend. Less expected was the bullet travelling right over the head of Tidus and between the eyes of Jeremy. It appears that he was marked - that he was made the scape-goat for the entire operation.

The coffee cup crashes to the concrete and brown liquid graces his spokes. Tidus gets upset and ducks his head down as he scampered away.

By Jason Garden

From: Canada

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