“Correct. Nasty creatures. I’d like to have them culled in Leipzig Park.”
Ines flinched.
The man leaned forward with his pen poised.
“Does that thought upset you?”
Rats of the sky, he called them. Nasty creatures. Yet in her mind’s eye, Ines could see them gathered on the railing of her balcony, their soft, feathered bodies pressed closely together for warmth. Gently cooing and picking at the seed she had laid out for them, they took to the air with western wind on their wings and circled through the leafless Leipzig Park. An effervescent flash of metallic green and purple glinted on their chests as they flew towards the Wall and soared as one beyond its graffitied facade. Then, from mist and smoke that choked the city sky, they returned
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“Messages? I don’t understand, what messages?”
“You are not trying to contact anyone?” He held her gaze, watery blue eyes searching her face, though Ines could not fathom what he expected to find. For a moment, he waited, fingers tapping out an executioner’s drumbeat against the desk. Then, in one swift motion, he swept a file from a drawer and began furiously scrawling across its pages.
“I will release you from temporary questioning…for now. You will regard this interview as a formal warning.”
“But I haven’t done – ”
The man held up a hand to silence her.
“You will return to your place of residence – ”
“But why was I called here?”
“Do not interrupt me! You will not discuss what has transpired here today.”
As if by a silent, unseen signal, a young guard appeared on her right to lead her from the building through an alley door, out into the open. The city was an elderly man, wheezing and sucking in what oxygen it could. Ines leaned against a nearby wall. Bizarre. What could it all mean? In recent months she had heard whispers that the regime was growing more paranoid, like an ageing beast lumbering in circles, mistaking the flick of its own tail for a fleeing
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For a moment, vague memories of posters and proclamations that had filled the streets with the cry EQUALITY FOR ALL flickered in her mind.
Of course, sacrifices had followed.
As time went by, the triumphal music that accompanied television announcements and egalitarian promises had disintegrated into ever-present white noise, a blurred backdrop against which Ines followed her routine. Somehow, she had found a way to survive, unpicking the seams of her hopes and her dreams and fashioning an existence from the spartan ambition that remained.
Like a spreading stain, darkness now seeped into the grey fabric of the sky. At the thought of the pigeons waiting for her, pecking fruitlessly at the window ledge, Ines quickened her pace, hurrying inside her dilapidated apartment block.
Instantly she froze. A light was emanating from beneath her door. Good citizens were expected to save power at all times. Ines never left on lights. Hands trembling she fumbled for her key, but when she turned the handle the door was