Paulidoren Street, West Aura
1943 Hours, 12.31.1959
Layers of evening heat fell to the ground in a dense fog. A clocktower to his right marked out a shallow slash on its face, illuminated by the occasional working streetlight and the desklamps of those doomed to stay late at work on an otherwise festive thursday night.
Fireworks boomed off in the distance, and Thomas flinched with every delayed explosion of sound. Who uses fireworks when it’s not even dark yet? In his left pocket he clutched a print stencil; In his right pocket he carried a wad of pamphlets. Each was printed off at his work, the only high-volume printer he had access to, as his wife had used the layout guides from her work at the newspaper to design them. The brochures advertised a better life, a utopia that anyone could be a part of; and a plan of action to have it realized. As the “outreach overseer” (a title he thought was amusing, it made him sound like a customer service representative) of the organized New Staynes resistance, he was responsible for getting out the message to the oppressed masses. He quickened his pace through the loosely packed crowd of new-years revelers. The heat and humidity of what had been one of the hottest summer days he’d felt now radiated upward from the pavement and added to his already sweaty face. Beads of heat merged with beads of fear.
Thomas walked along the alleyway he’d taken to get home for the past two years. He tentatively pushed his key into the lock and turned, revealing momentarily with a sliver of golden light all that was his world. He closed the door behind him and locked it just as quickly.
“What took you so long?” His wife asked. Pam scolded him incessantly over any tardiness, her fear of them being discovered had long ago worked it’s way into her mind until any deviation from schedule implied death or capture. His seven year old ray of sunshine bobbled over and hugged his leg. He couldn’t help but smile.
“Had trouble bluffing my way in.” He explained. “Got a couple extra, though.” He handed her the folded clump of copies, which she deftly straightened and examined.
“A few aren’t pressed straight, the bleed is all off…”
“I was in a hurry, honey.”
“I suppose it’ll have to do.” She gave in and hugged him. They kissed and broke, Thomas picking up young Chance and hefting them up to his shoulder.
“Did you have a fun day, Cha-Cha?” The child nodded enthusiastically. “Good! Tell me all about it during dinner.”
“Oh-kayy!”
He trotted over to the stove and put some water on to boil. “Did you call mom like you were gonna, babe?”
She yelled back from the other room, where she often worked on her layouts after work. “No, Tom, I never got a chance. Cha-Cha and me painted all day.”
He cracked a smile and looked over at Chance, who now maneuvered a wooden model of a plane through the air as though it was the true aluminum machine. “Did you get to paint with mommy today?”
“Yeahh! We did a rainbow and it’s pretty an’ awesome!” They immediately went back to their piloting.
Tom took the next ten minutes to prepare what sort of meat he could. He’d been saving some money on the side, and new years seemed as good a day as any to have some good, old fashioned spaghetti dinner.
He broke the pasta and dropped a fistful into the pot of boiling water. Enough for three dinners. He allowed a smile to come to his face and a small well of pride to come up through his chest. He turned and called to the house at large that dinner would be ready soon.
Humming to himself, he worked what magic he could with their small shelf of spices, topping the mix with a trio of bay leaves and carrying it out to the table. The gathered family had not had such a meal in nearly a year.
“Eat up, everyone. You’ve earned it.” As Chance’s plate was being heaped with noodles by their mother, an angry series of blows threatened to shatter the door.
“Open the door. It’s the police.”
Thomas and Pam went pale. Chance even seemed to sense something was wrong. The clock over the stove ticked past eight and kept going.
Thomas set down his plate and went to answer the door. The floorboards creaked and groaned as he went, as if to ward him back away from the entrance.
“Yes, officer?” He said after he’d opened the door.
“Are you Thomas Daywood?”
“Y-Yes. What are you doing here?”
Behind that officer were six more, all twice the size of Thomas, who himself wasn’t wiry.
“We have reason to suspect you’ve been supporting the anti-governmental efforts of the ‘New Staynes’ movement.” The end of his sentence rose with a sneer.
He shoved past Thomas and glared angrily at the innocent family, before noticing the print template on the counter. He held it up to the light and grunted.
“Creation of anti-govenment media. That’s forty years, you traitors.”
“- Traitors? You mean-? My wife wasn’t a part of this. It was my plan all along.”
“We’ll decide that for ourselves. Come with us.” Another large officer muscled in and plucked Pam from the dinner table.
“No. Don’t touch her.” Thomas’s voice deepened and began to shake. It was an unpracticed tenor used only when something he loved was on the line. He’d used it only once before.
The officers, three of them, took Thomas out of the building and into the alleyway. The man dragging Pam followed. Through the door came the sound of scuffle, and a pair of pops that blended almost seamlessly into the scattered explosions of fireworks above.[edit_reason]Forgot how to spell[/edit_reason]