Branded

Cirrus clouds dance across the sky like the vapourised remains of Hiroshima’s ballerinas. Men in suits scurry across the ground like bloated maggots feasting on the charred remains of a fallen fire-fighter. I stare down at the pavement as I walk through their town, not daring to look into their scowling faces. They know my secret, even though I cover my armband with one hand. They point and stare, then mutter to each other from behind their faceless masks.

Filthy.

Scum.

Parasite.

I wonder if my parents knew what they were creating when they fucked me into existence. Would father have ripped me from mother’s womb if he knew what I was to become? They are both dead now, so I can’t ask them. If I had the courage I would join them for the good of society. Hurl myself under a bus, or lay down before a train. But I’m just a coward, so I continue breathing the air I don’t deserve. Continue walking through a town I have no right to call home. Hunched over. Hat pulled down low, trenchcoat collar pulled up high. One hand covering my armband of shame. Trying not to think too much about my destination, what they will do to me when I arrive.

A young couple stumble out of a public house, holding hands and laughing. They don’t seem to realise the heartbreak they will cause each other. I wonder if they will create someone like me, another drain on resources. Or whether young love will turn into young hate in time to save their offspring from its future misery. I sidestep into the gutter to avoid them when they skip gleefully toward me. If only they knew what the future holds for them. If they did, perhaps they would end their lives now while there is still time.

A delivery van beeps as it rushes by. Its angry driver waves a fist at me. I walk on, ever closer to my destination. Cracks in the pavement pass like the seconds of my life ticking away as I rush toward my inexorable death. I wonder if it will hurt. If anyone will mourn for me when I am thrown into the incinerator, to be disposed of like the remains of last night’s meal. Will someone scatter my ashes? And if so, will I be blown back into their face by an angry wind who rejects me in death as much as I am rejected in life?

Headlines on billboards outside newsagents tell me how disgusting I am, as if I were somehow unaware of this fact after half a decade of constant reminders. Or perhaps they are there for the benefit of those more fortunate? To remind them their lives have value because they contribute to society, whereas I just drain the blood from it like a vampiric pubic louse.

I think about the letter. They say they want to help me, but I know all they really want to do is send the half-empty glass of my life hurtling to the floor. Shatter it into a thousand tiny fragments that will slice through the arteries of my soul. But that’s okay because I deserve it. The newspaper headlines tell me so, and the smiling, airbrushed faces on TV agree with them.

My destination looms larger. Others of my kind congregate outside its concentration camp walls, hollow-faced ghouls wearing the same armbands as me but making no attempt to hide them. There is no camaraderie between us, no sharing of mutual misery. Instead we avert our eyes, lest we make contact with each other.

A sign on the door welcomes me in seventeen different languages. Like a spider welcoming a fly into its web. A portal through which you lose any dignity you may have had the second you pass through it. Computer screens give false hope of escape to those hunched over them. Showing only the dregs nobody else wants, served up for the mass of lost souls like chocolate-coated excrement. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all. So we all line up, begging bowl in hand, and fight amongst ourselves for the scraps left for us while those in power gorge themselves on our festering carcasses.

I join the queue, wait my turn to see what they have in store for me. There’s no point hiding my armband any longer, so I let my hand drop to my side. Nobody takes any notice of me in here. We are all scroungers and skivers, fake cripples and workshy fraudsters sucking on the teat of tax payers. I know this to be true because the government tells me every day.