A Letter From a Re-education Camp

 Dear Maggie,

I can't seem to forget you.

They say that time makes you forget the details. Faces and voices of the past begin to fade. Everything becomes a hazy blur.

But that's not happening. I remember your hazel eyes, the aquiline sweep of your nose, the redness of your full lips, the auburn curls, the tiny earlobes, and even the location of the mole on your cheek.

I have no picture of you; it is just what I have preserved in my mind. But that is enough to see me through this nightmare. I refuse to accept that I will never see you again.

I'm not supposed to be able to write you. But I have managed to have smuggled to me this one piece of paper, and a small pencil nub. On one side is my note to you, and on the other is the menu for the week. Yes, they got it from the kitchen. The pencil nub was from the guard's station, pilfered by the prisoner assigned to janitorial duties.

Do not worry about me. I am doing fine. I don't like being incarcerated, and I miss you tremendously, but I can and will survive.

I am so happy that you were able to escape the Kingdom. I pray that you are safe. I won't say where I think you are for fear that this letter will be confiscated. Just know that I picture you there, secure and happy.

They have not tortured me. I have no information they desire. Let me repeat that. I know nothing that could help them in any way.

I do spend long hours in counseling sessions designed to convert me to their religion and cause, I listen carefully, but I remain the same. It does not help that I am a Christian because I do not hold to what they are calling Christianity.

That said, I will do what I can to secure my release. Whatever it takes.

And rest assured, I will see you again.

Love,

Gregory

This is flash fiction from a series of stories based on the Kingdom, a near future in which America has broken up into several territories/nations. Much of the South has become The Kingdom, where Christian Nationalists have achieved dominance.

The stories may not always follow from one to the other, as they are adjusted to meet a reasonable extrapolation of current events. Think of them like DC's Elseworld stories or Marvel's What If.

Maybe someday I will edit them into a whole.

How much I write of any one thing may depend on the number of views it gets. So far, following that logic, I should refrain from writing about anything.