When The Night Calls

When the Night Calls

“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?” ― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

The date is March 18^th, 2038. Now I don’t know about you, but when I think that far into the future what comes to mind are flying cars and underwater cities. Why is this? Why do I assume the world to have technologically advanced and not the reverse effect? I have to pinch myself into thinking that devolution even exists. I put that down to excessive optimism. I always possessed this vision that the future was bound for an inevitable course of innovation, with floating electronic billboards and utilitarian robots roaming about the streets. There was never any doubt in my mind. After landing a spaceship on Mars in 2027, the process appeared to be in full motion. It was surely only a matter of time until the world took itself to new heights. However, as you might have guessed by the tone of this narrative, that never happened. Though it is worthwhile mentioning that a great deal has changed in the last decade and not how you might expect.

            Interestingly enough, more change has taken place these past ten years than my whole lifetime combined. Except I wouldn’t exactly call it advancement per se. To better understand where I am going with this, I suggest you set aside the society you have acculturated to and imagine yourself starting afresh, like you are being reborn. This is your first day in my world. That day being March 18^th, 2038. This date might seem plucked out of obscurity, like someone circled their finger aimlessly over a calendar one day and said, ‘ah yes, that’ll do,’ but it actually marks a significant tradition. ‘Draft Day’ as it is named. By definition, the word ‘draft’ is to select an individual or a group and bring them somewhere for a particular purpose. We were not selected as such, but rather brought ourselves there of our own accord. Don’t worry, my dear reader, democracy hasn’t been abolished entirely.

            I know you probably have thousands of questions right now and I will get around to addressing them sooner or later. The first is rather important. What is Draft Day? I have purposefully delayed my answer because this is the hardest concept to understand. If you have not yet undergone your rebirth, as it were, and left your present reality behind, then you will think of this as absurd. We thought the same way about its sudden imposition at first – everybody did. My colleagues and I ranted about it amongst ourselves and reserved no doubts of its failure.

            “It could never sustain itself,” I remember saying. “The Civilists will eventually break their allotted curfew.”

            “Too right,” Jerry Crewman agreed passionately. “I ain’t takin’ interest in this ‘hole thing. I got a date with that Lucy what’s-her-face on Friday and there ain’t no way on I’m gonna miss that in a hurry.”

            And indeed he didn’t miss it. Though he never showed up to work again. That was the last conversation we ever had together. On those opening weeks, brave Civilists, like Jerry Crewman, ignored the new system of existence. They left their houses beyond 9pm, the recommended Blackout, and the very next morning you would wake to discover their bodies nailed to a wooden stake. Leaving your house after blackout was the closest thing to suicide. You were probably better tightening a noose around your neck and tipping a stool from under you; at least that would be a more orderly demise than being trodden lifeless by a thousand boot heels. There were talks of rebellion, of taking back normality by force, but these rarely came to anything. Nobody could recruit enough numbers to overwhelm the opposition, and when they did, it was always the same result. Not only did it end in defeat but a demoralising one at that.

            Before I go any further, I must explain something! Draft Day is an annual event, where people come together to decide which side they are on. Everybody goes to their nearest polling station, similarly to a general election. This vote, on the other hand, does not involve elective candidates like you would think, but two options of existence: Rageism or Civilism. Nothing else. No grey area in between for indecision or impartiality. You have to choose one or the other. A square-faced doorman gives each person a slip of paper. You tick the box of your preferred mode of living and leave either as a Rager or a Civilist.

 You might already have some idea as to what differentiates these two parties. Let’s start with the Civilists for now. They are like myself, and are by nature what their name suggests: civil. We pride ourselves on the maintenance of politeness, courtesy and manners, taking after the generations before us who lived by the same customs. When an elderly lady falls over in the street, I myself would make sure to pick her up and ask if she’s okay, for that comes as routinely to me as brushing my teeth in the morning. I can’t speak on behalf of every Civilist but the vast majority of us had easy upbringings. We got decent pocket-money when we were younger, had a lovely home life and never knew anything more than the roof over our heads. There is a certain privilege inherent within those who choose Civilism on Draft Day, though it goes largely unspoken about. By choosing this mode of existence, we are subsequently confined to a twelve-hour bracket between 9am to 9pm. What happens during this time frame? As you would expect, we attend meetings, go to work, go shopping, socialise with friends of the same caste and everything else one might do in the daytime. Not much really changed with the introduction of this rule, except we now must condense our activities into a shorter duration – and never leave the house after nightfall. That was number one rule. No more partying until late. I have already explained the dangers of doing so and I hardly think I need to repeat myself. It’s been five years since I said, ‘the system would never sustain itself’ and not a day goes by where I don’t remind myself of that embarrassing remark. The system has remained in place, principally due to its ability to police itself. I said as much to my brother, Danis, one evening.

“…I assumed with the abolishment of law enforcement and with no way of imposing the curfew, Civilists would do as they pleased. I was wrong, brother. I overlooked the fact that people are obedient when they are faced with the prospect of death.”

Danis took a longish drag on his cigarette and stared back at me. “That poor mate of yours learnt the hard way. Anyone unwilling to follow orders are damned.”

“There must be something we can do,” I pleaded. “Perhaps we can make peace with the Ragers? Elect a Civilist to negotiate a settlement?”

“That’s preposterous! You are sooner to see Satan ice-skating to work than Ragers and Civilists coming to some agreement. They hate us!”

I think back to that conversation sometimes. Though Danis was unbearably cynical, it made what he said no less true. The Ragers thought of them as entitled, mollycoddled toffs that got everything handed to them and wouldn’t know a hard day’s work if they found it in their sock drawer. Now that I’ve described our side of the fence, let’s move onto the Ragers. It’s difficult for me personally to say with any certitude what the Ragers are like, for I have never transferred over to the night. I have only the vandalism, arson and violence they leave each night to form my opinion. Unlike us, they seem not to possess even a morsel of morality. They are freakish creatures set upon this Earth with no purpose but to cause anarchy. Ragers get pleasure out of watching the world burn; the same pleasure as I do out of helping up an elderly lady in the street.

Danis put it to me like this: imagine all the worst people ever born crammed into a single room.

“Okay,” I said. “But I could still survive.”

His brother scoffed. “You think so? Now imagine all crime is legal… you have to exist among them for an entire year. The same people that set buildings alight and kill others for leisure.”

“You never know until you try,” I distinctively remember saying.

Sorry about my rather fragmentary account of these events so far. You are probably getting dizzy from having been thrown about in the first three pages, but I will settle down now. It is still March 18^th, 2038. Nothing has changed on that score. Hopefully by this point you are better educated to my circumstances and have long since abandoned your reality. Yes? Excellent. You might be wondering why I selected this Draft Day to begin my story, especially when there are many others to choose from. The reason is strikingly simple. I will throw you in the thick of it so nothing is left to the imagination:

“Are you crazy? You transferred to the night?” I yelled at Danis when we arrived back at the house. “You can’t be serious? It’s a damn suicide mission!”

“Someone has to observe them at close range,” he said. “I can gather information and report back to the Civilists.”

I was shaking all over with fear. “But you specifically said, ‘anyone that doesn’t follow orders are damned.’”

“Forget it,” he spat. “I suddenly realised that I can’t start a revolution from my bed. I need to stop wasting my breath on denouncing the Ragers and infiltrate their ranks.”

“But you will stand out like a fly on a wedding cake,” I pointed out. “You can’t just draft over and expect to gain their trust. They will see through your bravado.”

“I can be deceptive if necessary,” he said. “Besides, they soon will believe me after seeing me firebomb a car.”

“But where will you stay during the daytime? You can’t stay here. If they find out that you are living with Civilists then you are a dead man.”

Danis gave me an absent pat on the shoulder. “Brother, you worry yourself too much. I’m staying with a friend on the other side of the city. He is a Rager and I trust him to show me the ropes.”

This was a common problem that arose in the drafting process. Civilists who switched over to the Ragers often had family members that remained put. Most of these draftees were often already estranged from their friends and family, having fallen out over a difference in social view. I have even heard of stories where draftees have condemned their own families to the Ragers in order to make a good opening impression. As for Danis, he would affirm his allegiance another way. It was not enough to simply tick a box on Draft Day, otherwise Civilist infiltration would occur on a frequent basis. You had to prove your loyalty. If that meant beating someone to death with your bare hands then it was a worthy sacrifice in exchange for their trust. In simpler terms, you needed a degree of evil inside your heart to become a Rager. Anyone pretending to support the movement were usually caught out by their own moral conscience.

“Then I guess this is our farewell,” I added wretchedly.

“Only for now,” he said. “I will return to the Civilists on the next year’s Draft Day and hopefully with intelligence of the enemy’s movements. This is history in the making, brother.”

I smiled thinly. “Just come back safely, that’s all I ask.”

We spent those last hours together packing up his belongings. He took only his essentials as his friend promised to accommodate for everything else. I gave him a firm embrace, with tears rolling down my cheeks and wished him good luck. The phrase ‘I love you, brother’ was sitting idly on my tongue throughout our parting but it never escaped past my lips. I don’t know why I didn’t say it aloud. Something about it seemed final, like he was already halfway to his grave and I needed for him to know before he sealed his fate. It was better left unsaid. Why do I think like this? There is always a degree of shyness between brothers to express how they truly feel, despite knowing it is not a shameful admission. 

     

I closed the door behind him and my heart sank to the darkest depth. It occurred to me that I had just allowed my own brother to walk himself to the gallows. I should have barricaded the door closed with furniture; anything to stop him from leaving, but instead I might as well have signed the death warrant on his behalf. I felt guilty for not convincing him otherwise. Maybe I could have changed his mind. Of course, this was all nonsense. Every decision made on Draft Day is irreversible just as soon as you drop that slip of paper into the completion box. As from that moment forward, your name is logged through a complex identity system and no such records are altered again until the next Draft Day comes around. Danis 4.2 (we do not technically own surnames nowadays, as I will explain later) was a recorded Rager. That title follows him about wherever he might go like the shadow at his back.

You might be thinking that there are potential loopholes in this system, and the answer is yes, assuming you asked it five years ago when the system was at its inception. When the concept of Draft Day was introduced, many people never took the process seriously. I specifically remember a group of teenage boys bragging outside the polling station of how they had enlisted to the Ragers, notwithstanding the fact they had no intention of obeying the daytime curfew. Besides, they still had school to attend. How could any of this be taken seriously without requisite enforcement? That same question was on my lips for weeks. I assumed there was going to be some mandatory label to identify one another, like when the Nazis forced the Jewish people to wear the Star of David on their arms. As predicted, they did find a solution. It was made compulsory for every citizen to have an electronic tag fitted to their ankles, exactly as you would under house arrest. The device confined individuals to a certain perimeter during their allotted curfew. If anyone dared to infringe this agreement, it was not a matter of police officers arriving at your doorstep and issuing a written warning, but receiving a paralyzing bolt of electricity that could disable you from the waist downwards. This did not go unprotested; there were nationwide riots against this new age, though by the time the smoke had settled, those same people were deciding whether to become a Rager or a Civilist.

It might come as a surprise how quickly people embraced their perceived roles. Ragers – of various ages – crawled out from the woodwork and began to cause anarchy on the streets, torching “expensive” or “posh-looking” cars, vandalising storefront windows, fighting amongst themselves and even shooting up drugs. This angered the Civilists, whose livelihoods were being destroyed each night. In hindsight, I should have foreseen this division of society coming. I even felt it bubbling up within myself: an implacable anger towards the scummy Ragers.

“What I would do to get my hands on those creatures!” shouted an otherwise friendly shopkeeper, watching his business turn to charcoal.

These same remonstrations were heard all across the Civilist community. You would be excused for thinking that the Ragers hated us more than we did them, considering their violent reputation, but I disagree. The feeling was mutual. It was this animosity so deeply entrenched in our ethos which allowed for the system to sustain itself. There was no need for electronic tags anymore. Neither side wanted to interact with the other, unless it was to exact revenge. Meanwhile, a feeling of suspicion was taking root inside both parties, especially on our side of the clock. Civilists seemed adamant there were Rageist infiltrators standing among them. Anyone whose appearance even remotely aligned with the deprived, working-class figure you might come across hanging about the local estate were targeted. In other words, anyone who might have reason to incite anarchy. This was stupid, of course, though I would never say as much out loud. If you sympathised then I would recommend packing your bags early for the next Draft Day as the Civilists were unforgiving. This hatred for the Ragers was like sawing off the same branch we were sitting on. Nobody particularly liked this way of life and yet we found ourselves almost unconsciously perpetuating it. What good could possibly come from accusing working class people of false allegiance? Nothing. As a matter of fact, we only encouraged them to change sides.  

My brother and I watched this unfold. We became caught up in the idea that we could end this ruthless division of society. However, as the years dragged onwards, the aspiration of uniting the two halves again were looking unlikely. I could tell Danis was starting to accept defeat by the way he spoke. He used words like ‘damned’ and ‘impossible’. But along came March 18^th, 2038, the fifth anniversary of Draft Day. That day, my brother joined the Ragers and nothing was ever the same.