Untethered by M.T. Bass

Author:M.T. Bass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult
Publisher: M.T. Bass
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Coop led Connor down to the haphazard collection of tents, lean-tos, shipping containers and cardboard boxes known as Tent City, where the “Bridge People” lived apart from the rest of society and were mostly left alone by authorities in an un-ratified treaty that was largely unacknowledged publicly but widely understood by the general population, who studiously ignored the presence of the counter culture which existed right in front of their faces

Once he got over the initial shock of the punch in the nose landed by the cacophonous odors of humanity at its most elemental level, the scene reminded Connor of a Native American tribal village: crude and rustic, with a muted nobility that existed just below the surface. Men lounged about their dwellings while women came and went, doing the same kind of domestic chores that always had to be done, whether you lived under a bridge or out in the suburbs.

The one thing Connor came to notice was that there were no young children in the camp. The youngest person was still older than he was—someone who should have been a college student or maybe a rookie teacher or even a government drone like Arnie the social worker, but who sat beside a stained tent, intently carving a piece of wood with a knife way too large to be legally carried in a citizen’s pocket.

Connor followed close behind Coop as he wove his way through the village, greeting folks and sometimes stopping to talk with a Tent City neighbor in front of his residence—as if this were, indeed, an idyllic and sanctioned living zone filled with cookie-cutter domestic structures thrown up by whichever government bureaucracy was responsible for Citizen housing. Connor couldn’t figure out if Coop was the de facto mayor or the sheriff in this small, ad hoc town, but he felt welcome—strangely at home here in the city under the bridge—more so than back up in the parcel approved for his family’s domicile. It was a town of fellow Uns. And even before he had met anyone other than Coop, he felt a common bond with these fellow outcasts.

Coop stopped to let Connor catch up and stand beside him in what amounted to the village square.

“You know, Connor, when it all goes to shit, who do you think will be okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look around. Nobody’s plugged in here. What happens when the government deposits stop? Or when government deposits won’t put food in the kitchen cupboards, cause it ain’t there in the stores?”

“Why wouldn’t there be food in the stores? They’d just get more from the warehouse, right?”

“Where do you think the warehouse gets its food?”

“Farms and factories.”

“Right……The means of production.”

“Something like that.”

You know how farms and factories work?”

“Not really.”

“Right. Not many people do anymore and not many care—at least until they can’t get what they want and what they need. By then it’s too late. The government has robbed them of the most important thing there is.”

“What’s that?”

“Look around. What do you see?”

Connor scanned Tent City.

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