Lost In Time

            Cardinal hand’t gone out scoping for new lost relics in a while. By a while, it had been over 20 years since he had left his desolate cabin. The years of self-isolation and loneliness mattered not to him; he was practically a loner by choice and trade. The choice of living in a desolate, cold, rinky-dink cabin 45 miles outside of town was not in his cards. This was all forced on him.

            You see, Cardinal loved living socially, despite being anti-social himself. 25 years ago, at the age of 18, he was able to get out of the tight sealed bubble of being beyond the pale. At Interpolis Community College, he joined a club. Political Science was what Cardinal was majoring in, he was always undoubtedly political. Peers would argue it was “in his blood”.

            Now, this was not without its controversy. Cardi did NOT like modern America. He made sure that the idealists and philosophers of this club knew it.

            “Marxist!”

            “Anarchist!”

            “Communist!!”

            “Fascist!!”

            The yelling of his common peers when he disagreed with policy, echoed in his angry, ideally creative mind. He wondered why such intelligent, forward-looking, and potentially world-changing minds could be so dour, harsh, and so close-minded.

            “In a world where our leaders are blatantly exploiting our ideals of peace and freedom, to further an agenda where we bow, is not my world”, he wrote in his black diary.

            “We have lost multiple media important to the past that we are censored. What happened to creative minds creating beautiful art?”

            In the years before these diary entries, the government made numerous censoring and controlling decisions. There was no such thing as opposition. No. No there really wasn’t. TV Shows and Movies were vetted for any sort of parody or criticism. Film media was now legally obligated to praise decisions made by our leaders. Time limits for TV Shows and movies were also instituted as well. 15 minutes for shows, 45 minutes MAX for movies.

            Also, DVD’s, VHS tapes, lost relics from the 80’s like Laser-discs were strictly forbidden for ownership or sale. The penalty for owning any DVD’s or physical home media are $30,000 and 15 years in hard labor prisons. The news media can only praise ideas and laws put into place. It doesn’t matter the news organization, CNN, Fox News, etc.

            Stories of people getting punished for minuscule things like these were outrageous. Cardinal wrote down in his diary of one such instance.

            “My apartment was always in the ‘lower class’ end of looks. The bricks and mortar of my walls were chipped, consistently cold to the touch due to low insulation. And due to said low insulation, it was not hard to hear any sort of commotion going on outside of my place.

            “IRA (Interpol Regional Assault), was the police. They were given a call to our place due to forbidden music being played. Forbidden music you may ask? YES!! What music could be so threatening that in our new day and age must be abolished? Anything rebellious. Old and new.

            “To those reading this diary entry, who do you enjoy listening to? Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Metallica, The Weeknd, Kenny Chesney? Do you want some news that’ll make it seem like someone shit in your Lucky Charms? All them are banned. My neighbor was blasting the great Rolling Stones record ‘Sticky Fingers’, and the song ‘Brown Sugar’”

            “My neighbors name was Chris Thillian, a 35 year old gas station employee, who barely affords rent. He was lanky, he could’be been autistic, I don’t know I never had more than two word exchanges with him. When the IRA knocked on his door with pounding aggression, Chris stood his ground. Standing your ground, costs your life.”

            Cardinal would go on to explain that Chris’s disobedience and defiance against totalitarian rule would not go appreciated. The wooden door was splintered, leaving easy enough access to blow the door down with force. The 3 or 4 armed men were wearing all brown with one white stripe on the left sleeve, to show their status. After destroying the door, they grabbed Chris by the arms, broke both his shoulders and threw him outside.

            They grabbed his record collection, threw it in a pile, and threw Chris on top of the pile. Without a warning, or plea, the IRA took their box cutters and cut his ears off. The agonal screams too graphic for Cardi to recollect. They slowly took out their lighters, and one had a green lighter fluid can. Before Cardi could describe what happened next, he purposely left the next page blank. We think we know what the readers would happen. The officers would then nail his mutilated ears next to the apartment, and just let the man and his music burn.

            Cardinal had enough of those constant exchanges of totalitarian and censoring rule. How can one live in a city, state or just government in general where physical media and music are censored and hidden? The extension of men and women expressing life in all facades and aspects, now being shunned and forbidden. Yeah, no way was Cardinal gonna live like this.

            Soon after this incident, he knew he needed to get away from the socialized and controlling media. He knew, if he wanted personal freedom for what he wanted, and what he wanted he was not sure of yet, that he needed to live away from society.

            That same year, he took all he was able to smuggle in his arms and what was illegal. He was going to live his life his way or no way. It was time to get away from the city, and time to start living off the grid.

            He snuck out around 1 am on a cold December night. Walked in the backstreets of Interpolis, through the smelly shit laden paths of alley ways, and through dark and boding under-paths. The edge of town is finally where he was able to creep back into the lights and be seen without any suspicion or tense. He would spend the next two weeks, rummaging through the outer streets and woods, trying to avoid the local towns and police.

            The cold was daunting to him, as it was the middle of winter. Temperatures around mid-December could be as cold as -5 degrees, with snow falling steadily and ominously. Cardinal wasn’t wearing anything too terribly warm besides his red jacket and black striped beanie. So he was well aware of the hazards, dangers, and roadblocks to complete isolation.

            He was starving. He ended up in wooded areas about 45 miles outside of the nearest town. IDEAL!!! Well, as someone who was not witted enough to think ahead for dangerous situations like these, as well as having no forward goal, Cardinal was admittedly a dumb ass. He needed to eat badly, and without hunting skills, and packaging only Raisin Bran, stale Sourdough bread, and some coffee, he thought he was screwed.

            “Since abandoning my job, my home, my school, and whomever I was acquainted with back in my college, I have tested my own nonexistent skills,” Cardinal wrote in his diary.

            “I don’t know what the hell I just got myself in to, maybe I’m too hardheaded.”

            Towards the end of his new isolation journey, he struck a creek. It was flowing with clear, almost pristine looking water. Dehydrated, tired and consistently sick from using his own urine as a beverage to keep moving. He was throwing up, weak, and vitamin deprived. Delighted by the sight of the quick moving flow, and the surprising ASMR of the peaceful water sounds gave a small moment of clarity.

            He quickly grabbed his thermos and gulped the water so warmly and comely. The liquid felt so refreshing and inviting, he felt reinvigorated to rethink his next steps of this undertaking. What should he do now? Should he try to go back to Interpolis and pretend like nothing had ever happened?

            No. In his eyes, going back is the meaning of compromise of values. He needs to stand on what he believes, because you can’t just be as introverted yet opinionated like Cardinal and go back because you can’t face your own lack of survival skills. He thought that self isolation to maybe discover a new way of thinking would be beneficial, and maybe he can change the world with his thoughts. What can he do? FAST FORWARD.

            22 years later, the summer is bearing down on the dense woods that Cardinal had been in for the entire duration. He had found a desolate cabin made of old birch wood, that constantly scented of rain. It was about 600 square foot, fitted with a stone chimney. It had been abandoned presumably a hundred years prior to Cardinal discovering it.

            In the years since he uncovered this permanent secluded shelter, Cardinal had finally developed initiative within himself. He became entirely self-taught. He learned archery, and the art of crafting weapons so he can hunt. And hunting he became an expert at, from triangulating his aim to hit the intended target, to how to read the weather, Cardi taught himself how to be self-sufficient. He abandoned technology, and he felt as though the government was not going after him. As far as he was aware, there really weren’t any missing posters of him, no news outlets covered him.

            In his first diary entry in 22 years, he wrote “I am surprised I haven’t noveled my thoughts and plans in these years. Maybe I had no thoughts, maybe I was just simply on autopilot trying to figure out the life of seclusion. But dear diary, I am alive.”

            “And I have plans”, he announced to…no one.

            You see, you are probably asking yourself, “what has changed in the government? Is it still Big Brother out there in society?".

            Nothing. And yes, it most definitely is. Cardinal might have sworn off technology, but he had discovered a radio years prior to constantly be aware of the world around him. He was constantly appalled at what had been going on in Interpolis, with LITERAL BIG BROTHER rules. No music, news was heavily censored to fit an agenda of complete totalitarian rule. Movies could not contain certain pop culture references that deferred from the current administration. As mentioned earlier, physical media like CD’s of any artist, or DVD’s of any movie were forbidden. The only reason for this was to cut manufacturing costs for bigger corporations, and the threat of increasing those costs made any sales of existing copies illegal.

            Cardinal grew way too disenfranchised and figured the only way his fellow man could get around this is to protest. Oh no, not a protest. Over the last few decades, any form of protest was immediately eradicated by the IRA. Protesters would immediately be arrested and never heard from again. Once crowds were dispersed, vans and vans of officials would box groups of protesters. They would gas protesters until they were unconscious, yet alive, and be thrown in the vans. The IRA would take these folks, take them to warehouses where it is speculated that they are imprisoned, forced into hard labor, or executed.

            Knowing the dangers, Cardinal knew there was no way out besides this if he wanted change. He also knew, that the change he wanted, will not be seen in his lifetime.

            “August 25th, 2065. Today, I will write out my plans. Which isn’t very much thought out yet, but when the hell am I ever thought out?”, at least Cardi was honest about himself.

            “A couple years ago, I had begun collecting some berries during a food scourge. In this remote area of bushes and annoying poison ivy, there was an obvious grave. I do not know what possessed my dumb ass to dig this up, but I did.”

            “In fear of it being remains of a murder victim, I was very careful digging this up. With my hands, I kept up throwing dirt away, some on my fresh berries behind me, and what I stumbled on this bag tightly knit. I fearfully took my knife, and like a bandaid, I just cut the bag without hesitation to get this fear out of the way. I was beyond delighted by my discovery”

            Cardinal found a bag of CD’s about 150 in total. In this bag, you had a bunch of albums that were once considered pop, rock, metal, alternative classics. Cardi would list some for example:

Rush – 2112 Michael Jackson – Bad Talking Heads – Talking Heads The Weeknd – After Hours Nirvana – Nevermind The Cars – Candy-O Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

…among many, many more.

      “these Cd’s are my power to a greater society. I need to show them to the public. I need someone…to listen.”