“How do you know?” Anxiety compresses each of her words. They fly toward me like hurled stones. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I know. I built it.”

“But you’re not a carpenter. Don’t you think they’ll see that?”

“Faith, be quiet.” I glance toward the closet, then back at her. ”They’ll hear you. And don’t put down my work. It looks fine. It’ll do the job. Just concentrate on your own part, on what you might have to do.”

“I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe it has come to this.”

“You have to. You have to get it through your skull that this is real and is happening. Otherwise you won’t be able to perform. Now c’mon!”

Faith faces me, elbows denting thighs, on a salmon-colored couch. Its satiny fabric bears a paisley design in bas relief. A Queen Anne reproduction, the couch’s mahogany feet glisten.

Across the room I recline in a cushioned chair. I watch my wife. I study her rapidly evolving expressions.

To my left an ornate threshold debuts a hallway, which leads to our den. Several feet into the hallway, along the right wall, hangs the closet door to which I previously glanced. I can see it from my chair if I twist a few inches.

Above Faith’s head hangs a portrait. It is painted in oil from a photograph of our son, Jake, when he was sixteen. His hay thick hair lies neatly combed, parted on the left. The acne that blemished his cheeks is skillfully touched over. Thanks to braces, his smile scintillates. The picture was taken four years ago, three before he died.

It took Jake an entire day to die. The bullet lay lodged in his brain. At first, the doctors weren’t going to do anything. Then emerged what I imagine is the only member of the administration with a conscience. How she can function under such malevolent rule is beyond me, but she has since the beginning, well over a year. She must know something I don’t or be different than she seems.

Regardless, she persuaded the regime’s doctors to try and save my son’s life after that same regime’s soldiers tried to snuff it. This is much more than I could have expected from anyone else in the diabolical theocracy. But she seemed to understand. I mean, all Jake was doing was voicing his opinion, something I had taught him to do since he was a child. And he was only voicing that which he knew, that which he believed, that which I believed, that which most Americans had been raised to believe: the democratic principles of American government, the fabric of our country’s legal cloak for the past two centuries. But, of course, the ability to speak one’s mind is now gone. Freedom is history. If you simply want to buy bread, you must pay homage to the Great Authority — virtually kneel and pray to a pompous goon propped by military might. Many former United States citizens struggle doing that. Jake could not do that. Jake died.

Suddenly, I hear heavy boots scaling our front steps. The crunch of ice, salt, and sand on brick is jagged glass scraping my stomach lining. I knew they would eventually come.

Hard knuckles, muffled by leather, whack a triplet against the wooden door. Out of my chair by the third whack! I dodge the matching ottoman and walk briskly. I feel pride fighting intellect, forcing me to walk slower than my feet would like. Without prideful restraint, I would run.

I open the door. He smiles as he stares through me. Never have I felt so inconsequential. He is one of three, obviously the leader. I think I have seen him before, though I can’t remember where. His effeminacy surprises me. I guess I don’t expect a cold-blooded killer to possess such female-like traits, but I am unable to dwell on the thought.

He steps through the threshold without an invitation and struts to the center of the room. His machine-gunners follow. They are not effeminate. They are colossal. Their jaws could plow snow; mechanized equivalents move garbage at our town dump. These men do not smile. They wear black leather jackets, black leather gloves, black shin-high boots, black felt berets and sport color-coordinated moustaches that would soak up more milk than a brand name paper towel. I get the impression neither of these gentlemen would balk at the chance to bore several new buttons in my belly with the ballistic technology each cuddles.

“It is inspection time,” the effeminate one says with a smirk, his mastodons flanking. I nod stoically. I glance at Faith, striving to remain motionless on the couch. Her clenched body is a rock, but her face: a hornet’s nest under assault by a slingshot-wielding boy.

“My dear woman,” the effeminate leader says, “you look worried. Is there something to worry about?” Then he smiles malevolently and turns back toward me, his smile stretching the taut skin of his youthful, tender face. I wonder, for a moment, if the guy must shave daily. How benign, I realize, youth can make evil look. Such a face, I’m sure, belies Lucifer — so seemingly kind, so deceptively soft, so scary.

“I don’t like it when my hosts appear worried,” he continues, smooth and mocking. “It makes me wonder if they are hiding something — something or someone. By any chance, is that the case here?”

I shake my head, striving my hardest to convey conviction. The effeminate leader studies my face, eyes me up and down, peers long into my pupils. It is difficult, but I don’t divert my eyes. Dry in the throat, I refrain from swallowing — can’t let my Adam’s apple give me away. However, I sense my breathing beginning to labor and immediately throw a governor on my lungs. This sucks! How invasive! Whatever happened to the Constitution? The Bill of Rights? Damn it! How I’d love to break this worm’s neck!

He turns toward Faith and my heart grows arms — inhumanly long arms — with iron-fingered hands. These arms reach out from my chest, across the room. They grab Faith and slap her. They shake her. They squeeze her fear-filled face.

“Be strong Faith!” my hands scream through their violence, “You’re screwing up! You’re gonna give it away!” But, of course, my heart’s hands impact Faith no more than the sternness of my eyes could calm riled hornets.

The effeminate leader glances around the room, then glides past my chair. Now within the threshold to the hallway, only the left side of his face visible, he studies the kitchen. He analyzes detail, his evaluation thorough. Wet and cold, my palms dangle. Checked in my throat, my breath lies. But I am aware of neither.

Then the effeminate leader turns. Then he looks. Well, didn’t you expect it? Maybe, but it inflames my guts just the same. Without preceding diversion, his eyes lock on the closet door.

“What’s in there?”

As he spins to catch my response, the neck of his black coat strains and creaks. Leather intrigues me — always has — its sound, its feel. No motion man makes goes unnoticed when he wears leather. Its texture broadcasts every gesture, every move.

“Coats. Shoes. It’s a closet. I think there’s a broom in there also.”

He stares into me as my mind stares into the unseen. Behemoths in black fidget with machine guns as I try to envision Paul — try to see his family. I attempt to picture them without revealing effort, visualize with no expression, appear as if I’m simply awaiting his next question.

He spins toward Faith. The malicious smile returns.

“Do you agree?”

“Yes — I mean — agree with what? That that is a closet? Yes, that — that is a closet.”

The effeminate leader laughs. It is the cackle of a cruel schoolteacher scorning an illiterate child attempting to read aloud. This snicker is enough for me to kill him. I believe in God. I value compassion. I forgive transgressors. But at this moment I would not hesitate one nanosecond to lift a machete up this man’s crotch, through his torso, to split his morally vacant skull. In fact, I would enjoy it, the same way I know these sartorially black buffoons would enjoy excavating my abdomen with lead. Damn these bastards!

“Yes, my dear woman, I am sure that that is a closet. It sure looks like a closet — from here. But what I am asking is whether you agree that that room is only a closet. Is it only a place where you store coats, shoes and” — he glances at me, arrogance stretching his lips, sadism in his eyes — ” brooms, if you will?”

The hornets have migrated. Their vibration no longer merely ripple her facial skin but resonate throughout her entire body. She squirms as she speaks.

“Uhh, yes…I mean, of course…like what else would we store in a closet?”

This response impales me with the razor-tipped facility of a deer hunter’s arrow. Damn it, Faith! my mind shrieks. Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered!

Across his face breaks the worst smile yet. He smells blood, capitalist blood. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at his guards, then gestures with his forehead. The thugs raise their machine guns. Each steel nozzle aims at Faith’s quivering chest. The guards smirk. The man smirks. His skin is so fresh; his face so young. Dimples poke each cheek as they tighten.

He glances at me, then turns back toward Faith. During the brief silence before the malevolent lips move, I, again, picture Paul — capitalist Paul. How odd it is to think of my neighbor this way, but these days I must. Accept it: they are considered criminals. Luckily, I only worked for one, so I was not a “blood sucking leach on the heart of the proletariat”. To the new government, though, Paul was. A self-employed CPA, a business owner, he represented the scummiest of the scum, a group akin to rapists, murderers and thieves. It’s so absurd that I usually can’t think about it for any length. Today, however, I must.

So I think about Paul — the man. I think about his safety. I can practically see him behind the closet walls. I presume he is huddled with his wife and three daughters beneath sound dampening blankets along the far side of the room. There are no windows in that wall. There had been two. I took them out and filled in the squares. I doubt a trained eye could tell that holes had once existed.

I did the same thing to the entrance door, farther down the hallway, past the closet. Painted sheet rock now covers where a framed threshold existed. Again, I doubt a trained eye….

“Why?” nosy people have asked.

“Simple,” I say, ”Jake was my only child. I loved him more than you could ever know. Love, as a word, does not denote enough feeling, enough affection, to properly describe my emotion toward that boy — that man — my son. I loved him so much that, when he died, I wanted desperately to join him. I wanted to take my life every time I passed his room. This is a ranch-styled house, you see. There is only one floor. I passed his room often. So I wanted to take my life often. His picture on the wall, for some reason, I could handle. Maybe, because it’s only a picture. But his room: that was real. That was where he had once lived. That, I couldn’t handle. So I decided to get rid of it. Board it up. “Jake no longer exists,” I told people. ”Neither will his room. It’s the way I want it.” Faith informed me that I received many glances askance. I didn’t care. I flaunted my conviction.

Of course I loved my son, but I’m a psychologically solid man. I don’t need to remodel my house to get over grief. No, I began blocking up Jake’s room a couple of days before he died — the day the president was turned into hamburger on the White House lawn. I knew, then, that what had formerly been The United States of America was now defunct. Yet, what was I to do? Flee across the Atlantic? The European Disunion was an even bigger mess. No, I couldn’t run, but I had to do something to remain safe. A hidden bunker, my instincts whispered.

It was a no-brainer. Though still alive at the time, Jake lived at the University, rendering his bedroom vacant. At first, no major expense existed, for I wasn’t adding on, just rearranging. Thus, I didn’t need a loan; but, as for a reason? Well, I must admit, I toiled without an explanation I felt the government would believe — despite a head-aching effort to think of one — for several days, my chest heavy and breathing labored as if I chain-smoked. However, I eventually realized that I needed no excuse until I required supplies. The government wasn’t searching homes, door to door, yet; and no annoying clerk was going to ask me what I was building, if I didn’t enter a hardware store.

Initially, my primary task was to install a trap door in the closet behind our fire-proof safe. I placed hinges and latches along the inner side of the cut threshold to keep the new door in place; locks would secure the door when the bunker was occupied.

While the safe hid the door, strong tape and spray paint obscured the wall’s peripheral incision around the safe from where the doorway had been cut. A blown bulb kept the closet dark. Coats, boots, shoes, umbrellas and other items typically stored in a closet completed the cover-up.

But then, while I was still working on the initial changes to his room, Jake died and I, despite mourning, got an idea. Who would doubt the intent of my actions, any action, no matter how absurd, if conducted out of grief? So I went out and bought bricks, mortar, sheetrock, paint…. When people asked, I told them I was building a shrine. I saw one guy, who didn’t think I was looking, frown and twirl an index finger beside his temple. I didn’t care. I’d read enough history. I knew what was coming. And I intended to live.

Faith has begun to cry. Her chest heaves as if she is unable to catch her breath. The machine-guns remain trained on her throbbing torso.

She turns her head toward me. Though she looks helpless and hurting, I hate her. Hate boils in my bowels, percolates up my stomach, circumvents any filtration through my heart and spits at shaking Faith from my eyes. I hate her for I know she’s a coward. I hate her guts because she’s too concerned about her own skin to save the hides of several others. Right now, at this moment, I hate Faith with vengeance.

The affected leader glances at me. No matter how pissed, no matter how distraught, I show him nothing. Only Faith will see my hate. I’ll be damned if I am going to throw human life to these dogs.

So he turns back toward Faith, streams of fear and self-protection flowing down her ugly, contorted countenance.

“Come closer,” he says to the guards. The big guns move in. Their barrels now hover just inches from soaked, shriveled features.

“So — woman — I must know.” His back arches; his head lowers. A manicured hand touches a trembling arm. His tone feels like velvet. “Is there anything other than coats and brooms behind that closet door? If there is and you tell me so, you shall go free. You will then be my friend. But if there is and you do not tell me, I will have no choice but to turn you over to my associates.” He head-gestures toward the machine-gunned monoliths towering over his shoulders. How satanically repugnant I find this creature!

Again, Faith looks at me. She searches my eyes for an answer. I return none. How many times haven’t we talked about this? How many times haven’t we rehearsed this scenario? She knows I believe Paul and his family are safe and will be safe. All we must do is tell these thugs that nothing exists beyond the closet door and they’ll leave. There’s no reason to believe otherwise. What are they going to do? Tear down every wall in every house that looks out of place?

No. I stand firm: if you extend a plausible explanation for something you’ve done, these bastards will buy it. They must. They have too many people to track.

And our reason is plausible. No one can refute a sob story. With grief, a guy can go so far as to feign madness. Just read Hamlet.

The key, though, is that we appear credible, remain composed, and sustain the courage to protect our friends.

“So — woman — do you want to tell me what is behind that closet door? Or do you want me to go look for myself?” As he says this, the effeminate man pulls himself back until he is again strictly upright, still directly in front of Faith. At the same time, the guards shift on their feet. Broadening their straddles, they affirm their grips upon their weapons. Performed more for emotional than physical effect, the gesture works perfectly. Faith drops her head as if to study her thighs. Wetness darkens her blouse where tears have been sliding from her face. As her eyes close, her mouth opens, and the hands from my heart reach out to strangle her. They fail.

“There are people in there. Our neighbors are in there.”

Within me explodes heat, anger — no, more than anger: rage. The effeminate man is turning toward me with a demonically icy grin, while I am hotter than Hell. He sees this and his self-satisfaction melts into consternation.

I lunge toward Faith. I am going to kill her before they kill me. But before I can launch even my second step, the effeminate man has shouted and both guns are blazing, dissecting my anatomy through continual plumes of violent orange, which do not end before I do.

My eyes open. Several moments pass before I recognize my room, my bed, my self. My nerves feel singed. Electric eels slither in my stomach. My palms, I notice, are damp; my breath, irregular.

I close my eyes. My mind tells me: it was only a dream, over and over, yet anxiety remains. Then a gray film spreads like oil across my mindscape as I realize why. My tension is not due to the drama of the dream, but from knowing that dreams can have meaning. They can reveal suppressed feelings.

I hate the truth. I know I can’t live with it. I know I can’t share my life with it. I must get out. I must break our engagement. I must break it today.