THAT FUTURE IS NOW : "Post Hashtag" Sample

The silicon baton clobbered Mae’s head with a hearty thwunk as she slumped to the ground. The armored officer then stepped over her into her apartment, directing the other police units inside. As she lay helplessly sobbing on the grimy hallway floor, the smashing of her belongings could be heard as if a trash compactor were going through her apartment. The LED lighting above was blurred completely as the officers left as quickly as they entered. The unit milled about over Mae for a few minutes, as their sergeant exited:

“Wrong floor, we need 3215, not 3115,” he said sternly to his unit. He looked down at Mae, stroking his bushy red mustache underneath the riot shield protecting his face. “That being said, we did find that some class 3 opioids that weren’t in the prescription database in this young woman’s apartment, so we’ll have to take her in.”

Mae’s stomach nearly crashed into the floor below, and the only thing she could muster through her bloodied face was a weak “what…?” before an officer cuffed her, then dragged her to the elevator.

Everything cleared, and Mae came to realize the gravity of the situation. She turned her head to look up at the officer dragging her:

“Wait, why am I being arrested?” she asked him.

The officer said nothing, and instead hit her on the head again with his silicon baton. Her head and body went limp.

Mae eventually came to on the hard concrete floor of the all-grey holding cell. There were no windows, and she couldn’t even tell where the door was. She sat up, looking for anything distinguishing inside, but there was nothing.

She sat for a few hours, or, was it a few minutes? She couldn’t tell. They hadn’t changed her clothes. She was still in her grimy blue-stripped pajamas. She tapped away at the floor, tried to sing some, paced, and even tried to fall back asleep. Time went on.

She tried to exhaust herself, so she could at least sleep some, but that proved to be fruitless. She looked to the walls, judging their artistic potential. Maybe she could carve something onto the walls. They were so pristine, after all.

But when Mae tried to dig her nails into the wall, an electric shock ripped through her body, making her nails dig in further, increasing the voltage of the hellish shock. It was a good ten seconds, or an eternity, before Mae pulled free. Her curly brown hair was frayed everywhere, and sticking out in several directions. Mae decided it would be best to curl up on the floor instead.

She waited.

She waited.

She didn’t sleep, she hardly breathed.

She waited.

Eventually, a door was opened behind her and she was grabbed by an officer who dragged her out of the cell. She was led down a brightly led corridor lined with several numbers, and small latches. It wasn’t long before she was standing face to face with an old guard behind a large pane of bullet-proof glass. He had a sullen look about him typing slowly away at his computer.

“There must’ve been some error,” Mae said, stepping towards the glass.