When all the lilacs died from vaping

The captain slapped me in the face, hard. He'd been doing it all morning, after his squad brought me in for misplacing a comma while printing a government news release. 

"Let's get one thing straight" he said evenly. "I don't like you, and you don't like me, and we don't like them, and they don't like us. Got it? Now, once again -- who put you up to sabotaging that comma?"

I was weak from fear and hunger. My head rang like a gong from all the blows it had absorbed. But I wasn't going to give the bastard anything.

"Private John Wilcox, serial number 7H338B65" I said stolidly.

"You're just making it hard on yourself, John" said the captain. He pulled out an emery board and began filing his plump fingernails. I noticed a half-eaten golf ball on his desk.

"I've got all day" he said conversationally. "There's no rush to get the information we need. Besides, the technicians are working on your laptop right now and we've subpoenaed your phone records. I doubt if it'll be more than an hour or two before we know who's in this with you. So why not make it easy on yourself?" He leaned over to put his savage face right into mine: "SO JUST GIVE US THE NAME!" 

"Private John Wilcox, serial number WCCO6676769 -dash-2" I said grimly. I winced as the captain gave me the back of his hand. I could taste salt as I swallowed the blood in my mouth.

"Very well" said the captain coldly. "If that's how you want it to be, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Hugo . . . "

A huge shadow covered me like a blanket as Hugo stepped into my blurry sight. 

"Hugo has, shall we say, some unusual talents -- I find him very useful when faced with stubborn ignorance. I hope you two will get along well . . . "

The captain left, and the thing he called Hugo sat down on a stool in front of me and grinned like a jack-o-lantern . . . 

How had this nightmare all began? I willed myself to fall back on  past memories as a way to survive the horrors of the present. 

It was last spring, when all the lilacs died from vaping, that ugly crowds demanded brutal penalties for paraphrasing government news releases. State legislatures bowed to the mob and it became a felony to change anything, even typos, when it came from the Governor or Mayor or Chief of Police. The National Guard was called out to insure compliance, and then Congress was prorogued until further notice. They came for my sister Kate one night, breaking down the venetian blinds to confiscate her mandolin sheet music and escort her to a Costco-run 'reeducation camp.' We never saw her again. It was a bad time for journalists, or for someone like me -- a Kinkos clerk who still knew how to read big words.   

I made it my business to scramble the punctuation in every government document and handout we printed and copied. Drunk with power, the local authorities had everything they said, thought, or even belched, immediately printed and posted on walls, fences, and telephone poles. Reactionary to the core, they eschewed using social media for anything but speed dating.

I don't know who finally ratted me out; it was probably the store manager -- he was married to an Otter Pop. It looked like I'd never live long enough to scatter random parenthesis again.

I was shook out of my reverie by Hugo, who kept saying in a thin reedy voice "Look out the window, will ya?"

My hands were untied. Hugo gave me a Handi Wipes to wash the encrusted blood off my face. I staggered over to the window to see an effigy of the captain being set on fire by Ukrainian soldiers. 

The Season of Avocado Toast had arrived at last. This revolution would be rich and creamy, with lots of vitamin K and lutein.

"Am I free to go?" I asked Hugo quietly. 

"Yes, please" he cringed in front of me. "And take the captain's half-eaten golf ball, will ya? He ain't comin' back for it."

(Based on a story in today's Washington Post:  https://wapo.st/2CAIqMN   @ReisThebault )