I
The only thing Martin wanted then was to finish the irritating procedure. As soon as possible. Of course, he’s been through it dozens of times already and never actually failed. But for some reason, at that day or rather a night, he felt especially agitated. As a representative of various medical facilities for over 5 years now he knew: it would be absurd and challenging even more than always. Maybe it was in due to the new conditions, extremely late time or, perhaps because there was just no one to cover his back up.
In fact, there were only two people in the entire building that Sunday night: Martin and Mr. Officer who came there with the “unscheduled inspection”.
- Hope, you’re doing well, Sir. – Martin approached a man sitting on a sofa in a gloomy corner of the lobby and stretched a hand out to him. - Nice to see you here. All the same good stuff, but in the different wrapping, right?
- Nothing can kill the sense of humor in you, Mr. Jackson! – Officer shook Martin’s hand with some ambiguous mix of disgust and courtesy. – I’m also pleased to meet you in the new position, but I got some questions right from the start. Why the heck there is only one sofa here? No coffee machine, nothing to read. Poor customer service. – He smiled.
Martin looked rather embarrassed now.
- Well. It’s because no one needs such things anymore. This place used to have lots of amenities once, but almost everything was removed shortly after the start of the War. Soldiers bring more “patients” every day, and that means no space for niceties.
- I’m sorry. – Officer realized that was a terrible opener. – Frankly, I feel nervous.
- Not a surprise for me, Sir. Bet, even you think that… it doesn’t make much sense to bring all your standards to the place like this. I mean, it worked and was important for hospitals, but if I were you, I would do anything to avoid such a visit.
Something in the speech of Martin, apparently, offended Inspector and he rose from the sofa in a single quick movement. He looked way more serious this way: a well-built man in a slim black dress, long white wig and with red painted lips was a threatening representation of the might of Establishment.
Martin stepped back.
- The Party’s act number 4/27/1759 prescribes the Diversity Department of our city to inspect each and every facility dealing with people to ensure compliance with its policies. Each including hospitals, orphanages, and even morgues. And whether we like it or not, Mr. Jackson, in this difficult time nothing is more important than to stay loyal to our ideals.
Vivu diverseco![1]
- Vivu.
Martin shook his head.
- Sorry, I start feeling too old for Esperanto, Sir. All these recent changes with the language which “has not been inherited from tradition and patriarchy” … - The doctor moved towards the center of the ruined lobby and invited Inspector to follow him. – So, I beg your pardon in advance. For everything. This is the very first diversity inspection I’m going to have in the morgue. And I want you to understand that we need more time to adjust to the new expectations.
- Yes, Mr. Jackson. All we need is just more time.
Inspector went out of the darkness with a demonstratively confident though shaky gait. As he came closer, Martin paid attention to the dark red carpetbag in his right hand. The doctor had seen it many times and inevitably shuddered recalling all the problems caused by its content before. Officer kept the bag close to his waist and clenched its handle with enormous tense, as if he expected a sudden assault and cared about this property the most.
In order to defuse the situation Martin said:
- Welcome to the most inclusive place in the world, Sir! Nothing can save the individual from his ultimate freedom from the society here. Even death.
It seemed like Inspector understood the joke, however in his own strange way. He didn’t reply anything, grinned and threw another glance at the miserable state of the morgue’s lobby. Martin got the obvious – officer’s current destination bothered him way more than any words or tasks, despite his flaunting attitude. The cracks in the walls, several boarded-up windows, and the dried muddy traces at the entrance – nothing really promised him a pleasant promenade. He grasped his precious bag with both hands.
After a long pause he whispered:
- Let’s waste no more time, Mr. Jackson. If we don’t finish the revision in couple hours, I’ll have to stay here for the night... because of the bombing. And I don’t want this.
- No problem, Sir, - Martin rushed towards the only corridor leading out of the lobby and Inspector followed him – This place is also affected by the new “bombing schedule” - I kind of feel you. Normally, there should’ve been four nurses, couple cleaning attendees and two doctors on duty during the night shift. But in the latter times, everybody from the hospital prefers to stay in the vault and come here in the “permitted hours”. Only enthusiasts like me are left. But I don’t feel lonely.
- Mr. Jackson…You say the Party considers this place to be very unsafe during the “code red periods”?
- The thing is – no. The rooms for the autopsy, coolers, lab, and even the storages are located underground, so they can be technically as safe as the regular vault. I call it my own kind of safe-space. There are only the lobby and the office on the upper level.
What would you like to start from?
Martin pushed the door leading to the corridor and welcomed Inspector with a wide hand gesture.
- Let’s begin with the hardest - the underground… we’ll do the office later.
As soon as Inspector crossed the threshold, he eventually opened his bag and pulled a small, rainbow framed tablet out there.
- Mr. Jackson. The procedure today will be almost the same you experienced in your previous workplaces. This facility will be getting diversity points – added if you meet our expectations and subtracted if you don’t. You need to make 45k of them. If you score any lower, the warning will follow, and if the gap between desired and actual points is higher than 25%, the entire hospital will be fined. Anything I might find inappropriate will be checked using the Party licensed scanning system.
They make me say that every time.
- I understand.
Martin led Inspector through the corridor to the main elevator. He excused himself and swiftly ran to the office just in several steps away to get the respiratory mask. When he came back and pushed the button everything was ready to start.
The elevator’s doors opened and they went in the spacious room designed mostly for the stretchers and the lying bodies. Martin assisted Officer to put the mask on and held his belongings for some time. Inevitably he paid attention to his bag - there were many small pins with different text boxes on its right side. Martin couldn’t read even a half of them when Inspector took his staff back.
The doors closed and the elevator went down.
Martin leaned against the wall and didn’t stop gazing at the peculiar bag tags. The latter were starting from something neutral like: “Go vegan”, “Love is love”, “My body, my choice”, to the more and more hardcore things such as: “Out of the closet and to the trench”, “Cyberfeminist artillery battalion #69”, “If I choose my class, why don’t I choose the race?” and so on. They reminded Martin of some tattoos made in jail or monastery to show the person’s place in the hierarchy. And such a high position of Inspector simply couldn’t help causing respect these days.
- Rigardu en miaj okuloj[2]… please. – The morgue’s guest said with the irritation and straightened his skirt thinking that Martin was looking at his legs. The doctor only apologized in a slightly sarcastic way and turned away.
When the elevator reached the underground level Inspector walked out in the corridor full of trembling braveness and loading the diversity scoring system. His colorful tablet looked like a real beacon of progressiveness and equality in this frightening place.
- So, this is how it’s all organized here, Sir. – Martin decided to take the situation under control from the beginning. – In due to the long-lasting warfare our cooler was expanded about a year ago - it’s located just straight ahead. The room for the autopsy is adjacent to the cooler, on the left side. Dressing room with our personal stuff and labs are to the right…
- Let me see it myself, Mr. Jackson. We’ll go to the coolers first. – Inspector didn’t look away from the tablet and started to go to the left almost blindly. This corridor was lit better than the lobby, so he could easily do it. With each second Officer’s seriousness about the inspection was growing in the eyes of Martin, and he realized the need to change his ironic approach. The bets were too high.
- I assure you, - the doctor declared – that despite the unusual time of your visit and the lack of preparation you won’t find any serious problems here. We have always been committed to accommodate the last will of our patients - our cooler is like an ideal Greek state. In the separate sections we have our leaders, Strongwomen of all races, our warriors – the soldiers of the army of Social Justice, and our reliance – LGBTQ+ with the allied white males. Even the radical vegan movement. When it comes to deciding which bodies bring to us, and which to distribute to the other morgues, we always follow the quotas.
All of a sudden they stopped in the storage room with the chalkboard, chairs, empty table and the bunch of untidy white coats hanging on the wall. It was the cooler’s entrance. For the first time, Inspector could feel the sublime fragrance of formalin.
- You mentioned the Radical Vegan Movement, Mr. Jackson. I have to be strict here as this topic is close to my heart. How do you fulfill their last will and feed animals with the dead bodies?
This was the question Martin didn’t expect at all. The RVM situation was a big concern and a real policy breach for the morgue, as nothing special had ever been done to these people. He started to make the answer up and open the cooler’s door at the same time.
- We… we… do it in a very civilized way. First, we send corpses to the crematorium. Second, we make sure that the ashes of the respective patients reach the dog food making factories. No abuse of animal rights involved.
- Is it possible to check somehow? – Officer told that already staying in front of the dark abyss bristled with numerous metal stretchers and the white covered bodies on them.
- Sure, if you appeal to our partners.
- I’ll put 7,000 points on hold for now.
Martin asked Inspector to get one of the crumpled white coats, the same as he had, and they entered the cooler.
The mixed smell of the various human secretions along with the muffled aroma of decay hit Officer’s nose with a knockout force. It was definitely worse than just formalin. He started to cough through the respiratory mask. Martin tried to help him but got rejected in Esperanto in a very unpleasant form. Something - may be the unshakable faith in the ideals of diversity - gave Officer the power to straighten up and get back to work just in couple minutes after that.
- Party’s act number 06/05/1856 prescribes us to check all the facilities dealing with people on the LGBTQ+ quota first, as it is the core of the diversity standardization. Can we do it?
Officer took an examining gander at the cooler and paused for a minute. This steel-finished room had way more space than he expected to see - it accommodated around 40 bodies, all on the specific tables initially confused by him with the stretchers. The “patients” were separated from each other in quite an exact order: there were two short, middle set rows of the corpses at the far back and several longer, wall-to-wall lines following them. Сloser to the exit he saw a dense cluster of the tables from the left and a very remote and chaotic group of them from the right.
Officer slowly started to get used to the disgusting smell.
- The quota on LGBTQ+ is 51%+? – Martin coughed.
- Mr. Jackson, you should’ve already known it. It was raised to 60% last month.
- This shouldn't be a problem. The Social Justice Army supplies enough of them.
- What do you mean? – Officer moved to the center of the cooler along with Martin.
- We got the corpses from the elite gay-grenadiers and feminist-jihadists troops earlier today. The latter, as we know, are almost all lesbians. We can start from the grenadiers, though.
Martin put the gloves on and removed the sheet from one of the corpses in the middle row.
A plump white male around 25 years old with many of repulsive cadaveric blemishes on his body and a terrified, pale face lay before the inspection now. His vibrant-pink hair turned into a scruffy bush stained with blood. The wry mouth of the patient was missing several teeth, and there was an inch-wide hole in his left temple.
The wave of the intense smell challenged Inspector’s senses again.
- Poor soul. - Martin resumed. – The main reason why people like… John Napoleon II get here is an intricate ethic issue. No one in the Army of Social Justice can oppress your vision of cloth, make-up or hairstyle. But when you’re sitting in the trench during the warfare, having a bright personality can be dangerous.
- Stop it, Mr. Jackson.
Officer was completely devastated. He circled around the body several times and lingered at the tag attached to the corpse’s right big toe.
- Birth identification number… When I see this I can’t help recalling the start of the war - what became the last straw. Patriarchal pigs didn’t like our decision to outlaw the name-giving and allow our children to choose their names in the schools along with gender and race. One day they will pay for that.
- Vivu diverseco!
- Vivu, Sir. – Martin came closer and also looked at the tag with all the patient information. – Hope this guy didn’t die in vain.
- I’m pretty sure he fell in the unequal struggle for equality. But it seems like we are having a problem now.
- Like what?
- How do we… identify this corpse as gay? Maybe he was a two-spirit or gender queer individual, and I need this information for my report. His, her or they privileges are your points, Mr. Jackson.
- We can go to the storage to check all the documents. This soldier was one of the grenadiers and arrived with the other people like him. I’m 100% sure. We didn’t even have time to wash the body.
Martin suddenly stopped talking and touched his throat as if he swallowed down a lump and choked on it. There was a clear image of disgust on his face now, caused, however, by some idea rather than obvious physical factors.
- Sorry. – He said. - I’ve just felt that sexual orientation is the only thing people leave after themselves nowadays.
- What do you mean by this?
Martin looked down sadly.
- Forget about it.
Inspector pushed his tablet towards his chest.
- I can see the confusion of your mind, Mr. Jackson. Of course, this inspection is first of its own kind and some requirements are not quite adequate. But it is important for us, probably, as it has never been before. We need to work together to ensure that diversity is not an empty word for our society on all levels. It sounds fair enough for me and, I hope, for you too. We will check the documentation later.
For now, my department would like to see some physical data to calculate this body’s privileges.
- I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mr. Officer.
A semi-opened, disfigured mouth of John Napoleon II was almost about to say “no” to any diversity games his bearer might have played in life.
- I have no idea what to do, then. Without the explicit data, the fine will follow. – Inspector raised the tone of his voice.
- Ok, Sir, tell me then how you imagine it – in real life. Dissect the bodies to see what? It’s a banal thought, but they’re all the same… inside.
- Careful, Mr. Jackson! Saying that these people are the “same”, you undermine yourself in the eyes of the Party and Diversity Department. I came here to get the physical data, and it’s your task, not mine, to figure out what it should be. If you can’t do it – you will assist me to write a report on why the hospital didn’t meet our expectations.
The doctor lowered his head again. He made a sound of a clear resentment and looked right in the face of a dead body as if asking it for advice.
- So, what do you say now? Will we work together for good of diversity or put your position here at risk? I think such experienced person as you might have at least any ideas for this case.
- Let’s see. I’ll try to offer you something.
Martin got angry on his strict and a bit arrogant companion. He dropped the sheet of the dead grenadier on the floor and started to go through the whole middle section of the tables, uncovering the bodies. Inspector was caught off his guard.
- Ramses Spiderman Peterson, Akbar Pony Bergman, Lil’ Killa Mubarak… more and more of these young people are delivered here daily. Now you have all of them, so maybe it’s easier to identify a gay or lesbian this way… in comparison to each other. Maybe there are some traits, I don’t know, maybe transgenders’ livers or brains rot faster, than the gay ones? We can conduct a deep analysis, Sir. What do you say?
Martin had never done anything like this through his entire medical career and never actually planned to. The little, unexpected performance he made, however, caused a tremendous effect on Inspector. Morgue’s guest was disappointed by the speech of the doctor and almost blinded by the new bouquet of smells released from the bodies.
- Do you understand, Mr. Jackson, that your actions determine the fate of the hospital? If I were you, I would try to get the grip on myself right now.
- I do, Mr. Officer, and I also know that technically there is no crime in showing you what you came to see. The morgue’s underground cooler is, probably, the best place to talk about life.
Inspector started to literary cry because of the smell and was hardly coping with his vomiting spasms.
- It’s not a big deal for me. We will do the most precise diversity inspection I’ve ever had in 5 years. – Martin pointed at the row of the dark grey, black rotten bodies with the hairs of all the possible colors and hues. – I will show you what is actually left from every gender identity, “open-minded” as well as “close-minded” views in the end, and you will generously tell me how to measure them. Use your tablet. We got all the keys.
At this point, Inspector realized: this unproductive discussion will take more time if he doesn’t leave the room now. He moved back to the door.
- Mr. Officer. Don’t be a shame for the Party, stay with me. Is there a last healthy drop of toxicity in you to dissolve this scent? Is there a contradiction of your heart which I can speak to?
- Mr. Jackson…
Martin didn’t expect that he could act, talk and even think the way he actually did at that time. Inspector enraged him, evoking a sort of undiscovered and frightening part of the doctor’s individuality. But there was no turning back already.
- I will go further. – Martin almost shouted. – And you will follow me. Now we will check how the top of our “pyramid of freedom” looks like.
By the pyramid, he probably meant the order of the corpses in the cooler with just a few tables at the back and long lines of them to the exit. He went to the far end of the room and began to uncover the bodies.
- How are you doing, girls? Want to say something to our guest today?
Officer put the tablet back to his bag. He gradually stopped crying and didn’t say a word to comment this circus.
- Here are the heads of our ideal state. Strongwomen. Started their first war on the pacifist march. I guess it will be banal, again, to ask you, whether or not you see the strength and independence in their faces. But the answer is – it doesn’t matter.
They fought for the world where everybody could find a place for his personality and don’t feel oppressed, as the individual whim seemed to be the ultimate value for them. But these wise ladies didn’t pay attention to one detail: the world is formed by oppression. There is no tag or disclaimer, that it should be, by the nature they appealed to, any peaceful or inclusive. Progressive girls, our generals, our avant-garde forgot about this. They wanted to turn the society into one entire diverse safe-space and finally found it – here. Now you can follow their logic to the very end and check if they comply with their own policies.
Let’s see what we have here – Martin took the tag from one of the least mutilated bodies. - “Barbie Hannibal Swarovski: the leader of the 3rd antifascist regiment, self-identified as permanently 16 years old male, race chosen: Creole. We can dissect this corpse together to see all its privileges from the inside. Get some points, Mr. Officer.
Inspector remained silent. The feeling of an absolute disgust and fear changed his mind to some sort of interest.
- What happened? Don’t you want to do your own job? I can assist you, I promised. If you are averted to Strongwomen, we can go to the more marginal part of our state. And no, it’s not the Radical Vegan Movement, these folks are fine, I’m talking about the non-allied people.
Martin quickly walked to the right front side of the cooler and stopped at the remote chaotic cluster of the tables there.
- On the one hand, these patients are the easiest to calculate privileges: they had enough in their lives and simply don’t have any now. But on the other – they can cause lots of problems related to their identification. Filthy oppressors like to cheat us, get rid of their mandatory swastika patches and escape the ghettos. Sometimes they can even mingle with the progressive peoplekind, and when they die and get here, we get in trouble because of confusion with the documents.
But Sir, let me be honest. We manage the paperwork in a very professional manner. You can simply count the corpses and be sure, we didn’t take any extra of them. Yes, there is a problem with growing mortality among the non-allied misfits, and morgues are overloaded. Ghettos, however, work around this issue by themselves.
Officer looked at the Martin with the undisguised curiosity. The speech of the doctor certainly reminded him enemy propaganda, but there was also something he couldn’t catch. The sense of the deep, universal and inevitable tragedy of life settled in his skull like a carnivorous worm. Bold words of Martin made him feel small and wrong despite his domineering position.
He looked at the many of the decomposing bodies with the stitched rib cages, absent eyeballs, crashed jaws and the mutilated limbs. For some inscrutable reason, his vomiting spasms ceased as soon as he stopped avoiding this picture. He also took the wet respiratory mask off.
- I’m at your service, Mr. Officer. – Martin came close to him. – What would you like me to do?
To his own great surprise, Inspector didn’t answer this question. That was, for sure, an intrusion of the spirit of the morgue in his mind. He felt himself like in a sleep now. He stepped away from Martin, approached the same body of John Napoleon II and took its badge again.
- Mr. Jackson. I can’t, of course, share your critique view on the actions of my department. But I got your ideas in principle. Maybe these people really deserve to be… left alone. Maybe this is where they find their only peace on earth.
Now that was Martin who got befuddled and didn’t know what to expect. These fast changes of Inspector’s attitude made him even doubt his mental health.
- You know, one thought came to me when I first saw this guy, and that was not the memory about the name-giving. I assumed Mr. Jackson that the actual core of the conflict we have with the rest of the world is in his badge. In the wide… abstract sense, I want to say.
Martin looked at him as if he was an exotic animal sneaked in the cooler instead of Inspector.
I’ll explain myself if I can.
- Our society, it has always been built on a specific sanction, approval or disapproval we need to define ourselves. We can be Napoleon, Barbie, cyberfeminist, grenadier, whoever we want, but only if the majority creates these identities for us, gives its tickets for that. Outside the social context, any of them simply don’t exist. And whenever the individual tries to liberate himself from the social oppression, he will only face the possibility to change these tickets, make them better, but nothing else. “Legalize marriage with the anime characters”, “Bring the Radical Vegans to the light“. He will not see that the actual freedom can exist only behind any tickets at all. He will fight to show that his tickets are right when the others’ are wrong. Our war is only about them. And the oil, of course, but this is a different story. The sad thing is that everybody finally gets what he wants, but only in the paper form on the right big toe.
What a hell did I just say, Mr. Jackson?
- It’s death, Sir. It changes people.
Concerning your thought, it sounded strange. If we continue to follow your logic…
- There will be no possible solution for this problem, I know. We will come to an idea, that everything we know about the world is a kind of this social badge. Even this cooler and my inspection, as long as they exist as the words of a language in the first place. And if we get rid of all that, very few things will be separating us from Mr. John Napoleon.
Inspector bent over to grab the sheet from the floor and cautiously covered the body of the ex-grenadier.
- Let it be. – Martin said. – Don’t worry about this riddle, Mr. Officer, there are too many now. You better tell me, do you still want to dissect the bodies for their privileges?
The doctor didn’t get the answer again but certainly caught it in the posture and sight of Inspector. The representative of Establishment, supposedly, inhaled too much of cadaveric poison which distorted his mind completely. He went through the entire row of the Social Justice Army bodies and continued to cover all of them.
- Dear Spiderman, my little Pony… We will count your points, fairly. Don’t worry about a thing.
Damne…[3]
The legs of Inspector cheated him and he fell on the one knee, almost pulling the closest corpse onto his head. Martin rushed to help him and realized how weak his guest was now.
- It’s so cold in here, Mr. Jackson. Why didn’t I pay attention to this before? My body is freezing, and I’m turning to one of them. Was it your plan from the beginning? Answer me. Is my tablet still here?
That was a clear indicator to take Officer away from that dreadful place. Martin didn’t bother to cover the rest of the dead and moved the fainting body of his companion out of the cooler. He seated him on the chair in the dressing room, disappeared for a couple minutes and brought a cup of water along with a tiny, can-like container of smelling salts. Occupational safety inspection could’ve been conducted in the morgue way easier than the diversity one.
After all the necessary procedures, the doctor sat with Inspector and waited until he recovered from his shock at least a little bit. This happened, however, surprisingly fast. Diversity officer unbuttoned the coat, put the bag on the table and in couple minutes was almost ready to adequately react to the world. In his eyes Martin saw relief mixed with sadness and fear.
Then he asked him for the last time:
- No physical data for your department, Sir?
- No, I will not go to the corpses for all the money of the world. – Officer sneezed. – I will only scan their documents if you really have any.
- That works for me.
- And, I think that’s my time to beg your pardon for what I said.
- You mean the idea about the “social badges”?
- Not only. All the staff...
- Trifles. I also allowed myself too much, and we both know it.
Martin patted him on the shoulder, stood up and left again. He promised to show the requiring documents partially in the storage room, partially upstairs. All these papers in the hospital were kept in the old-fashioned hard copy form according to the Party’s law on online information leakage prevention. Who cared about the morgues reports was a big question, but the law itself wasn’t.
Officer started his work as soon as he could walk and think like a normal human. He was well motivated to close his eyes on the absence of clear gender references of some people or too many of ex-ghetto dwellers accepted by the facility. Mainly because he cared about the time left until the possible bombing. His precious rainbow tablet, in fact, had a very limited functionality. It only helped him to calculate the points out of the easy-to-make-up data which got sent to a server right away. Diversity scoring systems were nearly the ones, which were not covered by the leakage prevention law; it seemed like the information about inclusiveness was interesting to the Party and no one else in the rest of the world.
Around an hour later they were finished with the underground storage room and needed to decide what to do next. Martin looked at Inspector while walking through the corridor, and paid attention to one thing. In all this hassle and hurry of paperwork he didn’t get rid of the expression of anguish on his face, probably left from the cooler. The doctor tried to assist him:
- I understand how it might feel to see all these bodies. But don’t let it get hold of you.
- Martin, - Inspector called him this way for the first time. – I see you’re a persistent guy. I haven’t noticed it in you before, but I do now. Hysteria, jokes, flatter, friendship, how far can you go to not to get fined? You can calm down, I’ll pass you. Only if something extraordinary doesn’t happen.
- No, I’m serious. It’s not about passing.
Inspector stopped and exhaled heavily. He didn’t believe the doctor but preferred to speak his mind out anyway.
- I’m thinking of futility of being, Martin. Ever since I saw that slammed guy in the cooler.
- Wow. That’s a problem. Your will to liberate every individual in this world had stumbled over the technical inability to remove his “social badge” and even the paper one?
- Kind of. It’s more of a feeling though.
Martin propped his chin on his right fist to depict the flow of thoughts.
- It seems like I might have a clue for you. Not even I, basically; there is a place in here which can help. Especially taking into consideration your keen of… philosophy.
- What is that place?
- You remember how I mentioned the feminist-jihadists squads earlier today? There is one body in the autopsy room, still. When I got to know about your revision I had to cease my operation. It will be favorable for you to visit her – to solve your dilemma. But yeah, you would never go back to the corpses for all the money of the world.
- I don't even know...
- Let’s go, then. It will take only a few minutes and will worth your nerves.
- Well… Only for a few minutes.
With these words, they headed to the autopsy room in the left wing of the morgue’s underground. Close to its very entrance Officer questioned his recent decision, but it was just too late already.
The new room was even more specific and imbued with the spirit of tragedy, than the cooler. Its view, however, caused no numbness or intense stress for Inspector. It was rather big and with all the white tiles on the walls looked very bright in comparison to any other part of the morgue. The only terrifying thing located there was in the far left corner - a glass stands with the numerous parts of human body “pickled” in formalin: fingers, feet and the samples of skin. It also contained one metal locker and a writing desk for reports.
The essence, the juice of the autopsy room was concentrated in the tables for autopsy set at the equal distances across its entire space. In the first moment Inspector compared them with the flat dentist chairs, but in reality, there were only the surgical lights on top to inspire such a connection. All these tables had the same structure of the double-layered surface, holes to drain the body’s liquids, sinks and the sewer pipes attached to them.
Martin pointed at one of the tables between the writing desk and the mysterious stand with organs.
- Here is she. – He led Inspector to another body of a woman. – Frankly, I haven’t even started her. Take a closer look.
Inspector peeked out on the corpse from Martin’s back and didn’t get the thing at all. It was just a “regular” white body, a bit more disfigured in the area of the stomach and with completely untouched, bold head.
- I still don’t understand. What in the way she died should help to solve my puzzle?
- The important thing is not how, but what for, Mr. Officer. What do you know about the feminist-jihadists?
- A lot. The main visual representation of their views is the bold head. The religion does not allow them to show the hair to the males, and at the same time, it is a protest against the culture of stereotypes and sex-objectification. They’re serving the roles of berserkers in the Army of Social Justice to attack the living force of the enemy with the anti-personnel weapon and demoralize them with the naked look. Usually are employed in the shock tactic combat, after a massive charge of the wheel-chaired cavalry on the tanks.
- Not this. Do you know something about their ideology of dialectic jihad?
- I’m only aware of jihad, not dia… I hear about this for the first time.
- Officer, how come, considering your apparent aptitude to philosophy? What did you learn at the university except for gender studies?
- Martin!
Doctor definitely crossed the line between professional and personal in the very rude manner, but quickly realized that and excused himself. Inspector, in his turn, was not interested in subordination mess and asked him to continue.
- I read an article once. – Martin said. - Dialectic jihadist movement is not only feminist. It’s a wide term meaning “the subculture within the other subculture eager to destroy its own ideas when those cease to make the world better”.
- Quite a riddle.
- I’ll try to clarify it. So the name is comprised of two parts. The word “jihad”, as you know, used to have a positive connotation once. It meant the sacred war against any flaw of the society: like laziness, infidelity, lechery or injustice. In our case, it’s also a kind of a war – of the feminists against feminism.
The other word here is a bit more complicated. “Dialectic” refers us to a philosophical law “of the negation of negation”. It’s also known as the 3rd law of dialectics, but that’s not the point. To put it simply, it’s the statement that if let's say, an acorn “wants” to ever turn to an oak tree it should stop its existence as an acorn. Every change we can see in the world is nothing but the death of the previous form of an object, and then the negation of this death with a new form. It’s like in math when “minus” multiplied by “minus” always gives “plus”.
- Ok and what? You mentioned these feminists wage war against… feminism and not our enemies, which is wrong.
- Hold on. The idea of the feminist-jihadists is simple, in the nutshell. They decided that after feminism of 4th wave had managed to eliminate all the conservative resistance and started to reign in our state like the only acceptable ideology, it stopped to develop, defend the rights of minorities and turned to a something despicable. Partially, because the minorities and majorities changed their places. For the feminist-jihadists, the state of modern feminism only deserves to be negated in order to open a possibility for something new.
That’s why they finally declared the sacred war to themselves to change their beloved movement forever. But how can you declare a sacred war to yourself?
- That’s the question! - Inspector seemingly understood the concept.
- Yes – apart from the challenging reformation, there is only suicide left. However the death not in the battle with the patriarchal pigs is a shameful death for a real feminist - and this is how they turned into the berserkers, shooting and crashing the enemies with no regard to their own safety.
- Well… well… well. And how does it relate to my problem of inability of freedom and “social badges”?
- Directly. They serve you a good example. Come closer.
Inspector followed the advice and approached the deadly calm face of the ex-feminist. It was, indeed, mesmerizing. The way she looked at the world with her empty eyes reminded him a sight of a soldier committed to his service even after an awful injury. Pure and exalted, overcame all the possible barriers it was almost emitting proud acceptance of its own fate.
- Just imagine, - Martin was finishing his monologue. – People like she didn’t seek a salvation in the battle, but only a death of dignity. When she realized that her movement, deprived of all the rivals, started to decompose, she remained loyal to it - and conferred her life to its dialectic conversion to a new possible form of social organization.
- And my problem…
- You, Mr. Diversity Officer, are in the same position. Your will to liberate the individual from the society came to a need to remove any of his identities, his social badges – and that means to kill him. The final stage of development of your ideology faced its own logical contradiction. Nothing is left to it than to die and turn something completely new. And this is the exact matter of dialectic jihad.
- I brought you here to show the example of her brave behavior.
I don’t know if you see it, but there is something in her eyes…
Inspector wanted to say that seeing anything in the eyes of a mutilated corpse is a very sick thing but remained silent. He didn’t totally understand the idea of Martin, even more, entangled than his concept of “social badges”. The other thing started to bother him way more than this. They spent extra time in the autopsy room and had to rush to finish the revision before the deadline. The possibility of ultimate individual freedom seemed to be less important than the possibility to get bombed outside the morgue.
He cast the last glance on the stoically laying lady and asked Martin to lead him back to the elevator.
* * *
- It means, Mr. Jackson. – Inspector mumbled in the hallway of the morgue, close to the office doors. – You will get your points, 38k in total. These include the inspection of the documents upstairs, which I’m not actually going to touch. Let’s just pretend they’re fine. All I’ll do is to check your workplace for the absence of extremist staff. It’s in case they ever decide to inspect you again.
I don’t want to get in trouble.
- What about the remaining 7k points?
- The Radical Vegan situation is out of my reach. The department will connect with the crematoriums and dog food making factories by itself. Sorry, they’ll bust me there. And even if you only get the 38k, the fine will not follow.
Martin threw his gloves in the trashcan, turned the lights on and pushed the dirty wooden door into his cabinet.
- That was an interesting conversation with you today, Sir. Even though it took place instead of a real inspection. Let’s finish it on the good note.
The doctor came into his small, messy room with the computer desk, locker for documents, bookshelf, araucarias in the plastic pails in the corners, and a couple of office chairs. He sat on one of them at the computer and asked Inspector to settle on the other.
- I hope it won’t take more than several minutes. - Martin touched the mouse to activate the monitor. – And you will be able to call for a cab before the beginning of the curfew.
- Yes, it won’t take long. What I’ll do is scan of all the files on your computer for the code tags to ensure you don’t keep any prohibited information. Taking into consideration some of your, frankly, marginal views on our social life, Martin, I hope I won’t find any wrong staff in there. Also, we’ll check if you go online using only the PartyNet.
Officer fumbled in his bag and took the tablet and the wire out there. With the help of Martin, he plugged the wire to both his device and office computer and started to adjust the software for the procedure.
- Who is it? – Officer asked the doctor when his sight suddenly caught a small black and white portrait on the top of the bookshelf. – Your ancestor, great-grandfather?
For a second Inspector got distracted and paid closer attention to this picture. It captured the old, almost bold man with the neat tiny mustache, a bit angry eyes and generally puffed face. On the photo, he was dressed in the old-fashioned suite with the narrow tie and looked somewhere in the distance.
- It’s my namesake, Martin Heidegger. An old German thinker. I don’t know much about him apart from one thing. Once he was asked, “what people need to do to become happier in life?” And he said: “Visit the cemetery more often”. Quite relevant in my position, isn’t it? So I decided to put his portrait there.
Who knows, one day I might write a book on the similar topic. “How to stay contented in life, working with the dead.” But that’s just dreams. – Martin grinned.
These words evoked a certain interest from the side of Inspector. For some reason, he even unplugged the tablet from the computer.
- You know, - he said. - there is a thing. It sounds very exciting, for sure, but Party’s act #... prescribes me to check every cultural reference I find in the inspected facility on the extremist content. That includes pictures, objects of art, etc. Not a big deal, but I should follow my instructions at least in something, right, Martin? For your own safety.
- Right. – Martin laughed – Go ahead.
Inspector took a picture of the old man from the bookshelf and asked to spell his strange surname slowly.
For a minute or two, he didn’t say a word and just gazed at the tablet, as if suddenly came across his own obituary.
- The system has automatically sent the data to the server, and now you are in big trouble, Martin. This “thinker” you “don’t know much about” was in Nazi party, do you get it? In Nazi party. That’s minus 5,000 points to this place.
- What? – Martin could expect anything but this.
- Burn and bury the ashes of this photo in case of any other inspection. For now, I’ll have to make up the information about a whole legion of dead gay-grenadiers or some fairy tale beast with a thousand privileges to save your ass. Even on top of unchecked documents, which will be very, very suspicious.
Martin stood up to take the picture off the bookshelf but was interrupted.
A loud, howling sound of the siren from the street brought chaos into his cabinet.
- Bitĉoj[4]… They started their attack too early. I knew this would happen in the morning.
Inspector jumped up from the chair and put the tablet and the wire back to his bag.
- Fast, fast, fast, let’s get to the underground. Inspection is over. Take anything you need.
Martin really needed nothing in the office. The lower level of the building was adequately prepared for such an emergency and had deposits of drinking water, food in a separate fridge, working sewerage system and even a hidden way out to the street. It wasn’t a joke when he called the morgue a safe space. For the innumerable amount of times he had to abandon all his earthly affairs to seek defense in the kingdom of the dead, and this night he was rather prepared to do so again.
Martin forcefully kicked the cabinet door and whipped out to the corridor. Inspector ran after him. They reached the elevator area almost simultaneously and even hit each other’s hands when pushing the button.
- Need to pull ourselves together, Sir. Your panic transmits to me and it only complicates the situation. As soon as we are down, we’re safe, don’t about worry about it.
The elevator opened before them immediately. They went in and selected the lower level.
- The only tricky thing here is to get in time…
In the next second, they both froze in terror and disappointment. The sound of siren had mixed with the noise of the plane engine in the frightening proximity to this place. The most important - the light in the elevator and probably the entire hospital had abruptly gone off. The room which was a kind of a rescue boat for Martin and Inspector just an instance ago now turned to a dark steel cage with no way out. It stopped only several feet underneath the office level and, apparently, couldn’t move any further without technical assistance or electricity.
- This is what I meant. The only challenge was to get down before the elevator is out of service. Or use the ladder.
- And what can we do now? – Martin had never heard Inspector speaking with such a trembling voice.
He left his question without an answer. Suddenly they heard a whistle – a very special whistle from up above which was impossible to confuse with anything else. It was from falling bombs.
- Sir! You know, I feel like this place won’t get fined today! No need to make the fake data on the corpse with thousand privileges! – Martin shouted desperately, clearly meaning the bag tags and social status of Inspector.
After around 30 seconds of the futile turmoil, anger, fear and swears there were no any living bodies left in the morgue anymore.
Hail diversity. (Esperanto). ↑
Look in my eyes (Esperanto). ↑
Damn (Esperanto). ↑
Bitches. (Esperanto). ↑
