ice Girl, 8

You can say that again, sang Leo, a broken-hearted brainwashed exhausted starving peasant practicing free speech with the fluency of intellectual rational objectivity at a Reform Through Re-education work labor unit on the edge of the Gobi desert or Hell on Earth.

He was short, fast and deadly.

He was condemned to the labor unit for questioning heavily armed moral authority at Beijing Abnormal University. It was the beginning of the Brand NEW Cultural Revolution lasting 10,000 brutal years.

China was systemically dismantled and converted into a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. It was sold at global discount stores labeled Made In China By Poor Illiterate Sweatshop Slaves.

Millions of educated people were purged from jobs. All social connections were severed. Informers prospered. Families turned each other in to save their skin. Dignity and self-respect devolved into humiliating samzen or self-criticism sessions.

Yes, they cried. I am guilty, stupid and the cause of all my suffering.

Yes, they wailed. I am a Running Capitalist Dog. Have mercy. Where do I sign my glorious true confession?

Here, said Authority. On the dotted line.

After accepting Leo’s coerced confession interrogation thugs dressed as acrobats rehearsing for a Beijing Opera beat Leo with tofu sandwiches and sand-filled rubber hoses. A clandestine CIA torture manual instructed them how to adapt modern waterboarding tactics with ancient Chinese water torture techniques.

Sink or swim sucker, said a diving instructor in a bell jar.

They hung Leo upside down in the asylum. They spun him around until he became a flashing strobe light jellyfish. A literate starving peasant poet applied electrodes to his genitals. An illiterate starving peasant cranked up the juice on an old car battery.

Leo talked. Leo stuttered. Leo cried for mercy.

Leo screamed, Why me? Not me!

Denial will kill you, said interrogators. You are an enemy of The One State. You are a clear and present danger to social harmonious stability. Questioning authority is forbidden. Repent Running Dog!

Leo screamed, I’m a mongrel cur. I will never ever ask another question. Have mercy. They cranked up jungle juice shocking Leo back to a Brave New World.

His memory was erased.