26th Day - The Permit

Reading time: 2 min

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

“You need a permit,” the bureaucrat said.

“What?”

“You need a permit to use a crane.”

“But I’m a builder.”

No reply from behind the glass.

“And the government has confiscated all the portable cranes I owned.”

“They are needed for public security.”

“Yes, I can see,” I said, with a hint of sarcasm in my voice.

The bureaucrat’s eyes raised from the computer screen and squinted sideways towards my face. I swallowed, suddenly worried that the sweat under my armpit could be visible.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not critical of the choices or methods of our president…”

“God bless Him Who saved us.” The bureaucrat interrupted me.

“God bless Him,” I repeated. “But I’ve been contacted by the mayor to work on a public building; so I need a crane. Do you see my point?”

“Are you a contractor of the Great Summer House?”

I sighed in relief. “I am. Robert Hiss Constructions.”

He typed, waited, then read something. “Nevertheless, you need a permit.”

“Can I respectfully ask why?”

“The police finally discovered the founders of the magazine called ‘The Free Press.’” He let go of those words through a disgusted face. “Twenty-six arrests. Which means that all the cranes reserved for construction services had to be redeployed for the benefit of the Demonstration of Justice Department.”

“I see,” I said. “Is the Mayor aware of it?”

“This is none of my business.”

“Any idea of what I should do, then?”

The bureaucrat abruptly stopped typing and glanced at me again. His eyes, this time, did not threaten to call the Demonstration of Justice Department guards; they threatened to call the Mental Institution and notify I could not follow instructions.

“Get a permit,” he spelled out.

“Will do. Thank you for your kind help,” I replied as quickly as I could. “God bless Him Who saved us.”

“God bless Him.”

I rushed out of the building, and when I passed by the guards, my hand went automatically on my neck. Once outside, I was too shaken to go back home, so I decided to walk down Glory Road; the Demonstration of Justice Department’s showroom.

I could smell it from a mile away, but I kept going. I turned a corner and here it was: a wide boulevard empty of people and not a single turn for miles and miles. On both sides, the cranes had been placed at regular distances, like knights with their swords up in the air. Each crane had a short rope tied on its top, and from the rope, a body was hanging by the neck.

Hundreds of them.

I walked between the corpses, on the edge of throwing up until I saw it: my logo—Robert Hiss Construction—on the side of a crane. I looked up, defeated, and tried to catch the exploded eyes of a boy, stuck in his twenties forever, while ignoring the crow feasting on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, but I knew he wouldn’t accept my apologies.

I knew I had to do better.