#IWSG June 2023 - ...if I could no longer write.

 "You are hereby sentenced to ten years' hard labor."

My fingers clenched into my palms. My heart hammered in my ears. What did 'hard labor' mean? Would I be roused from my bed each morning at dawn in the freezing snow and chain-marched to a field to smash rocks?

"Your imprisonment will be a warning to all those who hold seditious thoughts, who write seditious thoughts. Activists like you will be silenced."

Yes, silenced so dictators like you can wreak havoc on my beloved country, with no oppositional voices heard.

"Every book you  have written, every placard that bears your name, every podcast, every social media post will be eradicated in this political purge. Every dollar you have made from your heinous words will be taken from you as the spoils of crime. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing," What was the point? Anything I said would be twisted and turned against me. 

"During your imprisonment you will have no access to pens, pencils, paper, iPad, laptop or any other writing paraphernalia. I repeat, your voice will be silenced. You will have ample time to think, to attend reinvention classes and change your ways."

The judge's vicious words flowed over me. I was already in my head, imagining what I would uncover in ten years and write about, exposing this dictator and his henchmen to the world. They could take away what they saw as my 'writing paraphernalia' but they could never take away the most important, the thoughts in my head. 

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Thanks for visiting for the IWSG. Please click HERE to read more entries.

The awesome co-hosts for the June 7 posting of the IWSG are Patrcia Josephine, Diedre Knight, Olga Godim, J. Lenni Dorner, and Cathrina Constantine!

  Be sure to visit the
Insecure Writer’s Support Group Website!!!

And while you're here at mine, please consider yourself invited to write for the WEP June challenge. DETAILS HERE on June 1.

Do anything you like with the movie challenge, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ideas HERE. Guidelines only.