It was some kind of workplace but also boarding school because I was officially in the group of inexperienced people.

In the ethos of this establishment was to not betray or abandon the group, to never hurt any one’s feelings, which all sounded good but in the end it came down to always try to fit in and not make a show of dissent. This was more or less spelled out. I did not like it at all, but I sensed that I needed it for survival.

There was time to work and time to learn, in an open plan space where every one could see each other’s work.

But other people could see my work, I could not see theirs because I was one of the young ones. The rest were experienced people who were teaching me the ropes. Not that we pupils had much contact with each other, I only saw adults around me and I couldn’t remember any friend my age.

On my spare time I was doing something naughty, I guess, because I didn’t want any one to see, but at the same time I didn’t really bother. The problem was, I couldn’t finish what I was doing in time for the end of my break, and I couldn’t leave it.

After only a few minutes I was called to attention because I was late. So I went back to my desk, surrounded by others, with the materials I had been using in my break, which I think were wrapped up in a magazine.

Then I went back to my duty task and I found that I also had to leave it unfinished and now had to retake it from the point I left it.

I could see there were sterns looks.

Then the shift ended and I went outside. The feeling was that every one was eavesdropping everywhere in the building. I guessed that was the reason this person told me to meet outside at the end of my day. He looked like President Snow in The Hunger Games. It didn’t remind me of his cruelty, though, more of dissent from the norms. He was known in this setting for being different, yet he had climbed up on the ranks. I had the feelings he liked my doings and being invited out with him was kind of an honour.

Then not quite back at my desk but in some kind of evaluation meeting I was addressed in public. A senior woman spoke about me. I could understand every single word but I could not quite understand what she meant by them. In one long pause I said: “Have I offended every one in general, or some one in particular?”

I could sense the approval of this guy The President. He was no president here, only one more in the elite, who was somehow getting away with dissent by keeping it well in private, sometimes lying. For example it was well known that he used the excuse of looking after his roses as cover for his dissent activities, which every one suspected but he had managed well to keep secret, otherwise he would have been expelled from this society and clearly he did not want this, otherwise he would not have bothered with the cover and the lying.

The woman told me to not interrupt; she had not given me permission to speak. I went on to apologise for this and she shut me up angrily as well.

I think this Snow approved of my question because he saw it as an intelligent manoeuvrer, because I had indeed offended some one recently, and he knew, but not every one necessarily, so that was my attempt to know if this was known by this kind of committee.

Apparently it wasn’t because this woman spoke of much more general betrayals, and wanted to give examples.

Then suddenly the setting changed, and we were no longer in a meeting room facing each other with a table in the centre. We were in a kind of theatre where we all looked down on some recorded past actions. I could not remember what was being shown but there was no denying I had been there.

It was a performance by pupils, boys and girls my age and status. They were singing and not quite dancing, but moving around the stage to form figures, playing with the position relating to each other. They sang something about unity and all agreeing to the same views while moving around the stage randomly, until it was not so random and they all ended up in a tight group, and, as the woman pointed out, suddenly the mass of the pupils performing had become a tight group except for a small group of dissent: about four or five youngsters stood away from the group, in an irregular formation, apparently just chatting.

I saw myself there and I vaguely remembered being there, also vaguely remembering that it didn’t seem so important at the time.

But the show wasn’t over. The main body of pupils formed a perfectly straight line and in the process the small dissent group had integrated with the bigger group, leaving me on my own , looking down, probably looking at my mobile but clearly not bothering with the rest of the class.

This was clearly only the first example, but it was to be examined in detail. I was allowed to speak and it was clear that a full and humble apology was expected of me, but I didn’t feel I had done anything wrong. So i said that at the time I found it impossible to agree to what the group was singing, and there was really no room for me to interrupt their song so I just stood aside.

The woman then said that it was an additional offence to not explain right there and then why I stood aside, why I dissented. That way it would not have been a double offence.

As I tried to explain further, she continued shouting at me, from my left – she was about ten seats to my left, in this semi circular set of seats, and also a man about twenty seats to my right. I knew contesting the charges would play very much against me and this was a hearing about my expulsion, but at one point I couldn’t take it any more , or maybe I thought that they were so far apart that they couldn’t hear each other and realise that they were both shouting at me at the same time, so I said in a loud voice: “do you realise that I am receiving the shouts from two different people at the same time?”

After a few more orderly and lengthy speeches that say little with a lot of words I get the gist of it, either I apologise for this or I will get immediately expelled. If I do apologise my expulsion will depend on how good they deem my speech and the outcome of my other offences.

I can agree that an explanation then and there as to why I stood aside from the rest would have been in order, so “I wholeheartedly and humbly apologise for standing aside in dissent without explaining my motives”. Maybe more speech comes and I loose the sense of time.

Then there was a kind of recess. Every one stood up to leave this kind of theatre and every one talked to their next person as they prepared to leave. No one talked to me until an even younger person from the audience came to ask me something about my bravery in the face of expulsion. I said something for the gallery knowing every one of my words would be taken into account, then I approached my mouth to his ear and said ‘but I don’t care’. I may have inserted a swearword in my sentence.

I knew he would report this to his family. Every pupil had the backup of the adult members of their families in this set up. I lacked this. At least there was no family pressure to oppress me.

As I approached the lifts some one approached me and invited me for a coffee outside. I started to apologise because I had a previously accepted invitation, then I stopped myself realising this person was Snow.

On one hand it would be very bad ‘press’ to hang out to the officially worst offender / dissenter of this society. On another hand, I didn’t care. Yet on another hand, he had not been expelled; he was part of the elite. In any case, I had already accepted the invitation earlier.

We agree without having to mention it, apparently, that we don’t want to wait for the lift and we head for the stairs. Like in some buildings, they are kind of hidden, and although part of the building, it’s like they are outside of it because the atmosphere is totally different. It is actually colder in the cubicle circling the stairs, there is no carpet, if there was one in the hall outside the theatre, the materials are cement for the stairs and iron for the banister, while inside the building they were brick and wood.

I say something like “I do hope my speech was not taken as a desperate attempt to avoid expulsion, because it was indeed sincere” with a minimum hint of irony to which I point out silently with my hands, or face expression. Snow wants to spell it all out and so he expresses, but I point to the walls and my ears and continue to climb down the stairs in silence.

Next thing, I see myself in this pretty normal bar where some people are standing, some are sitting – not many – and, oh surprise, it is full of the people I know from work and school, in families, drinking, talking and generally having a relaxing time. The few I look at, they are looking at us as in no surprise the dissenters end up together.

There are very few tables and chairs. They are squalid, the tables are round tables with hardly space for more than two drinks, and the chairs are tiny, all made of thin iron, not especially heavy. I see a free set of table and chair in the midst of this crowd and Snow sits himself on this chair in his own special posture, resting his feet on one of the bars joining the chair legs, but some how it seems impossible that he’s adopt this position without his feet being in a second chair. I ask “so what do I do now, ask for drinks and find myself another chair?” He answers “suit yourself”, like he doesn’t give a damn in the world.

I find a chair that is not occupied, around another table, and I take it, fitting it in between the irons of the table because this will be for my feet, to sit as – apparently – as comfortably as Snow. I take a long time to fit the chair in between the small iron bars, but I manage in the end. In the meantime, more people have noticed that we are in each other’s company.

When I finally sit opposite him with the tiny table between us, another man approaches us. He may be the same man who was shouting at me in the theatre, but it’s not important. He looks like Carlos Solis from Desperate Housewives. He questions Snow about the story he told about looking after his roses, and Snow answers vaguely, or just outright lies, as he has always done about his story, and then I remember and think, “yeah, but this guy knows about roses too”.