Gates Of Ivory

I lived in a closed community in the middle of nowhere. It was a self-sufficient community, almost as big as a city, and it was self-sufficient more out of necessity than as a result of choice. Civilisation as we know it nowadays had all but disappeared. In its place were hordes of non-human beings that were commonly referred to as aliens, although I never knew if they actually had come from some other planet, nor it was clear if these aliens had destroyed civilisation or if they had simply filled the void left by said civilisation after it had disappeared by itself. We just knew that these beings known as aliens populated the world that surrounded our isolated town.

In blissful isolation we lived for a good while, maybe years, not ignoring the aliens but being acutely aware of their dreadful menace and valuing and appreciating our luck, while the non-humans ignored our existence, or maybe were just tolerating it until they deemed appropriate to pay us attention.

And they did. Their own civilisation was expanding naturally, and in the same way as real ? world cities expanded and converted nearby villages in mere neighbourhoods of the now megacities, this alien civilisation absorbed our fortified town into their battle camp.

It was never violent, and their treatment seemed benevolent at first, and for a reasonably long time after their non-violent invasion. Yet we sensed a slow loss of our freedoms. No one seemed to realise but I did indeed observe how this alien civilisation was slowly but steadily slaving our community.

These horrible-looking beings became the owners of our workplaces, our frequent bosses, in the factories and in domestic service. Whips started to appear as a common tool for submission. Our social lives became more and more restricted, and occasions when we could just talk with each other became a lot hurried and short, and a lot less frequent.

I thought it was inevitable that we would become their complete slaves and, in one of those rare occasions when work was allowed to be stopped and we could have a discreet private conversation, I told some one I trusted that I was going to give it a go at running away from this soon-to-be complete slavery.
Of course I was told I must be out of my senses. I was probably risking death. “But they are slaving us! Can you not see?. I may take it now, but soon I will not be able to take it any longer.” “Good luck to you, dear. I envy your bravery, but I am staying”, came the answer.

However, this person got me in touch with other people that, in other circles, unbeknown to me, were well known for their desire to run away too.

So we planned our escape, knowing it was so risky, it was mad, almost suicidal. We needed maps of the city and the old maps were no longer useful, because these aliens had changed the city layout so much, to match it to their hideousness. Analysing the new maps enabled us not only to prepare our break out, but also to see in its full extent the impact of these aliens in the city as a whole. All colourful beauty in the city had been replaced by a foetid, perpetual building site where only one dirty colour that resembled brown was present. The overall view of the city was as sickening as the aliens’ individual appearance.

Yet the rest of our fellow citizens seemed content with their current lives and preferred their safe slavery to our risking our lives or body integrity for the sake of an unlikely freedom.

After gathering as many people as we could, we carried out our plans. Some of us got caught in the process. This we knew that was possible, that it could and most probably would happen. We knew they would be killed, maybe after some torture. But we had to continue, go on in pursue of our freedom, even though it meant to see our group continuously reduced as we would try to find somewhere out of the aliens’ reach in order to settle and try to produce a smaller, yet similar community to the one we had just left.

Yet this seemed very far away in the future, or even in our imaginations. For now all we could do was run away from our pursuers. Yet the main difficulty now was not to keep the distance from the guards from the city we had just left, which had become a prison since their arrival, including a city wall. The main difficulty was to avoid more hordes of these aliens that had invaded the whole planet.

At least while we remained a group, we had each other.