April 14, 2012
Dear Billy:
This is probably the last letter I'm going to be able to write you. As I'm sure you've heard down there in Venezuela, there's now a Federal law that makes it illegal to write letters on non-electronic media, since paper letters are easy to sneak past the Postal Service's Anti-Sedition censors. And you know I always like to tell you about how things really are for the rest of us who can't get out now that they've closed the borders.
I think I told you last year about how I lost my contract job working for Halliburton when all of the remaining software work was shipped overseas. I tried to find work at WalMart, but the line just to get an application was six blocks long, and they stopped taking applications online because the servers in Bangladesh crashed all the time. Guess that's what happens when you're the only retail store left in the entire country.
Oh, and you probably also heard about the "Christianity Reform Act" that passed unanimously last year. We all had to change our names to something found in the Bible. And no, it can't be Beelzebub or anything like that, either. So since I last wrote, my name was changed from Hillary to Esther. We also couldn't get the new universal ID cards they issued us until we'd been baptized and accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, so I had to sell my computer to pay the baptism fees. I was lucky...there are a lot of people that can't afford the $25.00, and if you don't have an ID you can't work.
Anyway, I'm working picking apples in the orchards now. It's hard work (just like King George likes to say all the time), and we're not allowed to talk except during lunch time church service. And the morality officers are always around, too, so it's better not to say much more than "Amen" when you drop a crate on your foot. I thought I'd try to make the best of it when I started. I mean, being outdoors and all that...I thought it would be a nice change. But I have to ride my bicycle to and from the orchards, and that alone takes four and a half hours round trip. I can't afford the bus and of course I sold my car years ago when gas prices first hit $8.00 a gallon. And then our shifts are usually between twelve and fourteen hours a day, so of course I'm just really worn out. And the "great outdoors"? There's so much smog and soot in the air from the oil refineries and chemical plants that I can hardly breathe at the end of the day.
Do you remember your cousin Janey? Janey (Ruth now) met a guy from Oklahoma City a couple of months ago and they fell madly in love. It reminded me of the old days when that kind of thing was allowed. But when they applied to get married, they were turned down for their permit because the guy's uncle was one of the gay activists that was executed in 2009. And then Janey got pregnant! She tried to sneak down to Mexico and find a doctor who would do an abortion, but the border has that big minefield and she was too scared to try it. So they caught her. And you KNOW what happens then! She's serving her ten year term at Podunk State Prison. When she gets out, she'll be assigned to a work crew in Wyoming. Who knows what'll happen to the baby. They never tell anyone what happens to the babies.
Well, I'd better go. It's getting late and the twenty minutes I spent writing this is twenty minutes less sleep I get before I have to get up and ride to work.
I love you, honey. I'm so glad your father and I were able to get you out of the country while there was still a chance. Never forget that. I don't regret for a moment that you're safe. I just wish your dad had survived the pneumonia he caught trying to smuggle you to Canada so that he'd know how well you're doing. But doctors are for rich people, and we knew as soon as his fever came up that it was all over. He'd be so proud of you.
Chase your dreams, Billy. Maybe someday the world will change again.
Your loving mother...