Castigation

This continues my uncle's diary from here.

The shutdown

The Central Committee has had it with us!  After our bold response to Suffocation (described here) the Party leadership decided it was  time to draw big guns. Together with the rest of the lot, the Ministry of Everything is shut down until further notice. The Botany Unit is disbanded and branded with the label "no longer needed." We always suspected that we were not the lynchpin of revolutionary success, but now we seem to be a detriment. It hurts, it hurts a lot!  As usual, the actual reasons for our dismissal are murky but they seem to have to do with the fundamentals of our country. The basic image of our motherland is that of virility - bodacious men and women absorbed in doing  simple menial tasks. But this visage is threatened by hordes of sickly and unhealthy citizens constantly complaining and requiring  help and support. The Central Committee has finally realized that the sick and un-well are an un-ending burden on societal resources, sapping good karma and spreading  negative energy.  This group constantly changes, and cuts across social strata, but its permanent feature is a lack of productivity and a miserable outlook on life. While capitalists let these outcasts fend for themselves (which the wretches do with gusto) we entomb them in a cocoon of protective services and try to nurture them to health. The biggest offender in this plight is the government, and this is where the Central Committee decided to intervene - by closing the guilty ministries. The Botany Unit does not have a particularly strong record of tending for the sickly, but its linkage to the food industry is a clear indication that at the very least it contributes, albeit indirectly, to feeding them!
Nobody knows how long this will last, and healing the nation may be as long and arduous process as healing the minds of some of the members of the Central Committee. In short, we may be doomed.

Misery

Being labelled as useless is a tremendous hit to one's revolutionary zeal. One comrade got so distraught that he started assaulting parts of his house with a power-washer, and another simply disappeared -- he was last seen heading for the airport.

Missing comrade captured on camera by the surveillance team

For the rest of us, gardening, watching movies and reading books offer some comfort.

Unwanted and spurious, these adjectives ring in our collective memory and leave deep wounds. Hopefully this is the pain that precedes healing. "Never was so much owed by so many to so few," this famous quote conceived for a different occasion sadly applies to our current predicament. Perhaps, looking into the future, there is a glimmer of hope in that.

Continued here.