In a Labyrinth
By Jonathan Haeber

"When the windstorms of liberty began to blow, that stronghold of the American aristocracy was the first to proclaim independence," I read.

Then she sauntered over with a gait of authority-- a chiefly aristocratic authority, demanding my respect. I'm sure she looked down at the text and assumed that I was reading some liberal political manifesto, when in reality it was simply a novel by Marquez. She just happened to arrive-in a moment of poetic justice-at the exact time that I was highlighting that passage for future reference.

I closed the book. I shook her hand, and followed her into the office. The office had a hodge-podge of mementos, from the badge encased in plastic to the special tactics helmets on the desk behind her. On the wall were various crests from departments around the country-a collection of some of our finest symbols of authority and order. There were photos of her bygone era, when she was on the SWAT team, it looked like. There were family photos mixed with work photos. Photos of office functions and weekend vacations. A gold-plated pin sat in a receptacle on the desk.

Then I saw the letter. My letter.

Mompox doesn't exist, I said to myself. Don't Be an Idiot!

I tapped my shoes in nervousness; the same shoes that I was drunk in the night before.

"I wanted to clarify some things." She said.

"I hope the letter didn't offend you."

"No, not at all." She replied.

Then she went into a long lecture. She thought that I had misunderstood. She didn't want me leaving the dept. with a bitter aftertaste and a boiling interior of rage.

"I have nothing against the department," I said. "I know the system. When the winds blow, changes happen." I certainly caused the winds to blow in the department, from the military men to liberal loonies. I incited a debate that would perhaps continue for a long time.

Mompox is crumbling. Why disobey civility for a crumbling reality? Why protest a war that would give independence?

She didn't understand. She said she did. But she didn't. She knew I wasn't the anarchist kid that lost his job at the police department for being a prick in a moment of emotion. Tears were in her eyes.

I made her cry.

It made me cry.

Both of us silently tried to hide our subservience to the system, just as we tried to hide our tears. She couldn't give me my job back. She couldn't because she was a victim of the system as much as I was, despite her title as chief of police.

I accepted that and thanked her for her offer to write a letter of recommendation for me. I left. She closed the door.

I opened the same page of Marquez and glanced at the previous underline, "All that remained was rubble scattered along a beach of fallen stones."