Everything Is So Political Read Free Page A

pause and stare through the flailing beads of snow that make up the shifting dunes around us. Garrett’s right leg pivots him forward as he walks.
    â€œI thought the warden hated cripples?”
    â€œHe does.”
    â€œSo why does he keep him around?”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    The prisoners make their way over another hill of packed snow and frozen dirt. The warden calls for them to stop. His voice echoes over the ridge. We pick up our speed to find the prisoners kneeling on the other side of the dune. An empty ditch sits before them. Many of them are far too weak to dig. The warden knows this. The soldiers must have been out here earlier. The ditch is partially filled with snow drifts. It is shallow—close to three feet deep. I stop myself from measuring how wide it is and ask Carl to set up the camera for me. Garrett approaches and the two of them prepare for our photo session out here.
    You can see the veins beneath the prisoners’ cold scalps pulsing with the thin blood that runs through their bodies. None of them attempt to run. The soldiers line up behind the prisoners. In the cold, both sides watch their breath form into clouds before their faces. I take my place behind the camera, and Carl and Garrett settle into the snow.
    The warden nods in my direction, and I open up the lens.
    One soldier, his eyes barely visible in the slits between his hat and scarf, cocks his gun.
    â€œNo.”
    The warden lays a hand on the rifle, pulling it back from the prisoner’s head. Garrett mumbles something beside me. I don’t bother to listen. The wind fills my ears, but I can still hear the warden’s voice across the shallow ditch.
    â€œDo not waste the ammunition.”
    Rifles are readjusted. The white snow is doused in red—flowers bloom in a chilled desert. Each body tumbles forward into the ditch, most still emitting small clouds from their mouths that float up from the cold dirt to be captured in the flash of my camera. Rifles rise and fall, their stocks clattering off fragile bone. Those who await their turn kneel passively with eyes like the landscape that surrounds them. The soldiers themselves work methodically in the cold.
    I notice Carl has turned away. The warden himself walks around the pit, kicking small snow drifts over some of the moaning bodies below. He points at Garrett and Carl beside me.
    â€œYou two help fill this in.”
    As the last of the bodies tumbles forward, the soldiers begin to toss snow and frozen dirt over feeble arms and legs. My two assistants join in. Carl attempts to avert his eyes. We are not just here to take pictures. He was supposed to understand that. I watch as he vomits into the snow and listen to the hiss of bile snaking its way down to the hard soil beneath.
    Eventually, there are no more plumes of steam rising from the shallow grave. The soldiers stand around idly smoking. The wind dies down and I can hear Garrett mumbling something to the warden. I choose to ignore it. Dirt and snow create a patchwork before us that will soon resemble just another dune in these ever shifting fields, until the summer months arrive again.
    There will be no pictures then. Only the harsh sun and the stray dogs that come to feast.
    Three feet isn’t very deep. It’s only ninety-one centimetres.
    * * *
    The negatives from the killing fields have gone missing.
    â€œWhere did you put them?”
    Only out in the fields is the warden forced to raise his voice. Inside, there is no wailing wind to compete with. In this room, our breath is invisible.
    â€œI put them in the dark room, and then went down to the mail office. When I came back, they were gone. I checked the sinks and the canisters as well.”
    â€œYou were in charge of them though. Weren’t you?”
    I begin to focus on the painting above the warden’s desk again as he circles my chair. Someone has dusted his bookshelves, and the painting’s frame is slightly tilted to