Dated June 10, 2011

My name is Doctor Julianne Kurst. My name is Doctor Julianne Kurst. My name is Doctor Julianne Kurst.

I miss that name. Ever since this date three years ago, I have not been called ‘Doctor.’ I have a Doctorate’s Degree in English. Were I not an American citizen, this wouldn’t be a problem. As I am, however, strings had to be pulled to make sure that no evidence of my degree would be found. If you who are reading this happen live in a time so blessed that you can’t imagine why, well, then, I would give anything to be you.

I don’t know all the details, but on June 10, 2008, just after I’d graduated from the University of Georgia with my degree, something happened in the government, something that had been building up since 9/11, curse the day. A man by the name of Howard Blunge led a coup that killed the President and declared himself dictator. His arms reached far into the military, and a week later, it seemed, all 48 landlocked states were under Blunge’s control, and that of his self-appointed governors, Georgia included.

There was no room for ‘revolutionary spirit’ in the new America. Blunge couldn’t risk anyone using his or her literary talents to slander his regime. Anyone with even an English major that was not part of the new fascist Party was to be executed or put under heavy surveillance. My husband, Rick with whom I’d been married for a year, somehow made sure that the documents of my degree in the University were destroyed. I don’t know how he did it, and I long since decided that I don’t want to, just like a lot of things that happened.

I died that day. My education, so expensive, one that I had toiled for far too long to just discard, was no good. Rick was well enough off, being trained as a surgeon. Contrary to we were supposed to believe, Blunge couldn’t think of a way to keep people from getting sick and hurt.

I was a stay-at-home wife for a while, nursing my shame with solitaire – everything on the television was related to glorifying Blunge, and police had come by early on to clean households out of all ‘unnecessary’ books. I was surprised that they left us with cookbooks, and Rick’s medical journals. So, after perfecting my depression, I took to the cookbooks and lived only to prepare the meals my husband would come home to. I always made sure to smile in front of him; I didn’t want him to think me unthankful that he’d destroyed the evidence of my education, something I then loved and hated him for.

That same year, my husband and I joined the Party. I wasn’t happy about it, and Rick would never answer me when I asked why we’d done it. He only ever told me that he loved me, no matter what. He knew I wasn’t satisfied with that, but he never gave in. In 2009, I found out why.

Rick had also been apart of and underground revolutionary group called S.L. – Sanctum Libertas, Latin for ‘sacred freedom.’ When I told Rick that I knew he was with them, and that now I forgave him for joining the Party, he got angry with me, and forbade that I ever have anything to do with them. Once again, I was oblivious as to why he said such things.

Every day, I hoped and prayed that Rick would let me help S.L., and that Blunge would soon meet a gruesome, painful death. He’d brought me nothing but shame, only emphasizing this by running propaganda that encouraged women to stay at home and tend to their families, that they had no business thinking (though it was never phrased that way.) I had to continually hear every night how someone who ‘represented evil thoughts and ideas’ had been found. Yes, I grudgingly took to watching the news, driven out of my worry that one day I’d see Rick there on the screen, and by that fact that I was, in a way, honoring my friends from the University that were not so lucky with their paperwork. Even to this day, they are still being brought in as criminals. My friends, who toiled just as hard as I did for the sake of education, were labeled as criminals.

In 2010, I became pregnant. It was the one joy in my life at the time, pulling me from my depression. Motherhood was one type of knowledge that I couldn’t be punished for, and I relished in that small victory. I would whisper to my growing child while the news was going on, telling it my worries for my colleagues and husband, its father. I told my child that things would get better, and that it would grow up in a dignified and learned time. I told it that Rick would help see to that.

One night a month before my child was due, and I’d prepared lasagna for dinner, nothing happened. That sounds so very alarming, doesn’t it? I put it innocently – nothing happened in that there was no news about It on the television. Blunge wouldn’t was people to know about It because then they’d know about S.L.

Yes, I slept alone that night, and every night since. They’d found my husband and taken him from us, opening my eyes again to what he’d never told me. I had no ties to S.L., so I was safe, because Rick made sure of it. Police never came by the house, though a government official did, and he never talked to me, just went through the study to eliminate the evidence of his job. The money that Rick earned for the month he’d been found was deducted from our account. All paperwork stating that he’d worked at St. Joseph’s was gone. They’d made him disappear, ready to let his growing family rot. They made him disappear, just as they’ll have to do to me before I’ll stop fighting.

Blunge, I know your people will find this entry. I don’t suppose you’ll ever see it, but know this; you will fall. By the many hands of S.L., or perhaps by America’s old allies in Britain, I don’t know.

Catch me if you can.

Julianne