The grim future
So, I’m shaken to my core of the possibilities under the next presidential administration. I couldn’t think of ways to convey my fears in any meaningful way other than making a fictional story.
It’s a quick scratch I pieced together on my phone, so it’s likely flawed in more ways than one. But the key aspect for me was using art as a way to work through my feelings.
A stench that’s so strong and pungent, the flies try to ignore the area. But for the prisoners confined there, it was just the air they grasped for every day. It’s hard to tell the source of the malfeasance. The hand dug latrines with feces and bodily excrement overflowing? Or maybe the piles of remains of animal corpses? The three decaying human bodies definitely didn’t made it worse.
But there isn’t a day that death isn’t in the air at Valdosta Peace Asylum. You’d be hard-pressed to find a guard without a mask. The first few years, the guards didn’t wear masks. They had to show the prisoners how they really felt. Grimaces of distaste to their existence. Twisted smirks while watching prisoners get tortured or brutalized.
What first started as fun for the asylum guards has evolved into the wages they sustain their families with. It’s not a glamorous job, but it pays ok. And they’re not on the receiving side of the stick. That’s honestly the best part of the job. Sure, food from work helps offset the impacts of the 2027 Grain Famine that the world never fully recovered from. Plus, finding a job at all is extremely difficult these days. So, food and a little change are helpful, but not being a prisoner is high on the list.
To attract new workers, asylums increase benefit offers with more take home food rations or promises of one weekend off a month for the first 6 months. Now that the glitz of the work has faded for most, it’s a harder sell to get qualified staff. Hell, staff at all!
When asylums were being erected all along the agriculturally ripe areas of America, job applicants struggled to get hired. This was mainly because the government couldn’t hire them fast enough. For the truly zealous, they would volunteer their time to keep the asylums orderly.
When the ruling regime recognized mass deportation would be extremely costly, they had to pivot on their plans. No one wanted the migrants to get rides out using federal funds. The then-Attorney General recommended creating select work sites that would house the undocumented immigrant population. He then pushed his idea from a small thought into a whole campaign.
To avoid comparisons to concentration camps, they’d be labeled asylums. Advertisements were run showing that the asylums were places of voluntary entry, meaningful work and opportunities for affordable housing. The slogan “Seek no more - here’s the asylum!” was the veiled language used to lure in the unexpecting, vulnerable populations.
So, what was a problem of a failed mass deportation effort evolved into an economic opportunity. This capitalist success catapulted the Attorney General to becoming the new Vice President. His rise was conveniently timed to be not long after the assassination of the former Vice President. Rumors went around of the reason to his murder, but most speculated he wrote his own death wish when he demanded the president not enter a third term. So, with that vacancy and economic success, the Attorney General climbed his station.
In addition to the wealth generated, the asylums brought about demographic cleansing. That aspect drew in the factions of bigots who were glad to patrol the asylums and prevent escape. Because, in the beginning, the asylums stayed true to their word of voluntary entry - but there was never a promise of release.
The first communities getting round up were immigrants. Then, trans people. As outwardly hated communities diminished, the government needed more bodies to fill their misery factories. So, the “voluntary” entry principle was dropped. Then the unhoused. Then prison populations. Then political dissenters. One by one, communities landed in asylum. And it wasn’t all about race - though it was predominantly nonwhite. Looking at the crowds of prisoners, it was sometimes hard to find the common thread among the diverse group.
Maybe the rainbow coalition could have fought back had they not been starved and rotting from the inside out. The guards were sure to do enough just to keep everyone alive - and capable to work. Too much vitality, then they’d face resistance. Too little sustenance, then they’d be killing their profit.
And killing the profit was one of the key reasons the government had to part ways with the nazi factions. Individual cliques of nazis were all too eager to mount up and patrol the asylum of unwanteds. But, rather than round up escapees, nazis would gun them down. In the worst of cases, the nazis would just torture and kill prisoners. They weren’t trying to escape - the Nazis just enjoyed inflicting pain. The incident that made all federal government asylums and negotiations was the Wilmington Escape Massacre.
After having been on the government’s bad side for abusing prisoners to the point of death or inability to work, Wilmington guards were required to restructure their compound and limit nazi engagement. The Wilmington White Warriors troop were enraged that their unfettered access was being cut off. Especially since during the six months that guards were short staffed to quell the Northern Virginia Rebellions - Wilmington White Warriors filled the gap without hesitation. So they’re access being cut off was untenable.
The night of the massacre was methodically planned out. W3 made it seem as though they would only have the minimum number of guards for the few nights leading up to the massacre. That night, W3 sent militia members in to drive prisoners into the asylum’s main yard. The asylum guards went towards the gunshots while the prisoners scurried into the crowded courtyard. The ruthless Warriors unleashed all their disdain for the unwanteds, the guards, and the government into those prisoners. Nearly 10,000 ammo shells were cleared from the site where 413 prisoners were slain.
That sole event of Wilmington Peace Asylum losing 91% of its workforce over night made other asylums break away from any remaining Nazi factions. But the breakaway might have been too little, too late for the sake of the asylums.
What started as factories of unlimited bodies replacing the ones keeling off due to over exertion and abuse devolved into places of even more unspeakable misery and suffering. In the early years, mega corporations would overlook the asylum atrocities for the sake of affordable trinkets made in the USA. But as news spread of the Wilmington Escape Massacre and Nazi live streams took hold of mainstream media’s attention, asylums came under more public scrutiny.
So now, back in Valdosta, Georgia stands one of the sole remaining asylums. They were machines of unthinkable horrors spread all throughout the American South to capture the golden opportunity of unpaid labor, fertile land, and year-round growth opportunities. Now, this one stands as an ongoing, ghastly mirror of the world we’ve created.
God Bless America 🇺🇸