Former Activists On The Run From The FBI Day!
Ever since 1971, you've been harboring two former peace activists in your attic who are wanted by the FBI for the accidental death of a janitor who worked at a nuclear lab that they bombed. Though you were a member of their militant anti-war group and you are still something of a peacenik yourself, you hate the activists you've been harboring so much that you're about ready to shoot them yourself with a gun you'd have to borrow because you could never keep a gun in your house.
They started pissing you off in 84, when they asked if they could have a choice of jams with their morning toast. Ever since then, you've brought them up three jams: grape, strawberry, and blueberry. And that's also when you began greeting them with: "Morning, hippies. Just wanted to remind you that in your effort to bring peace to the world, you set off a bomb and killed an innocent janitor."
You wait for them to cry a little and hug each other. Then you drop their breakfast on the floor before they start to rationalize aloud.
There has been some butting of heads. Usually over whether or not they can have a newspaper, and you've held firm that papers are a no-go because whenever they read one they start to pace and shout at Nixon. Occasionally they'll accuse you of being just as bad as Johnson. But they don't do that too much since you always refuse to bring them food for 72 hours after they do.
But tonight, you're going to burn your whole house down. It will kill them if they don't get out. That's your rationalization. You're only protecting them from the G-men. Should the house catch fire, no matter who might have lit the match, even if it was you, it is not your responsibility to keep these people from dying. You only agreed to keep them out of jail. If they die outside of jail, you've held up your end of the bargain, yes? Light the match!
If they do get out, you'll build another house with an attic and you'll allow them to live there. You'll even put them up in a motel temporarily until the house is done. It's what you signed on for.
But if they die, if they burn and turn to so much ash and scorched tissue, you'll feel like an 80-pound tumor had just been ripped from your belly. You'll spend your nights carrying yourself off to sleep with dreams of what it was like at the end for them. You'll wonder which imaginary government shadow-body they decided to blame it on, and whether they finally consented to believing in God long enough to pray to him. You'll wonder if they knew you had something to do with it. They wouldn't guess that you'd lit the match. But maybe they'll think that when the firemen arrived and asked you if anyone else is in the house, you probably said, "Nothing but the rats always squealing away up in the attic." You'll hope they thought that. That would make you laugh, if they thought that's how you let them go.
Happy Former Activists On The Run From The FBI Day!
