Fiction

Failed Citizen

June 4, 2021

I was, in some sense, fooled by the Mystery Citizen. He was just doing his job, and I don’t blame him for that. He was doing it all too well, in fact! That was my downfall; that is why I’m here in this cell, along with another chap who failed just like I did.

All of us in this wing failed a Mystery Citizen test of one form or another. I basically lost my temper with a man I should have had more patience with – the MC, as it turns out. There are other people in here with more complex crimes – things that would not be easy to outlaw without the Mystery Citizen test.

One, a few doors down from me, was a neighbour from hell – neighbour to the MC; another refused to sort her recycling properly, and argued with a ‘friendly neighbour’ who tried to nudge her in the right direction. You guessed it, the neighbour was an MC. Another neglected to social distance during one of the outbreaks, and would you know who they got too close too?

They prove, at least to me, the great effectiveness of the MC test. I sit here and absorb the lesson, and will not need its teaching next time.