I’m standing in a line waiting for my death. How’d I get here, you ask? We saw it coming, but nobody took it seriously. The “Make America Great Again” crowd kept getting people elected and passing laws to limit freedoms. There was an eerie parallel with what the Nazis did to the Jews back in WWII, but the face of fascism was covered with religion. The Evangelical Christians and white supremacists got together for political reasons and now nobody can stop them.
I’m a gay man. I’m waiting to die because I’m gay. The fascists who took over the Land of the Free spent a lot of time and energy describing us as “groomers” and pedophiles. It didn’t matter that I’ve never been in trouble with the law. It didn’t matter I was married to my wonderful husband. It didn’t matter that I had no contact with children. I was gay and that’s all they needed.
My husband and I tried to flee the country when things started to get bad. My husband is a Marshallese citizen and has a Marshallese passport. I wasn’t able to get a passport in time and was stopped at the border to Canada. They let him through, but I was put in handcuffs and led to a cell. The cell was full of other gay men trying to get out. I think the space was only meant for a dozen people, but they crammed over 50 of us in there. There’s no room to sit down or to even move. It’s so tight, you just have to relieve yourself where you stand. As a result, the stench was overwhelming. The smell of feces, urine, vomit, blood, and sweaty bodies.
I lost track of how much time we were in that cell; it felt like days. When all the cells in the holding area were full, they put us in 18-wheeler cattle trailers. We were packed in just as tightly as we had been in the cell. All gay men and boys. It took over two days of driving before we arrived here at Camp Forest.
Camp Nathan Bedford Forest named for the founder of the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. They chose this name in retaliation for the old government renaming military bases that had commemorated confederate military figures. I don’t know how many of these “camps” there are, but they’re all the same. It is a converted feed lot and slaughter house. That’s what they’re going to do to us.
As soon as we arrived, they unloaded us into the pens using cattle prods. I got shocked a few times for not moving fast enough. I haven’t eaten or had water in days and I’m physically worn out from standing the whole time. The elderly and disabled were shot in the head as soon as they stepped off the truck. The rest of us were herded into the pens and stripped naked. We move forward a few yards every 20 minutes or so.
People are crying silently. They’re shaking with fear. Most of us are just looking at the ground. There’s no real point in looking at anything. The only thing we can see are the chimneys of the crematory that belch out black smoke day and night. The line seems to wind back on itself an uncountable number of times. I think we’re somewhere in the middle by now.
It started out with the teachers, scientists, and other academics. They didn’t want them “indoctrinating” the children. Their idea of indoctrination was teaching anything that they didn’t like. The holocaust? Didn’t happen. According to them, Hitler was a great leader and never killed six million men, women, and children. Slavery? Nah, the so called “slaves” were happy to have been taken to America and put to work. Racism? Doesn’t exist. Vaccines are taboo now. They said the old government were tracking people or putting other harmful chemicals into our bodies. You’d think that preventable diseases like Polio, Measles, Mumps, etc would have proved that vaccines worked, but they ignore them in favor of essential oils or some other snake oil.
They moved on from the academics to the LGBTQ+ people. The trans people got hit first. They began passing laws to outlaw gender affirming care. At first it was only for people under 18, but then they expanded it to all citizens. It became illegal to act or dress like someone that didn’t match the gender you were born. Trans women would be beaten severely for using the ladies room. The MAGAs would scream how there was a man in the ladies restroom and the men and other law enforcement would come running. The victim would be lucky to end up in a vegetative state instead of dead.
Next they came for the gay men. We’re all groomers and pedophiles in their eyes. They revoked same-sex marriages. Legally, my husband and my marriage license was void like it never happened. We couldn’t be recognized as a married couple because marriage was only allowed between a man and woman. My husband and I tried to get to Canada when they began expelling all foreign nationals. It didn’t matter if they had a visa or a right to be here, they weren’t Americans. Since I was an American, I had to stay behind because I didn’t have a passport. It wouldn’t have mattered much if I did. I might have been allowed to leave, but not likely.
We’re getting closer to the end now. The pens are narrowing to single file. Every 20 minutes or so, a door opens and people are shoved and prodded inside until it’s full. The door closes. When it opens again, the room is empty. We don’t know if they’re using gas or if they’re shooting everyone. The doors are so thick you can’t hear anything on the other side. We think it might be gas because the guards are all wearing masks.
I think our group is next. Oh god, the door is opening! The ones up front are trying to resist moving in, but they’re using cattle prods on the people behind us and we’re being forced forward. It’s dark in the room. The floor is ice cold and slippery. The smell is even worse than before. We can’t see anything! The door is closing now. It’s pitch black. There’s a hissing sound and it smells like…
