Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Still Life
Page 171
Retarded or Mob Affiliated?
"The Ministry of Unspoken Banality"
In the Republic of Whisperia, the government had long outlawed the public sharing of "Sensitive Mundane Data." This included, but was not limited to:
Preferred sandwich fillings
Sock color on Tuesdays
Whether one preferred cats or dogs
The number of sneezes in a row before saying "bless you"
Citizens were issued "Silence Permits" at birth, and trained from infancy to nod solemnly when asked about their breakfast, then change the subject to geopolitics or quantum ethics.
At the heart of this system was the Ministry of Unspoken Banality, a towering building staffed by thousands of flunkies in beige suits who spent their days redacting grocery lists and interrogating toddlers about their favorite crayon.
One such flunky, Gerald, took his job very seriously. He once detained a man for humming the tune of a cereal commercial in