One of these days they will come for youit will happen on a day like any other daybut this day at four in the afternoonthey will drive up in their big black Cadillacsthe tall men in overcoatsand they will ask about youtheir black briefcases bulgingtheir synchronized watches ticking.
You had better be ready for them when you are pointed outyou had better have something to say to themsomething to show them something to whisper in their earsthose signs you noted in passingthose words those phrases you only overheardbut there is nothing you can say to themfor in the shadow of their black Cadillacsthere is no one to help you.
Your friends are strangers nowyour acquaintances merely acquaintancesyour business associates are strangely somewhere elsethis is your concern and yours alone even if you deny itthere is no one who is able to give you an explanationeven if there were explanations to giveyour neighbours sit quietly on their porchesor they peer from behind half-closed apartment doorsas the tall men in overcoats lead you away.
Your neighbours are willing to watch you disappear.
At four in the afternoon of an unparticular daya day in an unparticular week of an unparticular yearthey have come and taken you awayfor all you know their Cadillacs might have been ambulancestheir papers white uniformsfor in the final hours of some future dreamless nightfive uniformed attendants will come for youthey will strip you and fasten you down and shave youthey will beat you and lead you away screaming for lovethen they will take you to a dark room an unspecified nowhereand there begin to insert the electrodes in your skull.
