Detective Mertens – Personal Audio Journal. Entry 001.
Recorded privately. Not submitted for review.
They trained us to forget. Trained us to overcome emotion. To become less human.
Every morning, I pass a mural; painted over, sterilized. But I still see a piece of it. Don’t look. That’s the rule. But last month, during a sweep...I found something. A piece of paper, duct taped under an old stove. Real paper. Soft. On it, a drawing of a horse. Crude. But beautiful. I should’ve incinerated it. Instead, I kept it.
That night, I unrolled it again. My hand shook. I could go to jail. Art’s been banned for years. It makes people unstable, they say. Really, it’s to keep us in check. In ten years with the state, I’ve destroyed: sixteen paintings and three textiles. I thought this week would be more of the same. But now... They say there’s a painter still out there. Alive. In The Well; a dangerous part of the city. She’s made something new. A painting you can walk inside of. A painting where you can feel again.
I will find her and destroy it. But first, I want to see it. To feel it. To immerse myself within. Just once. Then I will follow protocol.
Detective Mertens. End entry. Destroy transmission.
