I return home from the headquarters, having done a lot of importance, mainly discussions on how to suppress the revolt which now seems to be locking eyes with us, like a street dog ready to snack on your ears as you peacefully pet its puppies...

At home, I resume living my true trivial existence. Behind the desk, I feel like a friendless loner. 

(This wasn't true at all. His moods were to be blamed for such thoughts or perhaps the four sips of the strongest brandy which was a speciality of the district 1, which he had consumed with his colleague Emily, three hours prior. Or perhaps the fact that when at home, he was rarely visited or even contacted by anybody.)

I still remember that day, when it all changed for Phan Matthew and how I did nothing. My diary reminds me of it, haunting my every breath, in every moment of my existence. I think that it will continue doing so, even when I would live no more.

Every word in the diary was penned with such a sense of pity for myself. As if whining, "What could have I done. It wasn't in my hands!" And I hear the pages ruffle, mumbling syllables, making complete sense as they say "It's all your fault!"

Unknowingly, out of habit perhaps, I open the same page every evening. And cannot stop reading until the last page from that devastating day:

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Dear diary, 

Today I went in, thinking that it would be just like any other day at the headquarters. It started on a note mundane enough for me to look out the window and spot a lonely white handkerchief hovering peacefully over the pavement. With feeble wafts, it changed its course; fluttering above the drain and then distantly rumbling as it devoured a woman's heels, almost making her trip. Her fidgety kicks flung the handkerchief onto the road. Still, it managed to uncrease itself before landing.

Then tyres squealed as a van came to halt just before touching the handkerchief. To this, I sighed.

A swarm of journalists had rushed out, excited about today's conference which was later presided over by me and the other Deputy Chiefs. I had my eyes still fixated on the piece of cloth, when I flinched at the sight of it being run over by the tyres, before being crumpled next to the drain. I thought to myself "Funny, how similar we are- the handkerchief, I and all other officials. Rendered powerless because of the revolts. 

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The revolts started when our ancestors first introduced the "Judge", a supercomputer which was to become the head of Judiciary. A pioneering approach in ensuring the objectivity of law. It was a code of zeros and ones, compiled to recreate the same thought process as that of the past Judges of our Nation's Supreme court. The computer worked by collecting a database of thoughts of all the citizens in real-time and therefore instantly doing justice and ceasing all crimes. It did so as the thoughts were transmitted through the air from a chip embedded in the front of the breast bones of all citizens.

Almost everyone was head over heels with the new arrangements, except for the diehards. And slowly the Judiciary of the Nation 109 turned into a one-machine affair. The revolts intensified with an amendment which declared that every offence will be a Criminal one. It was mentioned in the Citizen's Code of Conduct that 'The one who endeavours to be a loyal and devoted citizen, working relentlessly up to one's full potential shall be deserving of a life in the great Nation 109.' and hence, the Judge deemed anyone unfit to be a "deserving citizen" as a "disturbed: one who suffers from a mental illness;" or a "deceased: one whose death is more of an asset to the Nation than his life." In the end, the disturbed and the deceased both usually meet the same fate. The only difference being that the disturbed is hanged whereas the deceased are executed with an axe, at a public execution. I guess that is what happens when an unbiased Artificial Intelligence programme becomes the head of your judiciary and overpopulation is declared to be a liability.