Captured

They caught me in the Chisos Mountains in the old Big Bend National Park, one of the few remote places left in these United States.  I'd been on the run for several years, popping back and forth across the narrow ribbon of Rio Grande near Boquillas, Mexico.  But I was tired, my back was killing me, and I was hanging out a lot in the mountains near the South Rim grubbing for food, relieving myself in an old solar compost toilet the Forest Service had put in over a decade ago, and just generally wishing I could will myself to die before they came for me.

They came in the middle of the night while I was sound asleep in my tent.  At first I thought it was one of the black bears that had migrated across the river from the Sierra del Carmen Mountains, but when I heard whispering I knew my time had come.  It was a SWAT team from the BookForce, and they handcuffed me, confiscated my life savings, and marched me down the trail right then and there, the lead marshall lighting the way with the torch strapped to his forehead.

By morning I was in the courthouse in Alpine, standing before a magistrate of the Lit Commission, listening to him read off the list of charges against me:

One count of failure to have a blog.

One count of failure to post daily on said blog.

One count of failure to have at least 100 Followers on said blog.

Six counts of failure to have Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Linkedin, OurDiary, and PeoplesHistory accounts.

(And the more serious charges):

One count of failure to write a book.

One count of failure to pay the Federal Book Creation Fee of $30,000.

After listing the charges, the magistrate pronounced me "Guilty," and the baliff ushered me into a holding cell until I could be transported to El Paso the following morning.