Of All Strange Things/ An Organized Forgetting

The worst thing was not the fear that they were going to come at night to take you away; it was when it morphed into a general unspecified fear that they were going to come any minute. Even worse was not having any idea what they would take you away for, so that you could not prevent yourself from doing it or preparing excuses beforehand. That was deliberate, I thought, so that when they finally got you, you would be shocked despite yourself, despite knowing in your bones that it was soon or at least someday, and would confess to whatever they dreamed up. But you would always say, or so I heard, that you didn't know it was bad. Which was the worst thing of all, because it was true.

Who they were remained an unsolved mystery shrouded in suspicion and superstition and fear. All I knew was that the work I was doing was important, and somehow important things have a way of attracting the wrong kinds of people. Especially when the work you are doing means you have accidentally, quite possibly found a way to cheat death. Although, of course, that was not your intention. But if word got out, and a strange person wearing innocuously suspicious clothing like a trench coat in winter, were to ask you if it was true you knew how to avoid ageing and the inconvenience of dying, you would have to say yes.