Rage built unbidden into my throat, thick, acidic and sharp edged. It was a momentary knife in my throat until I remembered myself and tamped it back down as deep as I could reach into myself where it would be safe and unnoticed. Tomas cocked an eyebrow and pursed his lips, unsure whether he had seen the flash in my eyes or had imagined it. With a small shrug he dismissed the idea and turned away from me. He hadn’t thought I would be capable of forgetting myself so completely. He knew me as always calm, reliable, smile plastered like a poster on my face, the very image of the required persona devoid of any negative emotions which were frowned upon, much less anger which was downright illegal.

I had some old written materials that traced the history of the men who outlawed anger and restricted the use of certain other emotions. In them I had gleaned that the reasoning for such an outrageous idea was chillingly simple. The first thing, a dictator, an abuser, an immoral monster does to control and break down the subject of their wrathful need for control is to begin disassembling them. To pick them apart piece by piece, removing parts, thoughts, confidence, everything that ties them to a sense of self. The first piece taken makes all the others delightfully easy to slide out, makes the man made automaton so much easier to rearrange in a most pleasant way. That first piece taken must always be to remove the subjects right to feel anger, whether it is chipped away bit by bit, small act by small act. Small bits and questionable acts always work better, it is much harder to be angry or disturbed by a bee that accidentally stings than it is to be angry at a man that has smashed your knees with a well aimed slam of a hammer. Better to take the solid ground from beneath a righteous argument bit by innocuous bit, to change slowly the goalposts between right and wrong. To twist the question, change the answers, erase the truth of the action and hide it behind bewilderment rather than to have the prettily built fog of disinformation burned off in the bright light of well deserved anger.