This post is written in response to @mikepm74's  "Follow the Leader" contest -- the prompt was "Your assignment is to write a story about escaping from a Dictatorship set on getting their own way through Censorship and manipulation."

![johannes-krupinski-3RdHg46F-q0-unsplash.jpg](https://images.hive.blog/DQmQ379xJ8FQuCN3pvKm8wc2a8RH7Emdg8JQtDLug5dBPR4/johannes-krupinski-3RdHg46F-q0-unsplash.jpg)

[Source](https://unsplash.com/photos/3RdHg46F-q0)

I can still hear the song in my head, 20 years later:

“Supreme Leader, our country's own sun,
Blessed Ruler, god and holy one!
High, exalted, above storm and rain –
Traitors, scatter, at our glad refrain!”

My parents changed the last two lines for their private enjoyment.

“High we must be, quite without a brain
As our country circles 'round the drain.”

I come from a long line of creatives.  Our Supreme Leader valued people like me, and of my family, only so far as we were able to use our skills to maintain a fine illusion that covered the depredation of his tyrannical rule.

I was actually old enough to remember when our country was struggling, but still had a core of freedom and prosperity.  My parents had to do a lot with their art and other work, and so did I and my siblings as soon as we were old enough to contribute, but we were happy.

Our parents kept from us the news about the subtle takeover of the media and the country's financial system by the man who would become Supreme Leader.

In the manner of the anti-Christ who is yet to come, this man moved by flattery and graft and smooth words while consolidating his awesome power behind the scenes.

It took a very short time, in retrospect, before that song began to intrude into every corner of our lives, drowning the free and disparate voices of other people.

To resist, to point the way to possible routes and places of escape, was to be disappeared – to vanish, with the swiftness with which I might now press a button and destroy a blog post.

My parents were not cowards, but they had many, many children, and knew that they could not protect us and openly fight back, so, for a time, they worked under the new conditions, and created art that helped the people endure the new conditions.  Endure, however, as free people – they walked a fine line between presenting to the boot-licks of the Supreme Leader what they wanted to see in terms of distracting the people with art and then keeping the integrity of their art to serve and lift the soul of our people.

However, the restrictions over the years became tighter and tighter, and at last, my parents and some others decided to create one last illusion.  

They had heard that a way had been opened to a country that had been founded by refugees of our weary land – many of our strongest and best people, whom we thought had been disappeared, had actually escaped, and had staked out new territory and had been preparing it for those of us who wanted to be free to come to them.

So, the artists in my family and friends circle created the greatest Supreme Leader Day parade in history.

It was mandatory to either attend or watch on great screens this parade and celebration of the Supreme Leader – censuses were taken of the households and lists were checked.  Even in hospitals, everything had to stop and the parade and celebration had to be shown on the screens.  This rule was brutally enforced – but only to a point, because the enforcers themselves had to be at attention also by the time the parade and ceremonies were well under way.

The combination of great sensory content and the fear of being caught inattentive led to the intended state that the Supreme Leader wanted: total mass mesmerizing of the populace by the time he actually got up to speak.

The adults this particular year put together quite a show – so much so that my father came home shaking his head once he got the door closed.  He said aloud, “The Supreme Leader has given our team a commendation for the excellence of our work this year!”

He mouthed some other things not meant to be heard – but we read his lips, and made the obligatory celebratory noises we were supposed to be making as a family over the recognition from the Supreme Leader -- but about what we knew our father had really said.  

Meanwhile, by night, our countrymen who were working to help us escape were digging tunnels under the border to us – they linked their main tunnels to the sewer network under the great boulevard where the parade would be held.

They told us to leave our homes the day of the parade with nothing but our absolute essentials – that things could be replaced, and that they would share the prosperity they had built with us fully and freely, and that whatever else we all wished, we all would take the chance that we could build it together.

The day of the parade came.  Our best dress was required, and we stuffed into our pockets a few small items – mementos – of the good things we had enjoyed before the conquering of our country.  

Music, fireworks, techno-shows of all manner as the Supreme Leader and his lackeys made their way through the capital city – his picture was up everywhere too, so there was definitely plenty to see to reinforce the point that it was all about him.  I will forever remember the smile on his face.  He was very pleased to finally get a parade of the type he felt he deserved.  His boot-licking media and financiers would make much of it; the world would be forced to take note.

Those who were content to live under his rule were further convinced by this great display; as ever, these nationalistic displays did their work in convincing the people that they were a part of something great that all stemmed from the Supreme Leader.  The tragedy of this day was that this was the most convincing day ever.  My parents and their circle had done their work.

However, what I learned that day was that the cost of being free was to have to let loose all responsibility for those not so committed.  Everyone knew that there was now an alternative to living under the Supreme Leader; it was the whispered conversation in all the cities and had even made it into the countryside.  Yet not everyone was of the mind to be free.  The reasons didn't matter when the time came to go.  They were of their mind, and we were of ours.  

It did hurt, though – it hurt me even as a teenager, those last moments when, after the greatest parade ever, the hundreds of thousands of people present along the great boulevard began to sing the song, louder and louder … many of my friends and their families, singing louder and louder … .

“Supreme Leader, our country's own sun,
Blessed Ruler, god and holy one!
High, exalted, above storm and rain –
Traitors, scatter, at our glad refrain!”

Louder and louder as the Supreme Leader beamed like the sun in his delight – it rose to a frenzied pitch, as if singing the song fervently would tame him, would make him more benevolent, would make life truly worth living again.

One could have sooner spooned bleach onto a cesspool and cleaned that up than to have loved that dictator into goodness.  

So, we sang and swayed along, slowly moving backwards all the time upon a subtle signal – a change in a certain portion of the lighting from blue-green to red – until we had swayed out of the crowds, and the frenzy and the worship of the Supreme Leader had so claimed the minds of the people that we were practically invisible.  We quietly and swiftly slipped away, literally turning from the sun – and *the* sun of those who would not be free – to seek freedom along the dark and risky path set before us.

My family was the among the last to go because of where my father was located in terms of the preparations of the parade – it took him longer to extract himself from the press.

Behind us, our countrymen who had built a way for our rescue collapsed the tunnels behind us after we had gone a certain distance.  My sister was a little older than me, and equally affected by knowing that we had left friends behind whom we still loved.  So she asked the question of the rescuers bringing up our rear:

“Aren't you worried that the streets of the city may collapse because you have collapsed the tunnels?”

The commander of the rescue team smiled sadly.

“Of course,” he said.  “I have friends up there too.  But the risk we are causing them does not compare to the risk you are taking to escape them.  Freedom requires a proper measuring of what is important.  We were careful, and so it is not likely the street will be harmed, but if it is, that is the cost of your freedom.  

“I hope it falls in!” one of my elder brothers said.  “The Supreme Leader and his lackeys deserve to disappear into a hole in the ground – along with all of those who willingly follow the leader!”

“That may be,” said the commander, “but that is not our purpose today.  Again, young man: freedom requires a proper measuring of what is important.  Enough talk now.  Move ahead and get clear of this area.”

We traveled a long time, the sound of tunnels being collapsed behind us occasionally punctuating our journey.  To my elder brother's chagrin, there were no huge bumps that indicated extra above the tunnels had collapsed.

Yet after a while, it no longer mattered … the journey was very long, requiring several days underground.  Yet no one – thousands of us meeting up and traveling together from the different communities – complained.  No one dare said they would give anything to see the sun shining, either.

And then, one fine morning, we arrived in our new home, our new country.  We were met with provisions, and taken to new homes, and discovered that some old friends we thought had been disappeared and killed had also escaped.

There was still much need for healing, and even now, 20 years later, I can say that the work is still not entirely done.  Many had been disappeared, and never seen again – there was not a family untouched by the Supreme Leader in his evil.   Many were not ready to let go of that hurt – my elder brother yet represents that need for vindication against those who did the wrong that was done to our family and thousands of others.  Everyone deals in their own way with the loss of the country we loved and many of those we loved in it, long before we went through the final loss of fleeing.

In my head, I still hear that horrible song, but it has new words now in these parts:

“Supreme Leader, live with what you've done:
We proved strong enough to up and run,
Run for freedom, and to live again
Far from where you yet rule, quite insane!”

And, that is just one of the many things to be heard, as free voices fill the air and airways and arts and media once again.  Plenty of other things to listen to than the old song that has no power here.  

**Photo by Johannes Krupinski on Unsplash**