It seemed like a yet another dull morning in Taubenhügel. Gunther woke up and checked the clock. It was 4 AM. He still had an hour before the bus would come and pick him up and get him to the factory. He put on his working uniform and went to the bus stop. He still had about 20 minutes before the bus would arrive, so he decided to take a look around. It was at that moment that he noticed something - where were the patrols? Usually, at least two people in governmental black uniforms would approach him on his way to the bus stop to scan his ID, but this time...
Soon, his co-worker, Arnold, pulled up to the bus stop as well. Gunther and Arnold were pretty close friends. They never spoke to each other at work, but the long bus ride all the way from a small puny village nobody cares about to the industrial center of a region took about 5 hours and was hella dull, so the only way for the workers to entertain themselves was to either sleep, fantasize or speak to each other.
"Say, Arnold" - said Gunther, double checking there was nobody nearby. - "Where are all the patrols?"
"Wish I could tell ya, Gunther" - said Arnold, stewing his cigar - "From what I've heard, they had some kinf of emergency announced this night, so all of the forces were pulled to the center of the region."
"That would in fact make sense" - Gunther thought to himself. Given that Taubenhügel was a small and unimportant village, so small and unimportant in fact that it wasn't labeled on 90% of Ballistikovian maps, it came as no surprise that forces would get relocated to the center in a situation of emergency. Gunther didn't really wish to go far into that. "It's probably just another demonstration of force on the population again" - he thought then. - "Nothing extraordinary for our nation.". He calmed down for a while and didn't really worry about it.
When he did begin to worry was when the bus didn't show up on time. Given the iron organization of ballistikov's industrial sector, every part of it had to operate percisely. Workers who were late to work would, to say the least, get into trouble. Minutes passed, but the bus wasn't coming. Both Gunther and Arnold began to panic a little - did they miss the bus? Did their clocks havve the wrong time? If the bus was broken, government would have sent another one right away, unless... They both looked at each other.
"Gunther..." - said Arnold after taking a deep breath, - "Something is wrong." Gunther and Arnold looked at each other, confused. Hours went by, no sign of a bus in sight. Gunther and Arnold didn't leave the bus stop, both fearing to get in trouble with the government, so Gunther tried to phone his wife... there was no connection.
"Arnold, my phone has no connection, what the bloody hell is happening today? Is this some kind of a government project to check if we follow instructions against all odds? What the bloody hell are we supposed to do?"
It was at this moment that they saw a car heading their way, but it was coming from the opposite side - the side on which the returning buses came to the village. A man with a shocked expression on his face stepped out of the car, holding a camera in one hand, cane in another. He approached the two men, who had already recognized him.
"Hans!" - said Gunther in an inpatient tone - "What the bloody hell is happening today? There is no bus to pick us up, the communication is down, and patrols still haven't returned!"
Hans handed Gunther a camera, his hands shaking. "They... they won't come back... ever..." - Hans said, his voice shaking. Gunther turned on the camera, and almost dropped it from shock. In the photos in the gallery, there was a nuclear explosion mushroom cloud above the Gmundorf province capital.
Neither Gunther, nor Arnold could believe what they were seeing. The three men soon assembled the population of the entire village, about four thousand people, at the main square and told them the news. Some people were confused, some were in disbelief, many were in an internal panic. One man from the crowd shouted : "What the bloody hell are we going to do? Whose orders do we follow? We are a workforce - we need orders, dangit! If we don't recieve any orders - we'll freakin' die!"
Panic took over the crowd, many started screaming in panic, some collapsed on the ground from shock. It was in this chaos that a young man climbed up on the stage and turned on the microphone.
"If - if I may?" - he said with a shaking, unconfident voice. he adjusted his glasses and took out a napkin to clean sweat from his forehead. "My name is Wilhelm Engel and I... I actually studied at the political cafedra in the capital and I was on my second year - one year away from becoming the nationalist party recruit, I... I-I know a th-thing or two about ruling the nation..."
"Can you temporarily take on the role of the supreme leader?" - Gunther asked - "Please! Please I beg you! We can't sustain ourselves! We are no more than tools! Without orders, we'll slowly die out! Please!" Gunther kneeled in front of Wilhelm, so did the entire crowd, crying out chaotically: "Be Our Leader! Be our Leader!"
"I-I, uh..." -Wilhelm was seemingly embarassed to see the crowd kneeling in front of him like that. His whole life he was taught that he was a nobody and that his only purpose was to commit to the party and to the state. - "I... while I.. I do know the basics of running the nation, y-yes, b-but, unlike the supreme leader Samuel, who had alway known what was best for us better than we did ourselves, I... I know nothin about it... So. uhh... Maybe,.. maybe I COULD temporarily assume leadership until order is restored in the centers, but... m-m-maybe... maybe you guys could tell me what you want so I could d-do my j-job b-b-better?"
He kept speaking, stuttering almost every word, sounding extremely unconfident, but the villagers were desperate. "Ok! Good! We WILL tell you what we want, just please, please give us orders! Now!"
Wilhelm took a deep breath. He tried to focus and act as skeptical as he possibly could. "A-alright." - he said - "You all, uh... look pretty tired, right? I uh- I suppose you should all go to sleep now and uh... I dunno, get some well-needed nap, or stuff."
The villagers instantly headed home, so did Wilhelm. He felt etremely nervous and couldn't sleep all night. The next morning he assembled the people and asked them what jobs they are good at and who they would like to work as. Aware that without the federal support there would soon be no food left, Wilhelm assigned abut a hundred people to work on the farm. He soon distributed all the jobs that were necessary for the city to sustain itself, asking the villagers if he was right on doing something every step of the way, terrified at the thought of giving an order that would make things worse. The next morning he was even more tired and had almost collapsed on the stage. He then asked the villagers if they could possibly select a few people who knew things about farming, architecture and science and etc. who could help him out in ruling the city. A small vinnage-running comitee was assembled to help Wilhelm give orders to the village. The villagers referred to Wilhelm as "the supreme leader", but Wilhelm felt very awkward about it, and ordered the villagers to simply call him "Mr. Engel". He was in a position of an absolute dictator, but he couldn't do a single step in running the village confidently without the help of the village defense comitee. He soon started giving more and more power to the village-running comitee to lay off the pressure from himself, eventually leaving himself as no more that a figurehead of the village.
It was a wondeful sunny morning in Taubenhügel Gunther and his grandson were peacefully walking down the street, Gunther was telling his gandson, Wilhelm, who he had named after the supreme leader, how things used to be, and how everything changed drastically in one day. Then his Grandson said: "Grandpa, I've recentely read an old book about what other countries used to be like. Tell me - is our village what was labeled in the book as "western degeneracy"?
Gunther stayed silent for a minute, thinking about everything that had led up to this happy day when he could be simply enjoying a walk in the park with his grandson, not fearing getting arrested for a slip of a tongue, having a high enough pension to afford ice cream for himself and his son every time he would go on a walk with him.
"No, Willy." - He said, a happy smile on his face - "This, what we have right now, is not a western liberal degeneracy. This is not a fascist dictatorship, either. As far as I know...
As far as I know, this is just good ol' Taubenhügel. Simply a nice place to be."