Excerpt: On Immortality and Tax Evasion

"We do not wish to hurt you," the man explained earnestly. "Everything will be coming clear very soon with your patience and good behaviour. Will the mothers with small children please stand up? We are so very sorry that we are forced to proceed like this. We really do not want you to be unhappy. Please continue to help us and this will be so. Will all women and their small children please stand and move to the right of the building here?"
"Go with them," her step father said, suddenly, very quietly. "Take him."
"But," she said, and stood anyway.
There was a gentle buzz in the air. Everything was soft and mute, gentle obedience to the men with fire extinguishers. There was no fuss.
At the right front of the assembly hall was a back entrance, she remembered. They were going out, to be taken away somewhere. The crowd moved slowly, like sheep. (It was a Friday assembly, it had been boring as hell, there had been lists upon lists of sporting achievements and the principal had complained that too many girls wore skivvies under their blouses on cold days. Now they were filing out the doors, to go back to their warm classrooms and hand in their maths homework.) There was an ambient noise of children crying and trying not to be heard. She was stopped at the door.
"How old are you?"
Too startled and nervous to lie, she answered, "Twenty."
"Is he your son?"
"No. My little brother."
"You stay here. No fuss."
Her muscles had frozen. Even a direct order could not make her let go his hand. She looked into the eyes of the man speaking to her and tried to keep the tears away. She was so tired and she had never loved her brother so much. The guy didn't look very much older than she was.
"Don't make a fuss," he repeated. "We won't hurt him. If you behave we won't hurt you either. We want you all to be happy. Now let the kid go. Turn around and don't make a scene."