They clanged my pans, turning each one upside-down. They turned away from me and stomped down the stairs and smashed the pipes under the kitchen sink and ripped off the oven door and the fridge door, because if you do not have guns in your oven or in your fridge, then why should you have need of those appliances? They pulled dishes out of the cupboards and let them tumble to the floor for the cliché of the crash. I had already said all I needed to say and more denial could only make it worse. It will be easier if you tell us where they are.” I remained silent. I had told them this much earlier, but no one, least of all government police, believe a pacifist. The skinny one came down with insulation on his cap. They sent the skinny one up again while they ripped through the linen closet and pulled the tank off the toilet in the bathroom. They shone their flashlights upwards and saw the attic access.
They tore the closet doors off the posts and pulled aside the hangers roughly so the neatly ironed clothing fell to the ground, and then they had to swish that aside to check the floorboards and the back corners. They cut through the mattress and wiggled the skinny young policeman underneath the frame. They first stomped up the stairs to my bedroom, because that is always where first secrets are held. They pushed past me without putting their boots in the rubber tray I keep by the front door for that purpose. “Now show us where you keep your guns.” They did not wait for me to answer in protest. “I am a pacifist.” “Pacifism does not exist,” the lieutenant of the government police said. They sliced it with their knives and, once on my front mat, the striped one that camouflaged the melting slush from their treads, said, “Where are the guns?” “I have no guns,” I said. I had opened the big steel door when they knocked, but kept the thin screen locked.
They came into my house, the government police, through the front screen door.
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