I look out my window across the brown courtyard of grass. No children play there. Mr. Miller sits absentmindedly scratching at a yellow stain on his faded grey jumpsuit. I assume his name is Miller anyway from the name tag stitched in red. We've never said a word to each other, simply exchanged nods at the end of long work days. Miller sits quietly in his normal spot on the dingy stoop, framed by the white peeling paint of his apartment door.

My stomach rumbles -- right food. Then again in my line of work it's best to operate on an empty stomach. What a man sees, what he can become accustomed to... Coffee, no sugar, no cream, perhaps it will jolt me back to life.

As I open the cupboard to grab the tin of coffee crystals, my eyes are drawn to the printout idly left on the counter. A grainy image of Jim Dodd stares vacantly, surrounded by an angular jumble of encrypted text.

My workspace is a sterile white box of soundproof tile and linoleum. A black counter lines the west wall, covered with the technical implements of my trade. Dodd was restrained in a black vinyl chair in the center of the small harshly lit room.

"Mr. Dodd, if I remove the gag will you remain civil?", I stated. Mr. Dodd nodded without acknowledging my existence. "It's a horrible practice that others insist on–"

"Are you going to torture me?"

I paused in mid-step on the left side of Dodd, "No, this is a simple matter of judicial administration. The court has come to its conclusion– "

Mr Dodd scoffed, "Sir, I write and illustrate comics for a living."

Why did I go through the motions of pretending this was a matter of civility for either of us? The moment I walked into the room, and looked on the accused I could feel my humanity fracture, emotive refuse filtered through sterilized skin, surgical gloves, and microfibre lab coat, replaced by the cold hard simulacra, the prison physician, publicly known as the inquisitor of site 12A-Zeta of the Pacific People's Protectorate.

"Mr. Dodd," I quickly stepped over to grab a folder from the counter and began to read in authoritative tones, "you have been convicted under subsection 1256A -T - 9 of the People's Revolutionary Government charter of agitating dissension and publicly defacing the people's council in one Shannon Madison. You have been sentenced to the procedure of psych-readjustment which shall be recorded in the public record as being administered by myself Dr. Eric Quetevis, the sixth of march, two-thousand-one-hundred-and-forty-five."

Looking straight ahead Dodd responded gravely, "Are you done?" He shifted in his seat, fierce eyes inscribed a litany of silent fury into the breast pocket of my lab coat. Dodd's jaw quivered as he tried to hold onto a small piece of dignity in the face of psychic immolation.