She couldn't breathe another word.  Looking at the clock on the wall behind the library's reception desk, Susan thought about the next day.  Sitting around a square table in a corner by the law section of the library, she reads the last words of the Declaration mounted on faded parchment.  How could they sign such a document?  

Susan looked down at the tall sheet of paper sitting on the table, tapping her fingers on the document, mesmerized by the wording used to strip her town of its speech rights.  Unbelieving, she folded the parchment, got up from her seat, and walked to the reception desk to return the parchment.  The woman at the desk, about mid 50s, looked at Susan with a smile, proud that a "young person" was taking interest in knowing the law and what it represents.  Susan smiled reluctantly in reply.  After leaving the parchment at the desk, and nodding to the receptionist, she walks to the library exit.  

Pushing through the double doors of the Havelbrook Public Library in a cotton pink blouse and khaki capris, Susan stepped onto the blackened pavement in front of the library, feeling the warmth of the Saturday evening sun, admiring the bronzed sunlight painted on the corners of buildings and street signs signaling the coming of the 6:00 pm sunset hovering over Ledbetter Valley. 

Running her fingers through short, black, curly locks, streaked with gold lines on a cute bob hanging over caramel skin and dark brown eyes, Susan walks across Havelbrook's once lively and bustling Mamasees Avenue, overhearing the grunts and whispers of the town gossip. 

Leaves of paper breeze rolled across the dusty edges of the sidewalk, as a surly group drinks sugarless lemonade and blows kisses to the airmother, conveniently ignoring how much the color of civic passion and activism had drained from a once vibrant and socially active city street. 

Women of previous engagement in all things political, social, cultural, economic, or moral, with smiling eyes, sit on wooden stools like porcelain dolls on display on the corner of the avenue by Ms. Tina's peanut stand,

Free speech is not a problem anymore in this backwards nether-region.  Speech is now locked away and wholly protected by the passing of the Law of Free Speech or None at All, a law requiring all towns in the lower southern quarters, the last hold out against the War of the Leads, to follow suit and accept free speech or go without. 

Since the majority of the town's residents voted None at All, Havelbrook's residents accepted the terms of the legislation, not thinking of how the law would affect their right to form words, perform deeds, make verbal contracts, and have witty conversations. 

Thanks to the Administration, there are only vapors rising from resident's chapped lips - a sign of the welcome suppression of hate speech and cybercrime, fearing the new religion of extreme technological advancement and political capitalism, and the rapid mix of rock and roll dementia ruling the air waves, television, and computer screens of the CEO broadcasting stations.