“How do we let them live like that?” Joqauin asked as he looked down on the Stone Prison of Madrid.
“They are alive aren’t they?” sneered the inspector. His casual cruelty was not a surprise to Joqauin but it didn’t soften the pain. These people had done nothing wrong, they just happened to be in the country when the world fell. Spain had done a decent job of surviving, their borders shrank and the population moved inwards towards the capital. Food systems had become rationed but the people mostly learned how to survive together. Except the foreigners wouldnt go home. After months of feeding them, the government decided to camp them here. In a long concrete airplane hangar. They had shelter, and running water. More then they would have at home (especially the Americans), but that was about all they were allowed. No jobs, no purpose. Some politicians had advocated for them to be a part of the society, to help rebuild but the xenophobes had triumphed. Now most Spaniards forgot they had been placed here. Easier to turn a blind eye, to let them rot in what in all regards was a life sentence prison.
As long as they had what they needed on the outside who would fight for these people?
Joqauin watched for years as a guard and each day was harder on him. But he was one man, one man who these same people would see as nothing more than their captor. And he had a family at home, a daughter three, who never knew the world before. Perhaps she would always look at her father with love and admiration. But if she ever saw his job, and these humans below, how could she ever respect him again?
Joqauin knew he should do something. 

He knew.

He knew.