Misrule

The narrative follows Glen Wheatley, a newly promoted civil servant confronting the annual People's Day ritual as a mob attacks Government House. Bricks smash windows and staggered safety-holes force employees to navigate the building's maze while class distinctions—embodied by Class-5 and Class-6 access—shape choices about hiding and escape. Glen moves through corridors with colleagues Joan Bourne and Bert Hillary, balancing pragmatic survival decisions, personal intimacy, and professional anxieties. The piece sketches bureaucratic routine and insecurity, contrasting the protected enclave of civil servants with the angry Outside crowd, and captures how ritualized violence produces tense, small-scale human responses under pressure.