GASTONIA — Local agitator Pyotr Jenkins was sentenced yesterday to five years of hard labor in the desolate industrial steppes of Gastonia.
Jenkins, 34, a former resident of the prosperous South End sector, was found guilty of anti-Charlotte activities, ideological subversion, and undermining the morale of the Uptown proletariat. He wept openly as the magistrate read the decree, collapsing onto the defendant’s table in a shameful display of bourgeois weakness.
The tribunal heard damning testimony regarding Jenkins’ crimes against the collective. State informants reported that during a gathering at a state-sanctioned brewery, Jenkins openly questioned the proposed double-decker I-77 toll lanes. Furthermore, he was found to be harboring contraband materials —specifically, an unauthorized pamphlet suggesting that Raleigh might possess a “more vibrant cultural scene.”
For such treason, the magistrate showed absolutely no leniency. Jenkins has been stripped of his light rail pass, his brewery rations, and his citizenship to the Crown Town.
He is to be immediately transported by armored transport across the unforgiving, murky waters of the Catawba River and deposited into the Gastonia Exclusion Zone.
There, in the bleak and unforgiving tundra of Gaston County, Jenkins will serve out his sentence at the Correctional Facility atop Crowders Mountain. He will join other enemies of the state in grueling, repetitive labor.
Authorities confirm his daily quota will consist of extracting trace lithium from the cursed earth with his bare hands, followed by compulsory back-tattooing by an unlicensed operative in the dining room of an East Franklin Boulevard Wendy’s.
“Let this be a warning to all who would slander the Mother-City,” stated the Chief Commissar of Dilworth following the trial. “The long arm of Mecklenburg justice is absolute. The wastes of Gastonia are cold, the commute is unbroken, and the region is entirely devoid of acceptable brunch options. The Party provides, but for traitors, there is only the perimeter.”
