Tax Burden

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Timothe Davis is a Dallas-based author whose writing explores what it means to be imperfect—in other words, human. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, Story Sanctum, Mouthful of Salt and Audience Askew Lit, among others. His work has been nominated for Best of The Net.

Timothe tells us that he writes because he is “fascinated by what makes us human—how we are both different and the same, what forms us, what breaks us, and what makes us resilient. I've found that one of the best ways to explore those questions is to put them on the page and let them work themselves into clarity, at least as I understand it. Whether writing literary realism or speculative fiction, I'm drawn to stories where ordinary people discover unexpected reserves of strength, humanity, and joy.

“I wrote Tax Burden with readers in mind who are interested in the intersections of race, power, education, and human resilience. While the story is rooted in a Black experience, I hope it speaks to anyone who has felt constrained by systems that were never designed with them in mind. Ultimately, I hope the story resonates with readers who believe that empathy, hope, and care are powerful forms of resistance.”

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Tax Burden

BY TIMOTHE DAVIS

Copyright 2025. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Ms. Baker had never been summoned to the Department of Emotional Taxation before.
 But when she saw that pink letter in her mailbox, she knew that she was about to be audited. She took a deep breath and tried to smile.
“You’re almost over your rations,” the auditor said.
But that was impossible.

“How much do you make?” he asked as he shined his gold cufflink.

“The Best State is an Emotionally Balanced State” sat on the wall behind him, emblazoned in a gold frame. His name stood in block letters on his desk: Mr. Burrus.

She gazed down at her sky-blue cotton dress and tugged on its hem. Perhaps she should have worn something else, a different pair of flats, at least. Maybe a pair less … scuffed. Maybe she should have pressed her hair instead of wearing it natural.

He scrunched his nose, let out a groan—loud and exasperated—before standing to close the window blinds.

“You know how much I make.” She responded as loudly as her frayed nerves would allow.

“I do. So, I also know how much you can afford.” He drew out the word “afford” and landed on the “d” with a deliberate thud—the  way citizens enunciated on the far north side of the city. “I’m also well aware of where you live. Your… zip code.

“Do you know what we do here?” He leaned back and folded his arms.  “Tell me, I’m curious.”

Her throat felt like sandpaper. He had offered her bottled water—placed it on his desk. But she didn’t trust her hands. They shook too much—and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing that. So, she knotted them into a ball and swallowed hard. “Taxation.”

He stared at her, angling his head side-to-side, as if she did not understand the ways of civilized man. Then he spoke again. “Ms. Baker?  May I call you Ms. Baker?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see a ring on your …”

“Ms. Baker is fine.”

“Because if there was a Mr. Baker, perhaps we could talk about joint filing …”

“It’s Ms. Baker.” She spoke too sharply and immediately regretted it. Control. That was her mantra.

He pretended he hadn’t heard her tone. Commoner. Of course, she was unmarried.

He took one more glance at his cufflink, before adjusting his blue bowtie. One eye was blue; his other was green.

She wondered how he had succeeded this far with what many termed a “defect.”

She had known a child like that. But his parents hadn’t been wealthy. Her students never were.

He caught her stare and slipped on a pair of shaded glasses.

“Ms. Baker, as you know, on January 1st of every year, our Great State grants all legal citizens a generous ration of love and hate.

“These rations are based on a variety of things: the type of labor you provide, your education, level of attractiveness, which I would assume—despite your—earned you a significantly higher ration than most, your familial heritage, and other factors which I will not go into.” He glanced at his watch.

“This approach keeps a balance to our society. Things hum. Crime is low. And people …” he paused, “are as happy as necessary.

“We are … civilized.”

He leaned forward and pressed his hands together like a praying mantis. “These rations are for you and no one else. And every emotion displayed pulls from these rations.
 Do you follow, Ms. Baker?”

Of course, she did. “Rationing” was a prerequisite for entering the 8th grade. She had facilitated the class back when she was a student teacher. Every child had to take the course. Although, wealthy children sometimes skipped it. As one parent had told her, “Why should my child take it, when we’ll never run out of rations?”

“Ms. Baker?” he repeated.

She could feel anger starting to bubble. But  she refused to be branded one of those: they can’t control their emotions. So, she unballed her fist, took a deep breath, and wished her hand steady as she reached for the water. You couldn’t be charged for wishing.

He pushed the bottle toward her and raised an impatient eyebrow.

“Yes, but,” she continued, her voice steadier, now controlled. “I mean, maybe I’ve used too much love. But my understanding was that tax penalties didn’t apply unless you exceeded your ration by more than fifteen percent by tax filing date. I’m only three percent over.”

She counted carefully, and she always ran the numbers.

A coffee date with a close friend: 10 points.

A romantic date—15 points—unless it was sexual, then … maybe 30 (If she achieved the big O!).

A few moments of quiet reflection on her couch with a double scoop of butter pecan ice cream: 5 points.

She tracked with care and logged her deductions daily. Her people had learned long ago the need for resiliency.

At her current rate, she’d only be over eight percent by December 31st.

Besides, by learning to control her negative emotions, she’d have a surplus that she could use as a tax credit.

His secretary knocked on the door. She moved like those robots at city hall. The ones where you can buy extra rations if you had an emergency—like a sudden death.

Expected death was part of your annual rationing.

As if all of her emotions were suppressed.

The secretary reminded Ms. Baker of her roommate during her junior year at university. She would waste her rations over a weekend—fighting with her boyfriend, drinking with her friends, yelling at her parents— only to spend the next month suppressed so that they would not run out by year’s end.

His robotic assistant glanced at Ms. Baker as she bent over and whispered in his ear. 

“But Ms. Baker,” he continued, “we both know that’s not why you’re here.” He skimmed the report his secretary had just dropped on his desk.

She sighed and contemplated the books, the computers that didn’t work, the parents who couldn’t come, and the costumes they couldn’t make. The drama class had worn hand-me-downs for this year’s A Raisin in the Sun.

“Ms. Baker, tell me about your eight-grade class.”

“I have twenty students.”

“Twenty children who are not rationed, correct?”

“That’s correct, they’re not old enough to be—”

“And how are they doing in class?”

A sense of pride swelled within her. But she suppressed it. It wasn’t the appropriate time and she didn’t want to risk losing points she hadn’t factored for. “Well, they all passed their state-mandated—.”

“Yes, yes, I see it right here.” He glared at the paper in front of him. “They all passed the state-mandated testing and twenty-five percent scored high enough to be considered for a more …” he paused again, “Elite district.”

“Yes, we are very proud …”

“Interestingly enough, they weren’t performing at this rate two years ago. Only since you joined.”

“Yes, well I have been …”

“Do you know how often a child moves from a Fundamental school to an Elite one, Ms. Baker?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Seldom. We seldom see it. And you know, that’s a good thing. The State needs workers at every level to subsist, and students moving from Fundamental to Elite could throw off that balance—the very balance that keeps our fine state humming.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ms. Baker, I believe you have found a way to illegally obtain joy and you’ve been giving it to the children. That joy has inspired them in some way.
 Now, I’ve been auditing your bank records, and I will admit, nothing seems unseemly. By all accounts, your life verges on … meticulous. But Ms. Baker, I always get to the bottom of these type things. So, to save us both time and stress, I’m going to make you an offer.” He waited a moment. “Tell us who your supplier is.”

She blinked twice, and he walked around and sat on the edge of his desk. 

“You must be getting these extra rations from someplace. We need to get these anarchists off the streets, and you can help us. In return, your only punishment will be that your teaching license will be suspended for one year and, of course, you’ll have to pay taxes on the emotions you purchased illegally.”
 Her students: Jamal brimmed with hope, Imani with compassion and Xavier with longing.

She didn’t know another as jovial as Talisa, full of curiosity like Kwan or wonder like Lydia.

All full of emotion. But unbilled until they turned thirteen.

“What about the children?”

“The children?” A dry laugh spilled out. “They would stay in Fundamental classes, of course. We wouldn’t want them dreaming too big, now, would we?
 People should not forget their place.”

She took another sip of her water.

“Let me be very clear with you, Ms. Baker, this is a very generous offer. If you decline it, and we find out what you’ve been doing—and I assure you that we will—you will not only be stripped of your teaching assignment, but your emotional rations will be purged for three years. Three years! You will do nothing but sit with sheer emptiness and want. And then at the end of those three years, you will be taxed on that.

You will be in debt to the State, and you will always owe.” His voice trembled roughly as he spoke, and even she could see his anger ration dwindling. “You can’t escape, Ms. Baker. You are a slave to the system.” He shrugged. We all are. And the supplier? What happens to … the supplier.”

“Do you understand me?” His smirk sharpened when she shifted in her chair. Dissenters—always fearless until they had to face an auditor. “Do you understand, Ms. Baker?” 

“I do.”


“Then we have an accord?”


She held her breath. Three years. How could she help if she wasn’t in the classroom?

Just yesterday, Shanna had sat beside her, reading from an Elite book Ms. Baker had smuggled into class. Shanna read it with such voice, such beauty, such clarity. Surely that was owed something.

“I’ll get the necessary forms.” He abhorred paperwork—but not as much as those who broke the rules, even more when they were lovely young women. Perhaps, if she lived on the northside, and followed the rules, he possibly could have shown her some interest. If, of course, she wasn’t her kind.

He buzzed his secretary. “Return. Immediately.”

On a silent television, a man in a bright green jacket danced gleefully behind him. An austere woman handed him a ridiculously sized check. Scorn sat unconcealed in her eyes.

He had just won the lottery, and was already burning through rations that hadn’t even been deposited.

He’d owe the State thirty-five percent if he annuitized. Forty two, if he decided to take a lump sum.

Ms. Baker doubted it would end well for him; it seldom did for lottery winners.

Three years without her students. She dabbed at her eye. Her sadness would cost her points—but it was worth it. “No,” she said softly.


“What?” Mr. Burrus coughed, just as Ms. Suppression—his secretary—stepped back into his office. His voice ticked up; her eyes, earlier as blank as the ledger paper she held, widened.

Ms. Baker spoke with all the earnestness her ration would allow. “I can’t help you.”

“Can’t?” His voice ticked higher, tightening as it did. “Or won’t?”

“Both,” she said—less like an answer, more like an arrival.

Red lava rose from somewhere she could not see. It surged through his throat and into his cheeks like Mt. Vesuvius, and then he was screaming at her—burning through his rations—angry, not just because she wouldn’t conform, but because he was not in control.

This must be a fifty-point tirade, she thought.

He marched back to the blinds and reopened them.
 Light flooded the room.

She could feel his stare, even through his shaded glasses. She turned to his secretary—visibly shaken—whose own eyes begged Ms. Baker to relent.

But she couldn’t.

No, she wouldn’t.

She looked at her watch. Her lunch break was over, and the children would be waiting for her. So, she rose from the chair.

“This is not a game, Ms. Baker. We will find out.”


Perhaps. But she was, by his own admission, meticulous. Controlled even. She extended her hand. “Thank you for your transparency … and your civility.”

“And your civility” was sarcastic, she would admit. But sarcasm was only one point.

As a matter of fact, the citizens living in the far north of the city said a solid grasp of sarcasm was a display of high intelligence. 
He extended his own awkwardly, fluster still in his eyes. And she suspected that, despite his overly severe haircut, he had probably earned the maximum amount of ration for looks, at least more than average. Perhaps if he wasn’t so stubborn, lived on the southside, and wasn’t such a … well—what did it matter anyway?

She had learned something that he might never: Oppression births resilience, and in resilience one can find joy. And one can give joy.
 Untaxed and unburdened.

If that made her an anarchist, so be it.

The way she saw it, with the proper investment, the children had bright futures ahead. And according to Tax Code 3.169(c), no citizen of the State could be taxed on unrealized gains. Although, one day, she knew their joy would yield a sound return.

By that time, she thought as she walked out of his office and passed the hungry citizens waiting eagerly to buy a lottery ticket—hoping to dance gleefully on Wake Up, State! for a government that didn’t care for them—she’d be in an even lower tax bracket.

“Ms. Baker?” A voice called behind her.

She turned.

Ms. Suppression stood in the doorway, a light in her eyes that had previously not been there. “What do you do?”


Ms. Baker paused: she taught, she assessed, she stole books, she accounted carefully. But none of those words felt quite right. So instead she said, “I care.”

A grin emerged on Ms. Suppression’s face. Then she said, “I do too,” before closing the door.

Ms. Baker stood there in the sun, smiling. It would cost her. But she had rationed for it.