Led by a coward

Sometimes, things just have to happen. You do not have a say in it. They have to happen. As painful and as disconcerting and scary as each step may be, your on auto-pilot.

Once things have been pushed so far... you do not have control over the decisions that are made. Sometimes, no matter what anyone says, you don’t have a choice.

The sky burnt red over the smog filled, soul crushing city as the black smoke rose from a car fire. Lit by one of the confused punks who believed that a few fires would do anything except earn the wrath of the police. The message was clear but no one was listening. A group of young, testosterone junkies yelling into the wind and the wind does not respect fools.

He sit watching the skyline slowly turn black as rubber tires burnt 50 stories below. The revolution was as hollow and empty as his heart. The messiah was as fake as the message he broadcast and if the populace had realised, he would have been exiled to some menial task in an cubical farm office where no one would have noticed him or heard a word he had to say.

Roaming, leather clad punks scurried back and forth like rats in the streets that ran like spider veins. Car alarms, breaking windows and the roaring of fireballs filled the evening air. The noise that grated his ears was replaced with the anarchy he craved but the taste was just as bitter as the fruits he was forced to eat before the “revolution”.

Across the tarmac, from the 52^nd floor, a desk was hurled from the window, spewing glass and papers down to the concrete below, the desk turning weightless for a fleeting second before gravity turned its vulgar gaze in its direction and sent it hurtling downward.

Police fired handguns at the rapidly approaching crowd but with each fallen cell the organism grew louder, stronger and very, very angry. The beast could not be killed so easily, as the policemen turned to run, the mob gained speed and without effort the few policemen brave enough to face the storm were tackled, beaten, robbed of their weapons and power and devoured.

This would be all for nothing in time, power is never lost for long.

He watched the massing from safety, not wanting to get his hands dirty. Always a coward. He watched the streets turn from grey to throbbing black as the movement swelled, heaved and shouted as one unintelligible breast. Meaningless, inarticulate shouting that signified nothing and would be forgotten as soon as the last syllable was exhaled.

Shouts of liberal, leftist rubbish replaced the alarms as the masses found a voice. Condemning the “fascist, right wing lackeys” all the while and unknowingly imitating them. The thrill of the barbarian, always just underneath the skin, pulled into life by a few well chosen words but destined to fail.

From a right hand corner a squad of green dressed solders rushed into position, assault rifles raised, waiting for the final command to quash the rebellion. As the black animal mass rushed towards them a volley of small, brass covered lead bullets erupted from the 15 barrels simultaneously. The first wave of grunts hit the pavement and slowly, the hot, dark blood leaked onto the sun warmed tarmac.

Another and another and another volley, more and more of his disciples fell. The coward watched as more and more foolish young bodies lined the street. The realisation of the futility of their efforts started to ring in their ears with the echoes of the gunfire and the mob ran down alleys and side streets as the hard faced, determined squad ended the lives of the few stragglers, desperate to get away from their executioners.

The consequences of every act, are contained in the act itself.

A helicopter swooped overhead, looking for the few who still held corruption and dissension in their hearts. The coward hid behind an air conditioning unit. The foul smell of recycled dust and stale air filled his nostrils as a neon white spotlight illuminated his hiding spot. Fear and panic filled his heart and to his surprise a hot stream of urine filled his lap.

Tears of panic welled and shot from his eyes like a geyser and he started weeping uncontrollably. Soon there was the tramp of steel-toed boots emanating from the fire escape as a squad of black uniformed, faceless police burst through the fire escape and surrounded the pathetic, cowardly “saviour”.

He was lifted by his neck and lead to the ledge of the building, held by neck, leg and arm he was made to see the extent of his doing. The dead bodies laying motionless in pools of black blood, the burning store fronts and cars, the shimmering pieces of broken glass, the smoke rising like ladders to the sky.

He cried. He cried and cried and cried, he cried from fear, from panic, from not knowing what the officers would do next. But not for what he had done, for what he had caused, for the lives his actions, words and deeds had taken.

He was thrown back onto the tiles of the roof and a black cotton bag was thrust over his head while his hands and feet were Flexi-cuffed. He was carried away as the final gunshots echoed from the street below...