LJ Idol, Topic 10: "Sticks & Stones"
If there had only been one flyer, Tara would never have considered taking it home. Today, though, there were dozens. A security camera at the other end of the hall observed in critical silence as she unpinned it from the corkboard and slipped it deep in her backpack. The university hallway remained empty. She felt her cheeks burning as she retreated, certain that she would be accosted at any moment for looking at the pictures, let alone taking one with her.
It was all she could think about on the bike ride home, careening down the dark street as swiftly as her feet could pedal. When she slipped in the front door, her mother called from the kitchen. "Tara? Dinner's almost ready, hon."
Tara dragged her backpack with her to the kitchen table, unzipping it and pulling out the flyer. She smoothed the paper's rumpled edges and finally allowed herself to take a long, hard look at it. It was terrifyingly simple: a painstakingly rendered guillotine, gleaming edge slick with the blood of a corpse unseen.
Your Freedom is long gone. It read.
June 21st, 9 PM at Veracorp Towers.
Take It Back.
Her mother entered from the kitchen, sliding a bowl of soup her way before sitting down with her own. "What do you have there?" Silently, Tara passed the paper over, allowing her mother's dark eyes to survey its contents.
"It's scary, huh?" She asked cautiously, willing her stomach to stop its incessant backflips.
"Scary?" Her mother echoed, letting the flyer flutter to the table's wooden surface. "Mm, maybe. But you're not the one they want to frighten. The people in the Towers, on the other hand, could use a good scare."
"But, guillotines... isn't the imagery a bit far?"
Both mother and daughter matched stares, the latter tentatively questing for some kind of guidance or encouragement. The former smiled, weary warmth suffusing the small wrinkles on her face.
"I'm getting a little too old to make those types of choices, sweetie. It's up to you and your friends to decide that."
Tara was uncomforted. The soup slid down her throat in a thin, runny stream, only just palatable through the bitter fear coating her tongue. She slept poorly, startled by every car that drove by, shining its stark headlights into her room. She returned to class in the morning, taking her notes with the same half-gnawed mechanical pencil and tucking both into the same backpack which still held the flyer.
Always in the back of her mind was the Guillotine. It lingered there with her newfound awareness of the tiny security cameras that watched her and her friends wherever they went: through the streets, into the malls and theaters, and even to the very thresholds of their homes.
But they're there for our safety. Argued the voice she dubbed Ms. Reasonable. They protect us and catch criminals.
Ms. Reasonable always had an explanation for How Things Were, but lately her logic had been weakening. For example, Ms. Reasonable could not fathom why it had become illegal to use a pseudonym in publications. Ms. Reasonable hadn't the foggiest how a book could land one in prison. Ms. Reasonable especially could not explain the recent waves of poverty-induced starvation in cities so close to home, with such wealth so visible in places like the Veracorp Towers.
Slowly, but surely, Tara stopped listening and found a quiet anger in her silence. She found the same quiet resentment murmuring through her friends: a vein that wound through them all and tugged them near, hushing their voices as they shared the problems they had found, since they stopped listening to the excuses provided all around.
The world around them devolved with each week. They weren't the only ones who had noticed the Guillotine, as evidenced by the tightening curfews and terse news reports condemning the flyers. As the night of June 21st drew closer, the city held its breath. Even with this new creature of unrest pacing ceaselessly in her bones, Tara didn't think she would go. She clung to Ms. Reasonable's hand in this one last regard right up until the week before the twenty first.
And then her mother was arrested. That horrible night was a flurry of assault rifles and smoke-visored men with Veracorp logos and combat boots that tramped mud all over their home's creaky wooden floors. Upstairs, in her mother's home office, stacks upon stacks of Guillotine flyers and half-written letters to co-conspirators were pulled from the desk drawers. The arresting officers didn't tell Tara the charges. They didn't have to, anymore.
In the woods of the local park, on the afternoon of the 21st, Tara ripped open her backpack - the one that still carried the damning Guillotine - and pried fist-sized, jagged stones from the earth with a gnarled stick, filling her bag as heavily as she dared. The straps bit fiercely into her shoulders as she biked down the street towards the Towers.
She was one of the first to arrive; early enough that she feared her friends, and others, wouldn't come. Yet, they did come. Tara did not smile at their arrival, nor did they greet her with cheer. They knew about her mother, could see the naked, hard anger bubbling in her deep green eyes, and they stood with her. Waiting. By the time nine PM rolled around, there were thousands of others standing with them, all for reasons of their own, linked by a common cause for their problems.
Across the street was a group of guards contracted by Veracorp itself, every one of them locked behind the same ghostly visors that hid them away from resentful stares. Over a loudspeaker poured endless exhortations to "Depart the premises or you WILL be arrested!"
Arrested like her mother.
Like her school counselor.
Like the author of that book she had bought before it was yanked from the shelves.
Like so many more.
Tara slowly lowered her backpack to the ground and tied a bandanna over her nose and mouth, hot and furious tears leaking down her cheeks and wetting its navy blue fabric. For the first time in months, she was glad of the security cameras. Let them see what they had brought upon themselves. Let everyone see.
She knew, somehow, that the men across the street were only men and were probably afraid of the sight of her friends pulling rocks from her backpack - but they had their choices to make. She already knew her own.
She reached into her bag and pulled a heavy rock free for herself, hefting it in her right arm, allowing only a scant moment of reminiscing her days playing softball, with her mother watching from the stands. Tara drew in a ragged breath and let the first stone fly at the ground-floor windows, which smashed louder than she would've thought possible.
From across the street rushed the hired guards with clubs and spray, driven onward by the goads of the tailored Veracorp men who signed their paychecks. Together the ocean of people clashed, never minding the knowledge that at night, they both slept with roiling, wrenching bellies and the solemn eyes of their families - accusing, always, of their inability to protect them from the chaos all around. Over the bloody battle stood the Tower, cradling within it half-emptied flutes of champagne and flashing cameraphones.
This fictional entry was written as part of the tenth topic of LJ Idol's 8th season, which is "Sticks & Stones."
Constructive criticism encouraged, appreciated, and welcomed.
It was all she could think about on the bike ride home, careening down the dark street as swiftly as her feet could pedal. When she slipped in the front door, her mother called from the kitchen. "Tara? Dinner's almost ready, hon."
Tara dragged her backpack with her to the kitchen table, unzipping it and pulling out the flyer. She smoothed the paper's rumpled edges and finally allowed herself to take a long, hard look at it. It was terrifyingly simple: a painstakingly rendered guillotine, gleaming edge slick with the blood of a corpse unseen.
Your Freedom is long gone. It read.
June 21st, 9 PM at Veracorp Towers.
Take It Back.
Her mother entered from the kitchen, sliding a bowl of soup her way before sitting down with her own. "What do you have there?" Silently, Tara passed the paper over, allowing her mother's dark eyes to survey its contents.
"It's scary, huh?" She asked cautiously, willing her stomach to stop its incessant backflips.
"Scary?" Her mother echoed, letting the flyer flutter to the table's wooden surface. "Mm, maybe. But you're not the one they want to frighten. The people in the Towers, on the other hand, could use a good scare."
"But, guillotines... isn't the imagery a bit far?"
Both mother and daughter matched stares, the latter tentatively questing for some kind of guidance or encouragement. The former smiled, weary warmth suffusing the small wrinkles on her face.
"I'm getting a little too old to make those types of choices, sweetie. It's up to you and your friends to decide that."
Tara was uncomforted. The soup slid down her throat in a thin, runny stream, only just palatable through the bitter fear coating her tongue. She slept poorly, startled by every car that drove by, shining its stark headlights into her room. She returned to class in the morning, taking her notes with the same half-gnawed mechanical pencil and tucking both into the same backpack which still held the flyer.
Always in the back of her mind was the Guillotine. It lingered there with her newfound awareness of the tiny security cameras that watched her and her friends wherever they went: through the streets, into the malls and theaters, and even to the very thresholds of their homes.
But they're there for our safety. Argued the voice she dubbed Ms. Reasonable. They protect us and catch criminals.
Ms. Reasonable always had an explanation for How Things Were, but lately her logic had been weakening. For example, Ms. Reasonable could not fathom why it had become illegal to use a pseudonym in publications. Ms. Reasonable hadn't the foggiest how a book could land one in prison. Ms. Reasonable especially could not explain the recent waves of poverty-induced starvation in cities so close to home, with such wealth so visible in places like the Veracorp Towers.
Slowly, but surely, Tara stopped listening and found a quiet anger in her silence. She found the same quiet resentment murmuring through her friends: a vein that wound through them all and tugged them near, hushing their voices as they shared the problems they had found, since they stopped listening to the excuses provided all around.
The world around them devolved with each week. They weren't the only ones who had noticed the Guillotine, as evidenced by the tightening curfews and terse news reports condemning the flyers. As the night of June 21st drew closer, the city held its breath. Even with this new creature of unrest pacing ceaselessly in her bones, Tara didn't think she would go. She clung to Ms. Reasonable's hand in this one last regard right up until the week before the twenty first.
And then her mother was arrested. That horrible night was a flurry of assault rifles and smoke-visored men with Veracorp logos and combat boots that tramped mud all over their home's creaky wooden floors. Upstairs, in her mother's home office, stacks upon stacks of Guillotine flyers and half-written letters to co-conspirators were pulled from the desk drawers. The arresting officers didn't tell Tara the charges. They didn't have to, anymore.
In the woods of the local park, on the afternoon of the 21st, Tara ripped open her backpack - the one that still carried the damning Guillotine - and pried fist-sized, jagged stones from the earth with a gnarled stick, filling her bag as heavily as she dared. The straps bit fiercely into her shoulders as she biked down the street towards the Towers.
She was one of the first to arrive; early enough that she feared her friends, and others, wouldn't come. Yet, they did come. Tara did not smile at their arrival, nor did they greet her with cheer. They knew about her mother, could see the naked, hard anger bubbling in her deep green eyes, and they stood with her. Waiting. By the time nine PM rolled around, there were thousands of others standing with them, all for reasons of their own, linked by a common cause for their problems.
Across the street was a group of guards contracted by Veracorp itself, every one of them locked behind the same ghostly visors that hid them away from resentful stares. Over a loudspeaker poured endless exhortations to "Depart the premises or you WILL be arrested!"
Arrested like her mother.
Like her school counselor.
Like the author of that book she had bought before it was yanked from the shelves.
Like so many more.
Tara slowly lowered her backpack to the ground and tied a bandanna over her nose and mouth, hot and furious tears leaking down her cheeks and wetting its navy blue fabric. For the first time in months, she was glad of the security cameras. Let them see what they had brought upon themselves. Let everyone see.
She knew, somehow, that the men across the street were only men and were probably afraid of the sight of her friends pulling rocks from her backpack - but they had their choices to make. She already knew her own.
She reached into her bag and pulled a heavy rock free for herself, hefting it in her right arm, allowing only a scant moment of reminiscing her days playing softball, with her mother watching from the stands. Tara drew in a ragged breath and let the first stone fly at the ground-floor windows, which smashed louder than she would've thought possible.
From across the street rushed the hired guards with clubs and spray, driven onward by the goads of the tailored Veracorp men who signed their paychecks. Together the ocean of people clashed, never minding the knowledge that at night, they both slept with roiling, wrenching bellies and the solemn eyes of their families - accusing, always, of their inability to protect them from the chaos all around. Over the bloody battle stood the Tower, cradling within it half-emptied flutes of champagne and flashing cameraphones.
This fictional entry was written as part of the tenth topic of LJ Idol's 8th season, which is "Sticks & Stones."
Constructive criticism encouraged, appreciated, and welcomed.