The Revolt

One fine day the people of Larsa got tired of enjoying the fruits of freedom and democracy. Not that they clearly knew what these two words meant but they did feel that there were discrepancies somewhere along the way between the written representation of the terms and the implications attached to them. In a figurative way, and since almost all their government speeches had become a sole metaphor, once the harvest had arrived and it was time to collect the produce, the crop was found bitter and rotten.

The day had come when nothing was as presented but made believed as such. “It is as obvious as when they tell us that the world is flat even though we know it is round”, said Eliades, “and we see it flat though it is clearly round”. The truth, which significance had changed over and over for the past decades, was purely a fabrication, like any other product of the financial ruling system that the State of Larsa had embraced for as far as anyone could remember. But wasn’t it okay to create and produce as there was not other way of surviving? Surviving wasn’t enough, they wanted to live… but fear inundated their glands and it was released through sweat and tears. No one had ever hesitated to question the operations of their society because, all of the answers had been provided and as they had well learned in school, “when wondering arrives then close your eyes and count to ten as you pray”.

“We need to start all over”, said one of the elders while meeting in a barn. No one replied. The elder himself did not know where to start as his life was almost reaching an end. And the rest, if they happened to contemplate any idea that would help them exit the crisis, they were afraid to express it as they were induced to control their thought. “It is clear”, said Eliades, “if a fake reality has become our daily routine, let’s make them believe we are not aware of it while we come up with a plan”. But the walls had ears and the news boiled the venom that ran through the tentacles of the medusa. The early stages of a nascent philosophy were one-day flowers.

“We are very concerned”, said the Leader of the Church to masses of parishioners, “a seed of division has fallen into the cracks of our hardly-built community and wild mold is growing amongst us, let’s pray, so our minds, receptacle of God’s grace, do not succumb to the contaminating threats of evil”. But no one prayed including the priest. Praying was no longer an act of meditation but a scenic representation of an imposed tradition. “We are aware”, said the Chancellour of State, live on television, “that subversive agitators have infiltrated the peace of our households. In a free society like ours, innocent families should not be disturbed by such nonsense. Dear citizens, exercise your rights, denounce those upsetting minorities and we will implacably enforce the law on them, peace and order will always reign amongst us as it was written in our ancient Constitution and exercised by our beloved patriarchs”.

The viewers stared at their TV sets as the official credits faded away on the screen. A sensation of emptiness invaded their bodies as if mites had eaten their organs from inside-out and they were suddenly hollow. Silence was the early stage of their unconscious revolution. Their consent had been inoculated in order to respond to certain stimuli, but a stronger virus had started to spread within their heads and no one, absolutely no one, was prepared to vaccinate it.

Nevertheless, it was not the hollow feeling what disturbed them, not even the recurrent lies presented as truths, or the uncovered wolf-like repression dressed in sheep-clothed laws what invaded their organisms as a pandemic illness. It was death itself what hit them in irrecoverable spots.

“Our pure society is not a perishable democracy”, had said the Foreign Affairs Minister to the Congress, “we have survived multiple attacks on our international settlements for centuries. It is not new. Year after year we have had to strengthen our military strategies to contra-rest the attacks of those enemies of freedom and individual liberties. We have eradicated terrorists and planted democracies were corrupted tyrannies attempted to erupt. We would do the impossible this time to protect our own people and we will set the record straight to enlighten a world which leans to obscurity and violence.

After a standing ovation all the parties voted unanimously to empower the Head of the State. The new inland security law, Operation Eagle’s Nest, brought troops out to the streets before dawn and military armory raised up on every corner as the dark sun of the day. “But this time executions began on our own territory”, said Eliades, “contrary to what must residents were accustomed to. In the past, thousands of heroic citizens had immolated themselves for unknown causes in foreign fields where unspeakable languages were muttered”. Official history recorded the great courage of young privates, the audacity of war veterans who had collected medals on their chests and roses on their graves and the altruism of sacrificial mothers who gave their children away to a just cause, cause that gave them in return a vase filled with ashes to be placed above the fire place. But it was no time for outer glories and history had to be rewritten. The battle moved freely along barren roads. The blood of the curious, the unsatisfied, the fearful, the poor, the disoriented, the insane, the bohemian, the utopian, the drunk, the brave, the night workers, the radical, the early risers, the old, the disadvantaged, the discrepant, the indifferent, the different and the undermined, Eliades included, painted the walls with the scarlet colour that was to coat a new waving flag. The massacre of the innocent inaugurated the first Remembrance Day of a future era.

“We were not blind”, said the elder in clandestine antagonism “we just didn’t want to see”. Share