Everyone Has to Eat (497 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.07 on 14 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by stardamage (View user info) at 2008-09-07 18:46:17 EDT
This is part of something I've been kicking around in my head for a long time and I dragged it out this afternoon. If the names seem strange, just know that they all fit in the bigger picture...maybe one day I'll be able to put it all out in a coherent way. Let me know what you think about this piece of it!
**
Rose leaves the shop and climbs up to Rembrandt Street.
Out on the sidewalk, the road is buzzing with people - Rose is slightly surprised by how crowded the street is; it's normal for the road to be busy at closing hour, but there are people everywhere around her.
She's digging in her pockets for train money when an odd sound separates itself from the crowd...it sounds like a huge mass of people shouting, as if at a soccer match, but the stadium is on the other side of the city, and the season is over, anyway.
As Rose stops to listen, a few more voices add themselves to the sound, these coming from a few young people running down the other side of the street: "I don't know, man, she said it's getting really...," she hears as they disappear around the corner.
It sounds like the sounds are coming from Market Street; Rose had been planning to stop at the farmstands on the way home, but she's not sure she wants to get involved in whatever's going on down there.
Suddenly she sees a familiar face in the crowd: "Hey, Rose!" A slim redhead comes jogging up.
"Ah, hey, Fern," says Rose warmly.
"Just get out of work?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, me too."
"How you been, anyway? I haven't seen you in a while."
"I know! I miss hanging out with you guys, like you have no idea. I just feel weird cause you're all Aster's friends, and I've been pretty busy with work besides."
"Where are you working now? Still at the warehouse?"
"Nah, I quit a while ago. I'm working at-hey!"
An older man riding a bicycle zips past Rose on the sidewalk and as they turn to watch he disappears down the road towards Market Street. Rose looks around: suddenly the street is much less crowded, and those that are still in the street are mostly hurrying downhill.
"Jesus," she says quietly, and nudges Fern. "All these people are going back to the Markets."
Fern scans the street. "You're right. What's going on down there, anyway? Lots of noise."
"I don't know. I just got out of work but I have to go that way to get home, anyhow. Wonder if I should try a different way."
"Let's at least check it out. I live over on Alafoss so I go home that way sometimes too. If it's crazy down there we can head to my place and wait until it settles down a little."
"What do you think is going on down there?" Rose asked as they turned back to head downhill.
"My brother works down near the courthouse and he said there were a bunch of protestors down in the Square earlier today. Maybe they're still protesting the corn prices."
The street is virtually deserted near the top of the hill where Rose and Fern are walking, but farther down the street there is a buzz of activity. Rose can make out more of the noises now that are rising from the bottom of the hill: chanting, people screaming over bullhorns, drums.
Rose and Fern round the corner onto Devon Street, at the bottom of which is Market Square. As they walk down the hill, the street once again begins to be filled with people. The square is jammed with people - Rose makes a quick estimate of two thousand - shouting, clapping, stamping their feet, waving signs. "Wow," she calls to Fern over the noise. Fern nods wildly.
There's a small stage in the corner of the square, and a man is standing at the front of the stage, screaming into a microphone. Rose can't hear what he's saying, but she's reading the signs around her: Everyone Has a Right to Eat. Our Gardens, Our Food. No Corn, No Justice. Hunger is Blind.
Fern is talking to a young man with wild brown hair and flashing eyes. His gaze darts around constantly while he's speaking. "Yeah, it's been really peaceful so far," he says. "Really nice. We got the message to everyone that this was going to absolutely be a peaceful march, period. We don't want to give any legal reason for the Force to break us up. They're just looking for the right opportunity, though."
Rose looks at the edges of the crowd and, sure enough, a dozen Force officers on bicycles are gathered on the corner of Forest Street.
"How long have you been here?" Fern asks.
"I've been here for like two hours. I was talking to some other people who were here since like noon, though. I'm probably gonna get out of here soon before it goes ugly."
"You think it will?"
"Yeah. This many people in a relatively small space with Force all around, it's gonna go sour. Probably in the next hour or so. I hate to leave because the issue is so so important, I mean people are dying out there...but at the same time it's like, we got the message through and it doesn't help anyone if a bunch of people get fuckin' arrested and messed with. You know?"
"Yeah. I just got here, so..."
"If you're interested in the movement, talk to those guys over there," the man says, pointing towards a group of people gathered around a woman shouting into a megaphone. "Otherwise I'd get out of here. I'm Rowan, by the way."
"Fern. This is Rose."
"Nice to meet you. Anyway, like I said, go talk to those people. The guy in the red hat is Cedric; he's got all kinds of pamphlets and stuff. He'll let you know what you need to know. In fact, come on, I'll introduce you."
Rose hesitates; she doesn't' really want to get involved with a protest, but Fern is already following Rowan over to meet Cedric. "Fern!"
Fern turns back.
"I'm going to get out of here."
"No, wait, wait for me. I just want to get a pamphlet or something and then we'll go."
Rose sighs and follows Fern over to the group with the megaphone. She notices Force officers watching them expressionlessly. A helicopter is circling over head.
Rowan shouts to get the attention of Cedric, who's clapping his hands with the crowd. Cedric turns and grins at Rowan. "Hey!"
"Hey Cedric. This is Fern, and Rose. They were just interested in getting some literature."
"Oh, okay, sure. Fern? I'm Cedric. Nice to meet you, Rose." He digs in some cloth bags at his feet, all filled with packets of paper. "So, are you guys-"
Rose suddenly becomes aware of a growing sound at the edge of the crowd. Shouts are rising from the corner of Forest Street, and the crowd starts to surge back. She hears rough, masculine voices yelling; the Force are beginning to push the crowd back.
Cedric and Fern are busy talking and don't notice. Rose reaches for Rowan's elbow; he's watching the woman with the megaphone. "Rowan," she says. "Rowan."
Rowan turns his attention to her, and then looks over her shoulder at the sudden crowd movement. "Oh, shit," he says. "Hey guys, we better move if we're moving." He looks at Rose and must see something in her face, because he adds, "We should be all right if we start going now. Where do you live?"
"India Street."
"Okay." Rowan lifts his head to watch the crowd. "Okay. Let's move this way away from the Force."
Rose grabs Fern's shoulder. "Come on, Fern, I'm going."
"Coming." Fern stuffs the pamphlets in her purse and follows.
They're crossing the short side of the Square, heading for the stage on the other side. Rose glances around; Force officers in all-black riot gear have appeared on side streets, blocking the roads. They stand shoulder-to-shoulder, faceless in their helmets. Their batons and shields are in their hands, but they make no move into the Square as Rose, Fern and Rowan hurry to the other side.
Riot police are here, too, flanking the sides of the Square. The Force officers on bicycles are still there; some of them are pulling face shields and helmets on. Rowan turns to make sure that the two girls are stil with him. "All right," he says. "Looks like we should just go where we can and get out of here. We'll figure out details later." He's scanning the streets, trying to find an escape route, but every street is blocked.
Rose stares around her. The noise of the crowd has shifted from controlled assertion to murmurs of anger. A few isolated cries float up from the mass: "Fuck the Farce!" "We have a right to protest!" "The whole world is watching!" This last shout was turned into a chant by some of the crowd; soon everyone around them was screaming. A few journalists bumped by Rose on their way to the Force line behind them. Everywhere she looked, people were moving and shouting and getting angrier.
Rowan notices this. "Oh, god," he says. "Okay, let's just get out of here."
"There's nowhere to go," Fern says.
"There's got to be a way out. They're not gonna arrest fucking two thousand people just for standing here. They're ballsy but not that ballsy. No, they're gonna try to get us to move, so we have to find out where and then go there before we're forced to."
Rose feels a ball of lead start to form in her stomach. She could be home right now, watching all of this on TV with a cup of tea. Instead, she's right in the middle of it for no reason, and the sound of approaching sirens makes her pull a deep breath through her nose to calm herself down.
As they move towards a side street, Fern, Rose and Rowan find themselves face to face with a dozen Force officers. Rose notices that some of them are pulling on gas masks. "Where should we go?" Fern asks one of them.
"Miss, move back. Move to the other side of the street."
"But I just want to-"
"Back up! Get over there and back up!"
Fern gives up and they retreat to the other side of the street.
"Now what?"
"Just keep walking."
"There are a bunch of people going that way, towards the Wharf Road."
"Let's try it."
"The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!" a group of people is screaming as the trio once again enter the middle of the Square. The crowd is tighter, more aggressive now. Some people are pulling bandannas over their faces; others are pulling on gas masks of their own.
A loud explosion suddenly booms from the other side of the Square, near the stage. "Run!" Rose hears someone yell behind her, and a thin white gas starts to wisp up over the crowd.
Another boom, and then a flash of blinding light followed by the loudest explosion yet. Rose's vision is blurred and her ears are ringing so loud she can't hear Rowan's shouting. She's fallen to her knees for some reason, and Rowan drags her to her feet. She's running as fast as she can away from the Force officers, but they're everywhere.
Suddenly they're at the edge of the crowd again, but this time the Force officers are not on the other side of the street; they're right in front of the crowd. Rose darts a glance at Rowan; his eyes are fearful.
Fern is a little bit away from Rose and is trying to make her way back over. The tear gas is beginning to make its way to where they're standing, and Rose coughs. Her nose is running.
Someone slams into Fern and sends her flying into the street. She bumps into a Force officer and falls on her hands and knees in the road; the Force officer has a red canister out in a flash and sprays her face.
Fern screams and slaps her scraped hands to her face. The crowd is immediately filled with angry shouts: "Leave her alone!" "Fucking assholes!" "The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!"
The officers raise their batons and start beating their shields. The noise is deafening, drowning out the shouts of the crowd behind Rose. She steps forward into the street to help Fern stand up and move away from the line of Force officers.
"Come on, Fern, we gotta move!" Rowan cries, and takes her other arm.
"How are we going to get out? Where can we go?!" shouts Rose.
"I don't know!"
The Force officers in front of them start moving in a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, beating their shields with their batons. Rose can hear the same noise coming from all sides of the Square. Another flashbang explosion and her ears are ringing so badly she can barely hear the huge confusion of noise around them.
Rose and Rowan help Fern to hide themselves in the middle of the crowd, as far away from the officers as they can get, but the crowd is pulling tighter and tighter around them as it is pressed in on all sides. Smoke and yells are everywhere. There is nowhere else to go.
User Reviews
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-09-08 14:53:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
For effort, but I don't read stories that start off with a paragraph describing how you've been "kicking this around inside your head for awhile," as that's a given unless you're an un-repentant plagiarist or a really shitty writer, either of which could be true, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Submitted by Replen (user info) at 2008-09-08 13:24:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Some of the sentences didn't flow as well as they could and seemed a bit simplistic. However, still a good read.
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2008-09-08 13:00:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2008-09-08 12:36:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
seems just a bit... unfinished. like it fizzles out.
Submitted by Cheddar_Is_Better (user info) at 2008-09-08 07:57:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ADD below, good story
Submitted by Dextreme (user info) at 2008-09-08 06:49:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
didnt read it all cos it was long... wot i did reead was good tho...
Submitted by earth_collapse (user info) at 2008-09-08 05:50:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-09-07 22:19:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-09-07 21:09:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Aadarm (user info) at 2008-09-07 20:51:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Well this was long and boring enough to make me wish you and your family get malignant cancer. Die slowly and painfully, devoid of hair and in misery. I hope your sisters, mother, and whatever else get raped and get HPV and cervical cancer so you can't reproduce. I also hope you get AIDS. Die.
=============
Malignant cancer is redundant, chump.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-09-07 21:03:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent. I would definitely read on if there was more, and will if you post it.
The only suggestion I have is that I found it a little hard to believe when Rose and Fern were caught totally by surprise by the protest. They might not have been expecting it, but I think they would have suspected what it was about without having to ask someone. Food shortages bad enough to cause protesting in the streets don't come out of nowhere. I think they would have already heard something about the situation and connected the dots.
Also, the "Force" sounds too sinister. They would have a more benign sounding euphemism for it, don't you think?
Submitted by Aadarm (user info) at 2008-09-07 20:51:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Well this was long and boring enough to make me wish you and your family get malignant cancer. Die slowly and painfully, devoid of hair and in misery. I hope your sisters, mother, and whatever else get raped and get HPV and cervical cancer so you can't reproduce. I also hope you get AIDS. Die.
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2008-09-07 20:24:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-09-07 19:33:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-09-07 18:58:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yep, everyone has to eat. Doodles, for example, consumes shit by the ton.