This week, I have decided to share another short story with you. This story holds an important place in my heart. One of the first short stories I wrote, I first envisaged the idea as a play back in 2016 but it became a short story (partly because I hadn’t written a play since school). I have shopped this story around but despite getting close a couple of times it never got snapped up. So in the spirit of not keeping it in a file on my computer, I decided to share it here.

I don’t want to give any spoilers but suffice to say it feels relevant right now. If you are feeling sensitive right now, it may not be one for you today.

As always, thanks for reading and any thoughts are very welcome.

Uprising

On a dirt track in a small town on the edge of the city, the riot policeman pulls his visor down. He lifts his shield in front of his face and feels for the cool metal of his gun in the holster on his waist. He doesn’t want to use it. A slither of adrenaline smacks against his pulse.

**

In the nearby city, Alicia takes a deep breath and heads out into her front room. Her chest is tight, her heart racking a jittering off-beat. She puffs up. Overcompensating. It works to convince her momentarily that she is capable. At the dining table she finds Roberto hidden behind the screen of his laptop, staring intently. The sounds of a boxing match spill from the speakers, escaping its roped confines.

“We need to talk,” Alicia says. She winces as her voice cracks.

“What do we need to talk about?” Roberto sighs, his eyes looking up but not meeting hers.

The sigh reeks stagnant, pushing against Alicia’s throat, not allowing words to pass or saliva to be swallowed. Every carefully planned word in her head is lost, his labored exhale muddying the clear mind she fought all morning to find, his sigh like a rusty knife spinning up the sluggish earth at the bottom of a bucket of collected rainwater.

“You know we need to talk,” is all she finds to say, and she curses herself for always faltering around him.

“Do I?”

Alicia reaches into her back pocket. Her gently trembling fingers curl around a smooth, cold crystal. It will open your throat chakra, her friend had told her as she had pressed it into her palm.

**

“Don’t look them in the eye.” He hears the chief policeman’s shout as they start to move towards the angry mob that is swarming at them.

His every instinct tells him to turn and run but instead he repeats don’t look them in the eye, as he charges forward, his shield protecting his body. Head down, body forward. They are a swarm, not his neighbors, not his friend’s children, not members of his distant family.

**

“Can we speak after I finish watching the fight?” Roberto elongates the word fight.

She imagines herself grabbing his laptop, throwing it across the room, forcing him to look at her, to see her, to hear her, to listen to how she has no idea who she is anymore, who he is.

She wants to know when things changed. At the beginning, he could trace the form of her fingerprints without looking but now she wonders if he could describe her face. She walks ghost-like through her own home. How little space can she occupy? How constantly can she hold her breath? She was once a lady in red, or pink or green. Why do you need to attract so much attention? His words had echoed that morning as she had fingered the lost items at the back of her wardrobe and slipped into her grey tracksuit.

She wants to go four rounds with him, rip off the masks they both wear, lay it all bare. Salvage this marriage that once had so much promise. Promise that got taken out with the trash, the trash that he never seems to notice piling up in the kitchen.

But she does none of that. She nods and turns, walks out of the room.

“A simple OK would be nice,” Roberto calls behind her.

Her insides boil, her stomach lurches. But she bats the words away with the closing door.

Why do you have to be so dramatic? The words seem to be infused into every surface of their bedroom. She sinks to the floor and wails silently into a pillow, not letting her weeping reach her eyes.

**

No one can hear the screams that echo inside his helmet as he launches tear gas into the angry crowd still descending upon him. He fixes his focus on the canister, watching as it hits, the acrid smoke seething among the people. They start to cough, choke, rub their eyes, the pain the smoke brings a rabid sign language. This is for the good of our town, for the future of our economy. The governor’s words from their morning briefing keep him pressing forward.

**

The sweet smoke from Alicia’s incense calms her and she drifts into sleep on her side of the bed. She dreams that she is in a crowd, watching fire descend upon them from behind. She tries to scream to warn them, but no sound comes out, lifts her hands to her throat, trying to squeeze it out. She awakens when she is no longer able to breathe, catches her face in the mirror and has no idea who is looking back. The sound of Roberto clapping a KO filters in under the door. Knock Out.

**

He watches the rock fly through the air, slow motion, gaining weight. He winces as it lands with a thud on the visor of his colleague next to him. The thick plastic cracks and splinters. Without his helmet he would have been down. He doesn’t get a chance to imagine it before he is ducking and shielding himself from a shower of stones. He battles to deflect them and protect himself from the ricocheting rocks flying off the plastic defenses of his colleagues.

**

Roberto is lying on the couch now, laptop resting on his sternum.

“Have you seen what’s happening up the road?” he asks, his voice tinged with excitement.

He is worried too. She notices the crease in the wrinkle of his left eyebrow, his tell.

Pulling himself up from where he is slumped, he taps the space on the sofa next to him and she follows, sleep still muddling her brain.

She sits close beside him, inhaling his scent, spiced earth, the smell of home. She resists the urge to inhale him further, I hate when you smell me like that. Instead, she turns her attention to the screen, showing a live stream of riot police confronting a group of protesting teachers. She watches the hazy, pixelated picture of young men, with their faces covered, throwing rocks at the police who resemble a line of robotic storm troopers.

**

Shielding behind a tree, he pulls off his helmet, gasping for air and wiping his eyes before rinsing them with water from his final water bottle. His helmet, which is too big, it will just have to do, we don’t have any others, doesn’t fully shield him from the effects of the tear gas. As he looks up, water still flowing down his face, his eyes meet those of a man his age. He knows those eyes. He grabs his helmet, places it back on his head and turns away from the man who teaches his son history.

**

Alicia and Roberto watch in silence as the group of rioters inch closer and closer to the streets just beyond their door. They hear helicopters overhead and the sound of sirens wailing in the distance. They sit close but don’t touch, a tiny invisible barrier buzzes unspoken between them.

**

“We are asking for a dialogue.” One man’s voice tears through the crowd finding its way like a trained missile.

They say they want discussions, but they are never satisfied, the morning briefing, the governor’s words. The only response is force. We need to show them that we have the power. That they can’t manipulate us.

“We need the government’s help to do a better job for your children. It is for all our futures.”

Head down, keep pushing them back.

**

The scenes playing out on the computer look like a film, yet Alicia recognizes all the streets. The noise of the riot on their laptop, now in surround sound outside. The shaking phone camera pans to one woman’s face, screaming to be heard, veins popping in her neck. Alicia’s body fizzes, she too wants to scream.

**

They are in the city center. The pretty streets, the colorful facades, now the backdrop for the riot that they haven’t managed to contain. They need more power. He feels for his gun.

**

The power goes out and takes the live stream with it. They light candles they have ready for the regular power outages that occur often in the city. It should be romantic. It had been in the past; take away pizzas by candlelight, talking, laughing, loving as the flames flickered. Now it feels awkward, jagged. They look at each other across the candle. She is scared. He is biting his lip. He is pretending he isn’t nervous, getting angry, jumping on the soapbox that she had so often wanted to rip from beneath his feet.

“How many times are these teachers going to protest before they realize that this shit solves nothing. If they were actually just good at their jobs, they wouldn’t have to protest the government all the time.”

She disagrees but says nothing. Years of having her opinions ignored has ground away her tongue. She feels for it in her mouth, to check if it is still there. It flickers like the eyes of a person awakening from a coma. She stares at the flame, dancing between them.

**

A barricade of fire. The stench of burning rubber infiltrates his oversized helmet and pours into his lungs. It will just have to do, we don’t have any other helmets. Angry faces contort before him; why does the government not provide for our needs, written into their frown lines. Fists rise. He coughs, his chest ready to explode. Your son has fragile lungs, the doctor had told his mother when he was a small child. He backs away, waiting for orders from above. Have they been overpowered? He is scared. His fingers graze his gun.

**

Something explodes outside their door. Alicia notices Robert flinch. His hand reaches for hers, he holds it in a pistol grip. She doesn’t recognize the feel of his fingers.

“Quick, get under the table!” She hears his voice as if in a dream, the rumbling outside deafening her.

**

He looks at his gun in shock. He hears the scream of impact. He saw the way the bullet shot through the crowd breaking it apart, bringing them to their knees. For a single moment, his fear is replaced with control. Everything has slowed down. Everything is silent. The screams, the anger, muted by the shot. The action like a silent film.

He hit someone. A woman. She is on the ground, he can see the blood, the fear in her eyes, the panic of those around her. She looks at him, their eyes catch in her pleas; Why? Why? He knows those eyes, he knows that face. The volume returns, the sound louder than before, provoked, aggravated, a snake pit disturbed.

**

“She’s been shot,” the scream smashes in from outside.

Alicia stares at Roberto, their eyes hold. The sound of helicopters circling begins to drown out the calls for help. Alicia’s veins crackle with dread and exhilaration. She resists the urge to curl into his body.

His face hardens, “this is what happens when you try to fight the police.”

She says nothing, pulls herself up from under the table.

**

He can’t tell them he is scared too. He can’t say that his helmet is too big, that he was choking on the smoke, he can’t tell them that he too feels powerless, wants to be heard. Instead, he makes himself bigger and as the rocks pelt down, he releases more rounds into the swarm.

**

Roberto tries to grab Alicia. She’s too quick. She runs to the door. The acrid smoke rushes into the house as she pulls it open. It stings her lungs.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he calls after her.

**

Something alters in him with every bullet fired. He can’t stop. It is the only way to tame the horde. He is mightier than them and he will show them.

**

She screams as she moves fast towards him, watching him firing live rounds at the teachers. Her throat opens, the sound is guttural, labor groans, deep hidden bellows. Her mind mercifully blank. She propels herself, landing on him, taking him off-guard. They crumble to the ground like the Tower of Babel, the gun releasing a flutter of bullets as they plunge.

**

His head rebounds off the concrete and the edge of his oversized helmet. It aches but the pain lets him know he is alive. A reset. He looks at the gun in his hand. A wave of nausea crashing in his throat.

**

The click of the cool metal around her wrists jolts her back into her body.

**

He watches the woman being led away, knowing he should be the one in handcuffs. Through the cracks in his visor their eyes meet. She is smiling.

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This story was inspired by an uprising that happened in Oaxaca in 2016, where the local police were in confrontation with the protesting teachers. While that was happening outside, my relationship was falling apart inside my house. I was thinking about how these things mirror themselves, about how we can wear masks and dehumanise each other both on a societal and a private level and how each affects the other. While these happenings inspired the story, the story is purely fiction and was not my personal experience nor is it an accurate telling of the uprising.

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