Bloodstained Hope

Authority makes people angry and bloodthirsty. They scream and hurt and kill each other because authority is untouchable by definition. Brothers and sisters are slain in direct opposition to the fact that there is an entity that proclaims they can’t. People thieve and kill and die to service authority.

But what happens when you touch the untouchable?

That’s the revolution.

People turn their weapons away from each other and toward the looming presence with a watchful eye and an itchy finger, and come for their blood instead. Decorated soldiers posted on street corners aren’t watching their own backs until it’s too late and their back is torn to shreds. Authority doesn’t stand a chance, for they’ve trained their people too well.

People kill dirty and behind closed doors while authority kills cleanly and in open fields. Their guarded territory is compromised by people who learned to get away with their crimes, while authority never had to worry because their crimes are celebrated by medals of honor. They didn’t see it coming until their men were dying in waves.

An orphan girl with mismatched knives. A gang leader with his undying cronies. A thief with a stolen gun. These are the faces of the city’s revolution. The ones who struck at night and didn’t stop until the rays of morning sun warmed the blood soaked sidewalks. An organization of people so previously dedicated to hurting each other in the name of the law finally seeing the light. Finally agreeing that everyone against the law accomplishes a lot more than everyone against each other against the law. Without a middle man, the world changes.

Active military presence didn’t deter the uprising, it only armed their citizens. Fallen soldiers with knives in their backs dropped their loaded guns. The orphan girl picked up the first gun and smiled knowingly at the gang leader and his cronies. She knew they were going to win this war.

That’s the other problem with flooding your streets with soldiers. When they’re all dead, who do you call in as reinforcements? You have some, but your numbers are small. Outnumbered by the population and even more so by the stolen guns sitting comfortably in both hands of every figure standing in your way. Every figure ready to kill with no remorse because you beat every last drop of it out of them. The open fire and bodies hitting the concrete rung like freedom.

The streets were made of congealed blood and hope. People were broken out of their fury driven trances to really see their comrades for the first time in their lives. Their neighbors. Their fellow oppressed. Enemies now brothers and sisters in arms because the true devil had been defeated. Silence purveyed over the scene, an obligatory moment of silence until one gun clattering to the ground broke the illusion. Every other gun followed suit in a cacophony of metal hitting stained ground. And with their hands now free, the people hugged.

With no reason to kill to save their own skins, the people were free. Free from each other. Free from the blinders that steered them towards their fellow oppressed while the authority stood conveniently in the blind spots. They were free to love each other and free to feel compassion and free to be good. All things authority had banned for too long.

A life of deceit and crime is only fun if there’s someone to defy. The hydra had been defeated, all heads cut off simultaneously leaving no life force to grow more. Without the challenge or necessity, honest lives called out to those who were admittedly fuzzy on the definition of honesty.

The thief sold his hoard for significantly less than he thought it was worth because everyone needed a fresh start and very few had the means. The gang leader saw his cronies lost, without a leader now that the world wasn’t worth fighting over, and offered them all positions under him, no questions asked. The orphan girl, with help from the gang leader and his cronies, opened up housing for those who had no one, free of charge until the ground was solid and no longer slippery under their feet.

The oppression of compassion in the name of the greater good suppresses the desire to be good. And now that good was an option, the decision was easy.