Losing hope

I felt it coming, the air getting heavier even though the crowd of people didnt seem to grow. I guess it was the tension from going father than we had in those 17 years. The hopeful chants for freedom didnt help in getting rid of the ominous feeling I had upon crossing to ”their” territory, as if we had come to a point of no return.

I had always wondered what it would be like to have your life changed in an instant; but not like this, never like this. Above the cacophony of the protest, a different sound started to emerge. The rumbling of the motorcycles came to us as a herald of doom, and the world changed with single scream, Llegaron los colectivos!, those three words would create ripples in what until that point had been a protest full of hope.

And then all hell broke loose.

The first gunshots broke through the air, and terror took over. I ducked and grabbed my cousin as I saw the first one fall, the world turned to slow motion as this young man, this hopeful man was murdered for an ideology, his body hitting the ground as a testament of the absurdity of existence. It was a sorrow filled day for the cause of freedom as death relished in the lowliest part of human condition. For he was the first, but not the last.

Its hard to say how we got out of there alive, but one thing is certain, we all lost a part of ourselves that day. Some lost their lives, I was in the lucky group that only lost hope, hope in mankind.