"Renegade" by Andrew T

Outside, the world was a cold, harsh environment. Scattered along the streets were waste, broken shards of glass, scraps of rusted metals, ashes. Ashes, the remains of the last execution. The result of scattered along the streets were waste, broken shards of glass, scraps of rusted metals, ashes. Ashes, the remains of the last execution. The result of defiance against an imperial guard. I could remember the cries and last prayers of the victim before her wiped her dirt­covered face and with her remaining dignity, placed her head against the block. Chop​.​The crowd was silent as the red seeps and spreads of the platform’s boards. Across from me, an old woman presents a blank expression while if one notices, the sparkle running down her cheek, a tear of despair, loss,…mourning.

Walking to the yard I begin to work, gathering the potatoes from the ground. Pulling up crop after crop in the bone chilling weather. Next to me, I find a middle aged man, with skinny legs and arms from malnourishment. In his condition, the superior has not given him his wages. I could see why. The man’s body is starved and barren of energy that he is not able to reach his quota and therefore receives no money to pay for his meals. I pity him. The grey hair that blows in the chilly breeze from his face cover a wrinkled, dark face both calm yet disheartening. Before the day ends, two guards walk through the fields and take the feeble man away.

In the middle of the day as the clock strikes, the workers all gather in the city square. The guards shout and as everyone remains silent, everyone is forced to bow as the anthem of the empire is played on the old PA speakers they have wired all over the streets and buildings. On this district of the city, the slums, all the workers must gather to honor the emperor and the imperial family. As the music plays throughout the entire square, all I hear are the heavy breathing of hundreds of people, tired, hungry,…miserable.

As the sun rises the next day, I wake to find my older brother motioning me to the doorway of our home: a shack among others which bordered the plantations. On the road, several people, young and old, poor and miserable gather as a group becomes a crowd and eventually the crowd becomes a mass. Several hold knives, shotguns, handguns, and flags of the resistance. Red and blue for freedom and democracy. My family rushes out to join them and as I am handed a flag to wave and march with, I watch as a day passes and the streets that were once filled with debris and waste were now flowing with the blood of the tyrants. As monuments are knocked over, palaces are stormed, and those who once oppressed us were eliminated in cold blood, I looked to the flag waving in the wind: the revolution had just begun.