The Darkness (Part 1)

Day 275, 22:12 Published in South Africa South Africa by Brendan E Austerion

Wind blew past my face as a gale; rain lashed me, falling from the weeping sky like sand spilling from a ruptured bag. Yesterday the wind was soft and caressing, and there was no rain, and sunshine spilt happily down on the street; there were no clouds, a blue sky stretched forever, and it seemed happy.

But that was yesterday, and yesterday’s happy day is gone, replaced by a dull dreariness, a gloom that pervades my spirit and everyone else’s, for where yesterday we were free, today we are not.

Guns served no use, nor did swords, nor did fighting spirit; for what is spirit when you fight against massive numbers, the enemy aided from within, and you fall, betrayed, shattered, in the dust, now imprisoned by invisible cold shackles, stronger than any metal yet still shattered by a mighty hammer.

The hammer... lies out of reach.

We didn’t know what was to come yesterday, we had no organization when the dust cloud appeared above the plain that stretched to the very horizon, we had no good weapons with which to fight, we had no high numbers with which we could, united, together, crush our opponent like a metal bat smashing a small wood stick.
Rather, it was the other way around.

They are oppressors; they have banned all that’s free and happy and which keeps our spirits up; so this gloom hangs about, impenetrable, heavy, a great cloud of grey that penetrates your soul and leeches anything happy about of you.

There is no freedom: no free speech, no free media, no democracy, no freedom of religion, none of those; only the darkness of oppression, tyranny and war. The enemy has banned it, and yes, they are enemies, not just enemies but conquerors, tyrants, oppressors, evil people. We hear gunshots on occasion; they are exterminating the resistance. I shiver inside; let us- nay, not us anymore but me- hope that they do not know what I did.

Horripilations pop up all over my arms and limbs, for I hear the sound of boots echoing; boots that can only belong, for the sound is of feet marching in synchrony, to the military, to the enemy, to the people we must fight.

Sometime.

But the sound approaches, closer, closer, closer, closer!!! If they smash down the door, I will be lost, there is no hope; and still the ring of boots reverberates through the air, resonating, resonating, getting still nearer. I break out in a cold sweat; my legs have turned to jelly, I have lost the will to attempt to flee- I feel like a rabbit trapped under the piercing gaze of a hawk, if I move the hawk detects me and shall slay me, if I do not the hawk will screech down with its bloodcurdling cry and its talons shall pierce me, tear me up, till I am but another meal. And still the boots come closer.

They are right outside the door now; I hear the boots pause. Will they raise their rifles and fire through the door or smash it down? I sit still, my heartbeat seeming to echo loudly through the stifling, enclosed space; my brain flashes vivid images of torture and killings before my eyes, and they burn almost.

And then, finally, after what seems like an eternity though it is but a minute, the boots move on, hesitantly after first, and then they recover their military rhythm, and the sounds fades into the distance.

And we must still fight them. Somehow, somewhere, sometime.

But when.



OOC (not the paper but me the person): So this is the first part of the story of the Standard, and as you can see it is rather depressing. I hope you like it. 😃