Streets of Adversity

A Story by D.C. Perry

When we are pitted against foes undeniably and impossibly superior to us, do we still opt to fight? Usually. Even if it IS actually hopeless . . . .

It was Monday, and there was going to be a riot.

Steffan stood on his tip-toes, eagerly peering over the dusty windowsill and out towards the slowly amassing crowd below.

He turned his head to see his mother approaching him with a worried look, about to pull him away no doubt, but his father stopped her. “Matilda,” he said. She looked back at Father, then to Steffan again, her face still worried, but turned and left the room, her head bowed.

Steffan returned his attention to the people on the ground. Most boys his age would be afraid, he told himself, but he was more curious than anything. There had been talk about an uprising going on for quite a while now, and this was going to be the first part. Everyone seemed so angry, but he couldn't quite see what the uprising was for. Everyone had food and water, and they were mostly allowed to do as they pleased, as far as he could tell. But as his father would have undoubtedly told him if he were to voice the thought: “You’re too young to understand.”

He once would have been irritated by that answer, but he had received it so often from just about every adult he had ever asked a question that he had slowly grown used to it.

Steffan wanted to go down and see everything up close, but he knew that that would be pushing his luck. His little seat at the window was prodding the patience of his mother already.

A few heartened shouts rang out as more and more people arrived, turning the streets below into a walking, bumbling river of people.

Steffan noticed that he was not alone. Several other children were sticking their heads out the window in the gray, overcast weather and eyeing the people below with various levels of fear or interest. Steffan thought he did an amazing job keeping an uninterested and neutral expression.

Now green flags were being passed out among the crowd. Steffan recognized that with a wave of surprise; that was the color of the New People. He had always been told that they were agitators, nothing but punks, even by his parents and his teachers, but he had no idea that it was them who were behind all this.

Steffan frowned and looked closer. Things were becoming more and more interesting by the second, his forced expression of stoicism harder and harder to maintain. He was unsure of who to cheer for. While the New People were supposed to be troublemakers, he himself was often called that, so perhaps he belonged with the many excited men and women in the streets, ready to finally say no to the Pantheon for whatever reason it was that was making everyone so angry.

Steffan jumped in surprise as his father placed his hand on his shoulder, despite the gentleness with which he did. Steffan looked up to see father’s expression as stoic as ever, silent. His bushy, gray eyebrows were furrowed deeply, and his side-whiskers were low with his frown. Many children called him Mr. Grouch, as that is the image he portrayed when in reality, he could be quite fun and amusing at times. He was puffing thoughtfully on his pipe, despite the fact that it appeared to have gone out long ago.

“It’s going to be a massacre,” he suddenly said in a low voice.

“What do you mean?” Steffan asked, suddenly afraid. To him, Father had always been a brave man, wise and thoughtful, almost always right, so when he began to say things such as that, there was something to be afraid of just miles down the road. And indeed there was.

The green-clad, shouting people in the streets hushed when a large pillar of black smoke appeared in the smog. Father removed his hand. Soon there was no more movement in the streets; all had gone still, and suddenly the air was far more menacing and oppressive.

The door creaked open and Mother poked her head inside, even more worried than before.

“Alfric?” she said, “Steffan? What is happening?”

Steffan looked up at his father, but the gangly man did not answer. He simply kept his gaze fixed upon the growing pillar of smoke as rolled forever higher into the gray skies, his skeletal hands clasping one another tightly behind his back.

The ground began to rumble slightly.

“Alfric?” Mother said again, her voice beginning to shake with panic.

Much of the large group below was beginning to look much more solemn then they did just moments ago.

Suddenly, there was a sharp scream in the distance, a woman’s, and a few men’s voices, scattered, shouting.

Mother repeated Father’s name again, but by now it was naught but a whisper, lost in the cold, crisp air.

“Steffan,” Father said, speaking suddenly and with a weight of authority, “I want you to get down.”

Steffan was surprised at the sudden command and was about to question it when a bought of orange light blossomed somewhere, creating shadows on the brick walls that sandwiched the cobblestone street. Whatever it was, it was almost completely silent. Then the wailing began. Screaming creeped and crawled from down the street, horrible, pained screeches that seemed almost inhuman, and the mob started moving, either fleeing back inside and down the street, or letting loose determined battle cries and charging forward, armed with bricks, baseball bats, and cheap hunting rifles.

Another blossom grew, this time closer and accompanied by a hollow boom.

“Steffan,” Father said, “get down!”

Father grabbed Steffan’s arm so hard it hurt and shoved him down from the sill. Steffan only saw the white of Father’s nice shirt and the black of his simple waistcoat when gunshots began to ring out, more booming, more screaming, more shouting. Mother cried out.

Other sounds, otherworldly, began to join the mix. Hideous sounding crackles and sparks, buzzing and zapping. Everything was so extraordinarily loud, so terrifyingly close, Steffan began to cry, his Father holding him down, with the cacophony of appalling terror and violence seemingly mere inches away from destroying his safety, his innocence, even his very soul.

Matilda eventually found her way to her husband and son and wrapped them both in her arms, pulling them as close as she could, her teeth clenched painfully tight and her eyes screwed shut.

“Should have shut the window, should have shut the window,” she muttered to herself, over and over again.

But soon, faster than Steffan would have expected, everything faded away. Within what seemed like minutes, all was silent again. All save for Father’s heavy breathing.

Steffan looked at either of his arms and Dad’s tight grasps. Alfric was glaring down at his son, his face tight and coloring, his breathing taught. The expression on his Father’s face was so unnatural, so estranged from normality that it made Steffan begin to cry again.

“Alfric,” Matilda said insistently. “Alfric,” she said again.

Father slowly pulled his hands away from his son’s arms. He was still shaking.

Steffan’s arms hurt more than they’ve ever hurt before, and he continued crying for the pain.

Father tried to stand up, but he stumbled and fell backwards heavily onto a chair. He put his head in his hands and began to massage his temples.

Mother delicately rolled up Steffan’s sleeves to check for bruises, of which there were two, very dark, almost purple.

“Sh, sh,” she cooed, “It’s all right, he never meant to hurt you. Everything’s all over . . . it’s all over.”

Steffan tried to stop his tears and looked over at Father, who was humbling again and again: “Troublemakers . . . nothing but troublemakers . . . .”

© 2014 D.C. Perry

Author's Note

Yes, short stories everywhere, but when I finally manage to accumulate the appropriate inspiration and/or discipline for a full novel, I'll be sure to post it.

And as to what exactly it was that was going on, I'm not quite sure myself, yet.