We are proletarians.

“Barktek! Come on! We’re going to miss the train,” I shouted. It was a cold winter’s morning. January, the year 2032. My name, Matt Weinstein. But I was later to become known by my pseudonym, WallMarx. Myself and My Polish friend Comrade Bartek Fabian Kozlowski and I were catching the train through to the next town Whitewell. The reason being to attend a march, organised by fellow Comrade Mckenna.

“Come on we’re gonna miss everyone” I told him. I ran up the stairs of the station as fast as I could and then onto the platform. I jumped onto the train, jammed my foot into the door and prised it open, as to stop it leaving. “You’re mad you Bartek, I told you we didn’t have time to call off anywhere.” I shook my head at him as I often did. Bartek grinned.

As we sat on the train through to Whitewell that day, we didn’t speak much at first. I sat there thinking about the march. And as I glanced over at Bartek wiping his glasses clean, as I remember, I couldn’t help but notice how old he looked for a lad of his age. His skin appeared dull and he had long thick lines across his forehead and under his eyes. I guess times were hard back then. Welfare payments in The Linwick Republic were an amount you could barely survive on. In fact they weren't welfare payments at all anymore. Unemployed people depended on charity from the church.

I remember how excited he seemed when he got a job. He seemed surprised and disappointed when he got that text message. “No more work, collect K410 on Monday.” This was a cycle our fellow Comrade Kozlowski could never get used to, unlike what was left of the workforce in this age. Myself, I’d been lucky I had a full time job which made it relatively good money in comparison. I’d been at the local printers as an office supervisor since I left school.

As we got off the train I zipped up the thick black duffle coat I’d just bought and turned my brown flat cap to the side very slightly. They were both brand new and had cost me nearly a week’s wages.

Over the edge of the railings on the platform, we could see the red flags waving at the street level below. “Look there’s loads of us” Bartek shouted to me as I leaned over the railing and took a picture on my smartphone. “I know, come on” I replied. We walked down the cobbled street to meet our fellow comrades, the words of the Internationale getting louder and louder as we walked. We were excited. It was the first meeting of the movement, although we didn’t know that at the time. But we had ambition and hope for a better world. And although the odds were stacked against us. And the masses no longer cared after years of class legislation and oppression. That didn’t meant anything and there was only one thing that mattered to us and it cost us nothing... That we stood together and that we were united.

2

We approached the bottom of the road and we heard the sound of the train pulling away behind us. Bartek took his smart phone from his pocket. It was old and worn, with scratches all over the screen. He started taking pictures of the march to upload to his blog. At the side of the road there was a digital billboard. An advertisement came on from a national media website. It read the words “Muslim tells Linwickians to go to hell!” and then “They’ve stolen all our jobs!” Bartek looked at me and then shook his head. Then he slipped his phone back into the pocket of his jacket. It was old ex military parker. The stitching was still in perfect condition, but the material was worn and faded. “Come on we best catch up” I told him grabbing two placards off a large pile and passing one to him.

As we caught up to the back of the march people were coming out of shops and taking pictures of us marching. And we could hear our comrades chanting “No to hate, No to fear, we’re all Comrades marching here!” repeatedly.

“I think it’s wrong the way they treat migrants” Bartek told me.

“Those people from Britain have no where else to go, London is under water, large parts of their country is uninhabitable, they’re desperate people.”

“They used to be an extremely rich country, but not now.” I said.

“If up to me I’d let them all in, I haven’t got a problem with them.” Barek told me.

“Neither have I,” I replied.

As someone passed an anti war flyer to him. Bartek said, “We know what these wars are about, water.” They try to justify them for other reasons, but at the end of the day, we all know the truth. It’s about Water! Wars for water!”

As we made our way forward into the center of the march our favourite Chartist chant got even louder:

“The lion of freedom comes free from his den,

so we can rally around him again and again,

he is the terror of these tyrants, the friend of you and me,

McKenna the champion of the people’s liberty.”

As we came under a bridge the band came to the side of the road, we all stood and watched as they played the drums.

As the march went on the darkness started to fall early on this winters day. Our Comrades had gathered in a field on the edge of the town anxiously waiting for Mckenna to make his final speech. From an upper window of a house at the end of a abandoned terrace the speaker spoke softly. The street lights from the nearby street glistened off the jackets of spectators. It started to rain slightly but no one took cover. They all stood completely silent.

3

“The state is a cold and wicked man. A great suppressor. A manipulator. A bully... He is not our friend. And he shows us no love - only fear, heartache and pain. He cares only for himself. He does not care for us. He tells us that our concerns are his own. That he has our best interests in his heart. But he does not… He lies to us. He deceives us. There are very few that can see through his skin. Just as there are very few that stand with us today.

But we the few have a responsibility to inform those that do not know. Those that are weak and blind. Those that cannot see….. For we have nothing, but we have something he shall never!

He makes us turn against ourselves. Against each other. On our brothers. Our sisters! On our daughters and our sons. He does this so we don’t use our strength against him. He does this because he fears the might of what could be….

Because the truth is he is not strong. He is fragile, he is weak. A pathetic wretch! A cold, callous freak. He is alone. Afraid. He has no one but himself. His possessions show him no love. The darkness is his only friend.

But this man is no man. He is a system of evil. A system of the few controlling the many. But it’s built on uncertainty.. on constant fear.. Because the truth is - despite the belief of the many - we are not weak. Nor are we pathetic. We are the people. The strong. The noble. We are the mighty. He mocks us. He hates us. But a time has come. A time has come to awake the ones that cannot see! To stand up and be counted. To flex our muscles once again! “

McKennas raises fist and the crowd acts accordingly.

“We outnumber him sixty million to one. It’s time to come together. Time that the fruits of this world belong to us! We can no longer afford to be weak! Nor can we afford to be pathetic! We must unite in the face of tyranny! Fight suppression! Fight division! Then no longer shall we fall! We must rise from the ashes once more! LET HIM FEEL THE FIRE THAT BURNS IN THE HEART OF THE WORKING CLASS!”

THE CROWD GOES CRAZY CHEERING AND CLAPPING

4

“That was amazing Bartek!”

“Absolutely Comrade!”

“I wish I could speak like that” Bartek told me.

“His high brow dialect really came out today”

We made our way back to the station full of enthusiasm over what we had just heard. We laughed and joked. Catching the train back to Freytown where we lived talked the whole day over again and again.

A man on the train overheard me and Bartek talking and started too argue with us briefly.

“Yes but but the proletariat can no longer find sufficient low skilled employment as vast sums of it have been wiped out by automation.”

“The only solution is to seize control of the means of productions, dividing the capital produced equally” He has no clue what I was talking about. Nor was I any good explaining that simply machines had taken all the working class jobs and we must take control of those machines and share their produce equally between everyone. I struggled connecting with the masses back then. I’d became consumed with sociological terminology and political discourse and I had forgotten my roots in a sense.

As we came out of the station the rain started to come down hard and there was thunder and lightening. Bartek was shivering. We called into a clothes shop and I bought him a new jumper and got us a large umbrella to keep us dry from the rain. “Thanks bud” Bartek told me. I do appreciate everything you do for me you know.” “I know Comrade” I replied. “It’s my duty to look after you, I promised your mother she would after she died. Not just that your my best friend” “Love you bro” ”Love you too Bar lad, you know that” We touched our knuckles together as we often did. But then the rain started to come down harder then ever.

5

As we came around the corner into Barteks home neighborhood back in Freytown we were confronted by a gang of youths who were hanging around on the street corner. They were wearing jackets on with moving images on the front, white bandannas with clowns on around their faces, with a big evil smiles, green lips and a round green nose. “There he is! The pole! Get him!” one shouted. I quickly threw my umbrella down and we ran as fast as we could. They chased us along the road and at first it seemed like we were getting away. We headed into an alleyway, but when we got to the end they were there. We looked back and we were surrounded. A small fat man in a suit emerged from within the group. “Not you” he said. “Just the pole” He had a knife in one hand and a cigar in the other. Taking a puff he came closer. I completely froze. Then two of them came up behind me and grabbed me. I struggled but it was no use.

As they slashed the side of Barteks face I saw the look of pain within his eyes. A look that would stay with me for the rest of my days. You could see his teeth through the side of his face and he screamed with a squeal of pain I had never witnessed in all my years. There was a time I remembered when racism was just talk amongst the people, but this was something much more sinister. It was an out of control, highly organised, hate movement. There was swastikas spray painted on every street corner. And the hatred the people felt towards each other had reached an all new level.

As the tears gushed down my face uncontrollably I screamed out and yelled, but no one came to our aid. As they plunged a knife into Barteks heart, he gasped for breath and as the blood spluttered out of his mouth. He uttered the words “You’ve killed me” Then with his last breath he looked at me and said. “Tell my comrades I love them also”

I shook his body as to try and wake him but it was no use. As I lay there on the floor over him I could hear their footsteps splashing in the puddles as they were running away. As his blood washed away down the drain I felt like it wasn’t just his life that was over but also mine. From that day forward I became bitter and broken. I was never quite the same after that. A part of me had gone forever. A part of me that had made me feel alive for so long. And it was a part of me I would never forget.

6

Two weeks had gone by since Barteks death. As I sat there in the beer garden of my local pub ruminating deeply, I thought to myself about what they had done. I clenched my glass tightly in my hand. Bartek had been my best friend for so long. But I felt no anger towards the yobs that had done this. In my view, they were as ignorant as a children. But I hated the system that had created them. In my eyes they were responsible for what had happened. Them and only them!

As I paused for a moment I saw the Linwickian flag waving in the wind above me. I climbed up to the top of the drain pipe. Reaching out I pulled it from the pole of which it was attached and taking a lighter from my pocket, I could contain what I felt inside no more. Pulling my clipper back I smiled as I watched it start to burn. As it blazed and the ashes blew away in the wind I thought of Bartek’s soul passing through into the next world and how he had struggled so hard through life. He had been taken so young. As the flames built momentum I felt a burning sensation in my hand. I held on slightly, then I let go and the wind carried the burning flag away into the night. Taking my red flag out of my pocket from the rally I placed it on the pole in placement of where The Linwickian had been. That day there was only one thing I knew and I knew it for certain. That we were going to make them pay for their crimes against us. And that we would. Their great statues already lay broken on the ground.