The End of An Era...Human Chain Prevails

 

The Human Chain For Peace drew hundreds of people from various states, all of whom were there to voice their opinions about the war in Iraq. This migration of cars clogged the roadways, bringing the traffic to a bumper-to-bumper shimmy of sorts. The cars would slowly inch forward, only to stop hurriedly and cause their predecessors to stomp on the brakes and either stop in time, while spilling their coffee, or plow into them and create more of a mess then any of us needed to deal with. While this endless dance of cars raged on, the drivers listened to their radios in order to hear developments on the war, or anything to criticize the Bush gang about. If you were to somehow, place yourself in the middle of this traffic, open any car door, view the driver at work and observe, you would find a very profound event taking place before your eyes. 

The driver of the car slowly puts his foot on the gas, only to slam his foot on the brake again on account of the fact that there is back-to-back traffic both ways on the roads. Appropriately, the driver’s heart rate rockets upwards and his cholesterol slowly constricts his blood flow. Just as cholesterol clogs an artery and restricts the flow of blood, these people were forced into an ugly bottleneck, a cow shoot for cars, and found no thoroughfare into the city. Car after car added to the tumultuous atmosphere, keeping the people from getting in. The now enraged driver throws up his fists at the sight of another driver parallel to his car and drives with his knees. His vicious cussing and flailing distracts the other driver, who in turn swerves out of the way of a perilous sinkhole which he had not noticed mere seconds ago and creates a vicious firestorm. The swerving and cussing leaps from car to car, like a fire started in a dry, western forest, slowly blooming into a giant fireball that consumes the eight-lane highway and every driver on it.

This massive wave of swerving and cussing eventually reached our fateful bus in one large ball of rage and movement. It crashed against the side of the bus, and threatened to flip it. However, the bus prevailed and maintained a straight path.

This near death experience rattled my brain. “What in God’s name was that!?” I exclaimed. Twenty heads turned and looked in my direction. “How the hell should I know?  For all I, it could be one of those new bread seeking missiles that Bush implemented,” said Jack. “Don’t you try to pass that braindamaged swill as information around here. Not even Bush could think of something that stupid. Or could he have. Maybe you’re right. O Jesus! Hide under the seats; throw all of the bread out of the windows! We need to make it out of this thing alive!” This trip had taken an ugly turn, but somehow I knew that when we got there, the situation would immediately improve.

We arrived at the Constitution Center around 12:30 in the afternoon. The group filed off of the bus in a single line, and gathered in the small alcove in front of the bathrooms that adorned the outside of the Constitution Center. “What a miserable day” I thought to myself as the rain slowly picked up and sprayed all of our gear. This gear consisted of about 80 lbs. of bread, 10 trays of pastries looted from a school banquet, and backpack after backpack filled with bagels and cream cheese. This mountain of supplies did nothing to ease our fears of trekking into the cold and dismal abyss outside of our abode.

Hordes of people rushed past our little fort in order to get to the chain. This migration compelled our group to set in motion a long chain of events consisting of picking up, switching, and carrying our vast reservoir of supplies to the chain site. As the rain drummed the top of my head, water slowly seeped into my homemade t-shirt and made the iron-on twist and peel from the shirt. “This is the end, once the t-shirts start going, the whole group will fall apart,” said a group member. “Hey! None of that mutinous talk, we’re trying to do some important work here,” I replied, “this demonstration is absolutely vital to get us out of Iraq.” The idea of the impending rally seemed to pump adrenaline into my veins, make me say weird and seemingly naïve things.

In order to reach our block, we needed to cross from the Constitution Center to Market Street. This expedition into open territory excited me; while carrying my table and backpack, I fervently searched for counter protesters. Guarding his territory between where we were and where we needed to be, was a lone “Gathering Of Eagles” member proudly holding the American flag in the torrential downpour. Although I don’t necessarily agree with their ideas, it takes a lot of balls to come out by yourself and counter protest. The lone Eagle stayed still as we slowly passed him, no conflict breaking out between him and our convoy. Finally, we found our block. 

People were running back and forth, things flew through the air, cars honked their horns, and I stood in the middle of it enjoying every second. We laughed, sung, danced, and spun throughout the street while the lone Eagle manned his post. His hood slowly filling with water while he wondered where the rest of his fellow Eagles had gone. Pamphlets seemed to rain down from the heavens as we walked the sidewalks. Every single faction imaginable had one there. This became such a nuisance, that we had to bring along a third person in order to distract the pamphlet holders as we ran through the crowds. Our goal was to provide food to the hungry; this meant homeless and not. We roamed the streets asking if people needed food, and person after person accepted. This resulted in us giving away almost half of out supplies and donating the rest.

This continued in a similar fashion until around 3:30 in the afternoon, when I realized that it was time to leave. As I’ve experienced before, this rally had an oddly profound effect on me. I never wanted to leave the rally; I had found comfort somewhere and refused to let go of it. However, as with everything enjoyable, it had to end. We gathered the remnants of our gear and headed for home. A cliché ray of sunlight peaked through the clouds and fell upon the group as they left. As the hero of a western rides into the sunset, we turned our backs and walked away with a sense of accomplishment and ease, because we did something to rid the world of a villain who instills fear in the hearts of the people.

Author's Note

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