Lady In White

Contest submission. Challenge: To be inspired by the thumbnail picture.

She was done. She had lived too long in a world where basic freedoms were thrown aside like so much trash. Music had been censored to the point it was now nothing but fuzzed over lyrics. Books had been turned to piled of gray ashes. Her heart was breaking into a shattered jigsaw of pieces as she realized there was nothing she could do to stop it. She had been screaming for someone to listen to her for years, eons it seemed. No one heard her, but a small contingent of students who believed she was the one to bring about the change the world so desperately needed.

She was getting tired, she was getting old, she knew in her heart that there was no way she would ever be heard. She would die before anyone ever bothered to look up and actually do something, besides the petty thefts of the students. They managed to get inside the government and steal back the freedoms. Books and art they had saved from the flames were hidden in a few warehouses all over the country. She truly was proud of them for having the strength to follow through. Most others had chosen the path of least resistance, which is to say they followed whatever they were told like pathetic sheep being led to a grand slaughter.

For year,s she had tried to remain one step ahead of the government who hated her. She had caused too many problems for them by posting on the freedom forums, recruiting from the military ranks, and being a general pain in the a*s. She had come close a to having a few new holes in her and not from a piercing needle. The military dogs were getting smarter, she'd had to evolve her thinking to keep ahead of them. She'd die a very humiliating, very painful, very public death if they ever caught her. They would make an example of her to prove a point. No one is above the government, no one!

She had been walking home from a meeting with the Resistance fighters when she was picked up. They'd hit her hard in the back of the head and threw her unceremoniously into the back of a military green van. They beat her, tortured her, tried everything they could to make her tell them who else was among the Resistance. She refused and spat in their faces.

Within a few days, a mock trial was held and she was found guilty of inciting a riot, theft of government property, and high treason. They dragged her out into the desert beyond the city's gates and poured gasoline on the white dress they made her wear. The Governor read aloud the decree of execution. She was stoic, strong. Her resolve was infectious. The executioner walked behind her, holding a blow torch. He toughed the flame to the gasoline soaked earth and stepped back. It didn't take long for the flame to skip from the ground and kiss her lily garment.

Everyone seemed to have stopped breathing, hypnotized by the flames dancing off her back. She pread her arms out wide and tilted her head back, releasing a scream of agony. Her screams weren't so much heard as felt. We all felt it deep within our souls, within our hearts. She was dying for all our sins we hadn't been strong enough to do what she had, but that was about to change. Maybe not too late.

"Joan.." a voice called quietly, "Joan." It was louder. "Joan, Joan, Joan," the chant was getting louder and louder. "JOAN, JOAN, JOAN!" The people all knew, all of us. We knew what she had done to try and save our existence. The sound of her name being shouted so loud it was shaking the ground beneath our feet was too much for the Governor. He'd started calling for the military force to beat us silent. Our Joan wasn't the only fatality that day in the fight for freedoms.

Even though she is dead, Joan's ideals will live on forever and be reborn again and again, no matter how many of us are sent to the torch. I'm not the only one that saw a phoenix in the flames behind her that day.


N. Strong

Reviews

[Ted Lambert]

I like the emotion, but show, don't tell. Your poetry tells me you know that already, and you're just dancing around the edges with this one......

[Taylor H.]

Besides a few grammar issues, and the fact that you told us the whole story instead of telling us, this was a very interesting read. I enjoyed it.