Do I inflate the rage, or ease the suffering?
The placard is gripped limply between my hands. I cannot lift it yet. I don’t know if it will help. I don’t know what to do.
To my left, the rally is mustering, hundreds of angry voices and blazing banners swirling before the angular concrete façade of the parliament building. The minister will head out of those doors any minute now to face the furious eruption of activists. I was to be one of them.
To my right, across the shallow, calm mirror of the pond, sits my friend. They pay no heed to the political grumblings across the water. Their purple-shadowed eyes stare sleeplessly into the glistening mirror, which they splash and ripple with their absent-mindedly swinging feet. Their hands grip and dig into the grass and soil of the lawn. Their suffering is a pale mist, dwarfed and rendered a murky irrelevance by the angry inferno across the shallow water from them.
A chanting troupe of fellow furious students march past, many-coloured flags and block-capital placards obscuring my view in a dissatisfied rainbow for a long heartbeat. A loudspeaker screams discordantly in my ear. A solid sign smacks my shoulder and I stumble. Looking up, I see that the crowd to my left has started to roil and boil. Fists shake, eyes flash. The flags of Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union flutter high above, shyly shuffling around their lofty flagpoles as if in fear of drawing the mob’s attention. I have lost sight of those I arrived with. They have been consumed by the revolutionary mass, incorporated into the vast and terrifying and magnificent beast of progressive and fiery change. I should walk over there, voice and placard and temper raised high. I should sacrifice myself to that history-making maelstrom, and play my part. A spark flares bright and passionate in my gut. I have to march left.
But my eyes are drawn back across the water. My friend is staring at the sky now, at the thunderous clouds casting the world in a shadow-stretching chrome tint. Their young face is ageing before my very eyes, as a lifetime’s worth of painful thoughts tremble through their mind. There is a defiance there as strong and as vulnerable as the blazing spirit of the crowd, but it is a solitary boulder to the wildfire of the mob. Even rock and fire cannot weather all storms. Infernos sputter and descend into smoky cinder. Boulders erode and are scarred. I must help my friend. Their thoughts dwell not on revolution, but on survival. Their battlefield is not high-political, but deep-personal. It is a shadow war they fight. And they need an ally against the shade.
Rain crashes down, an abrupt and thunderous whoosh. Wind strikes abruptly, slamming across the parliament grounds. The flags on their flagpoles whip proudly to attention as the crowd below is drenched, entangled by their own snaking banners. And the doors of the parliament building hiss sleekly open. To my left, cameras burst into light, the spotlights of news teams slicing ruthlessly through the sudden tempest. It is time. The crowd is struggling to muster and coordinate. They need every voice they can to overpower the storm and drown out the minister’s toxic lies.
But to my right, my friend is retreating into their hood. Hauling themselves to their feet. They are turning, to lurch away into the rain. They will be gone soon. I must catch them now, or their lonely battle will grow lonelier still.
And I cannot move. The minister is there, although I cannot see them above the left-wards chaos. My friend is leaving, and I cannot call loud enough to stop them.
I cannot move.
Do I inflate the rage, or ease the suffering? I twist towards the pond, and demand an answer of my reflection. But the storm is too strong, and the water is in uproar. I cannot see anything. I fall to my knees, try to flatten the surface with my palms. I cry out for an answer. Gale and hail slash across the land. I shiver and shout. Rage or suffering!? Rage or suffering!?
Finally, I see myself staring back from the flickering mirror. Rage or suffering? I ask, one last time. But by the time I find my answer, I look up and see that the storm has rumbled on. The mob and my friend have been swept away. I have my answer. But I am alone.
Ishneich 