To the Wall, Nonetheless

When we were young together, Harry, Alice and I were entered into a play. I suppose it was something for the school, or at least I don’t recall having volunteered to join. But there we were, together, and standing over a basket of costume-pieces. The moment marks the absolute beginning of my memory.

I think the teacher (the director?) had set out mainly to amuse himself in his invention- a particularly acute satire. “Here,” he’d said, “is your character!” and he gave us each little slips of paper and a book. We were allowed to trade the papers if we wanted, but we had to also trade the books so each of us would know who we were.

I only suppose that my parents were in the crowd, although I forget their faces entirely now. But I feel as though they were watching. The idea of them seeing me there, acting, has no meaning for me. They were not proud, they were not embarrassed. But I know that, sometimes, they were there.

However long the production ran, I can’t recall. So many costumes and so many readings of the same lines exist in my head, so I know that we performed many times, for a very, very long time.

Of all the children, only Harry, Alice and I refused to trade. None of us knew the names on our cards, but neither did the other children. All that inspired the others was the idea of playing at bartering. But we could not be convinced. Us three were not called to the cards by any means, we were simply too stubborn. We had resolved, even then, to our lot in life.

Harry and Alice had red-colored cards. They were from the same team, it seemed. Their books had covers depicting furious men with magnificent beards. My card was white, and on the front of my book was some kind of goblin. How excellent a role to play, as a foil to these bearded men! We delighted in our lot.

After the reading, the rehearsals began- and with them a new kind of play we’d never seen. “You have been given only who you are playing,” said the Director, “and there are no words made for the play! You have to make up the words as you go.” And so we began, every day, to ad-lib our piece of grand theater. Quickly, we learned of the other actors and their roles. We created mortal enemies, dramatic tales of betrayal, solemn acts of redemption at the moment of death.

No dynamic of greater depth was concocted by our peers than that between me, Harry and Alice. For we were friends long before the play began- and we would always be friends. And so what incredible fury we unleashed in our acts, when our characters were called to be in scene together! The audience roared and whooped at our antics- Harry and Alice stamped and strutted, spouted soliloquies of the indomitable spirit of man, and I, the goblin, somersaulted and screamed how wrong they were. At everything they said, I simply hollered “That’s what YOU THINK!” and always there came cheers to my catch-phrase.

And still after every performance we met together again, and laughed until we cried at the storylines we’d invented. I lauded their synchronized marching, the tenor of their voices and assertion of their speeches. And they laughed and hugged me and told me they’d never heard anything so funny as what I’d said on the spot- that no matter what they came up with I always seemed to have an answer. 

* * *

Those days were long gone, but then our friendship continued on through schooling and then professional life. Harry and Alice married, I was his best man, and all together we joined a grander stage. What turmoil came of the world then, those two were primed to rise against it. And all the while, I tagged along and offered my splash of color. I never lost the taste of a little silliness, and they never tired of my company.

And so, when the flares came and the market collapsed they were already a part of the Grander Idea. Such eloquent speakers, such determined scowls they had learned, to where no-one could fail to see them as great leaders. What was once an ephemeral “Us” no longer awaited, and within them we all saw “Us”. Then it was time to distinguish the “Us” by driving against a “Them”.

And all along, I wore the same hats as Us. They gave me a nice uniform, and a gun. All the while, at whatever rules they created, I did my little somersault and said “well that means I can still do this!”. And they laughed, but also conceded, and so left space for a little bit of me. Our men could display all sorts of colors, because what “champion of the people” would force a color upon them? And our guns could carry little charms off of carabiners (so long as they did not interfere with firing). And all together we set out, the “Us” that was truly together, and always accepting the “You”.

Many, many, of Them died long before they saw us. Most of the buildings were tall enough to kill a person, and so the first few days they threw themselves off in droves. We spent those days swinging fire axes at the chained doors, and when another one hit the street behind us we arranged the bits into fun messages for the others above. There was much debate in those days whether the messages should encourage them, or ask them to stop.

Most of those who did stop got to meet Us. Although in a few instances we set charges and brought the buildings down with them still inside. Philosophically, it seemed to amount to them jumping from the roof even if the roof joined them on the way down. Those others, who we met, were to die as well. But then came the shift- and it was particular to Harry and Alice- so it affected all of the group.

They seemed to decide, in not as many words, that frightening these others to jump to their deaths was different from killing them personally. They seemed to think it was worse. I did my somersaults in front of them and the prisoners, and they all laughed and eventually agreed that I was right. But even then, they hesitated. I knew very well, from our youth, the symptoms of stage-fright rising up. I knew even better how to save a fellow actor- through generosity.

“Suppose I went first???” I sang, and raised my arms comically. And they smiled, relieved, and recited: “Ah yes, you! If you are so sure then YOU! Shall demonstrate.” Thus the men all relaxed, and whatever illusion the audience had of a blunder in the performance vanished. And later again, we laughed and hugged and told each-other how impressed we each were. How strong and driven they had been, and how inventive and responsive I had been! And what a spectacle- they lauded- I had made, in all the incredible, inventive ways the prisoners had died.

So it continued, and each day we hammered out the rules. Each day, Harry and Alice wrote out decrees and I would pipe in, describing their faults and leavening the meanings. What a colorful little world we would build! It ran like clockwork, tended to everyone, and rested within a majesty of expression. Every day, I added new buttons to my uniform. The colors grew, until I was adorned in all the flavors of a shattered LCD panel.

Others were found every day and they beheld my incredible visage, which they had sorely missed out on. I recounted to them examples of the freedom our troupe enjoyed, which they had declined, and now were lost to them. My speeches all seemed to fall short of the symbolism I intended to convey, but were redeemed in those final moments as each audience member was stomped to death by technicolor boots.

Little by little, we ran out of people to stomp. Then it was all about food, and water, and shelter. Harry and Alice grew bored, and boring, and old. Their smiles at my dances faded. They no longer shared my cheer, or traded stories of those earlier days and the things we wrote in the street out of guts. I noticed one day that Harry wasn’t wearing some of the buttons I’d sewn to his lapel. Alice never wore her beret anymore, in spite of all the feathers it had on it.

And then one day, I left into the street and was met by many of our men. All their clothes were cleanly ironed: simple red shirts and black pants. I saw Harry and Alice among them as they wrestled me to the ground. I did not fight, but they battered me plenty before pulling me to my knees.

Harry approached, his fists clenched, and he tried to speak but couldn’t. I understood the signs immediately, and came to his aid.

“Harry! So it is YOU who have betrayed me! I should have knooooown!”

He winced, but the frost around him loosened, and he found the courage to speak. My heart soared with pride.

“We’re not friends anymore.” He said.

I glanced around at the men, but if they were aware of the character inconsistency, it didn’t show. I fished again. 

“How revealing! To think you thought of us as friends! This is news to me, Comrade Harry!”

He moved to speak again, but resigned to his fear. He waved, and one of the men chambered a round. He placed the barrel against my head. I whispered from gritted teeth. 

Harry, wait. You can’t just shoot me, that’s so lame. 

At that, he leapt forward. “That’s how it’s going to go! That’s how we’re doing things now. I’m sick of your bullshit, it’s not fun anymore. We’re trying to build something here!”

“I am building! I’m helping!”

“No. Painting things isn’t helping. You can’t just go around adding buttons onto things and not doing anything, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s starting to weird people out.”

“I’m not hurting anything! And I did help, I killed all those people! That was a huge part of this whole thing.”

“It’s not that hard to kill people! You’re literally about to be shot in the street. And I’m not going to do a bunch of backflips, sing a song and beat you to death with a pink hammer. I’m just going to shoot you.”

“That’s so fucking lame! What’s the point of that? It doesn’t matter if you make a spectacle out of it, so you should anyway.”

“It doesn’t matter to you!” He screamed, “You don’t think that any of this matters, you treat this whole thing like a joke- like you’re here stomping people into paste because you don’t have anything better to do. And you look ridiculous.”

“What does it matter why I do it? It’s the same result! You guys have your whole society thing now. What does how I look matter?”

“It matters to me! It matters to Alice. You look stupid.”

“It doesn’t matter how I look!”

“Well then you’re stupid too.”

For the first time, I didn’t have a response. All I could think of was to call Harry stupid. But that’s terrible writing. Why did he have to take everything so seriously? I decided that I’d had enough. I stood, and walked away. Harry stared after me, bewildered. The guards looked at him, then Alice. Finally, she acted. Stamping her foot, she pointed after me.

“Guards! Shoot him!” She orated in a fantastic cadence.

“BANG!” They yelled, “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!”  

I admit I couldn’t resist. I spun and shook, yelled out, threw my hands up and tumbled. I tried weakly to stand, and then all at once collapsed with a final “BLEH”.

Nobody laughed.