THE PROTEST

 THE PROTEST

by Richard Banks

        The decision to relocate England and Wales ten miles off the coast of Florida has been one of the most popular dictates of the Ruling Council in the twenty-second century. While no longer obliged to seek public approval via elections or referendums its informal meetings with regional focus groups are often used to gage public opinion, and the feedback from these was almost entirely favorable; the Proletariat jumped at the chance of living in the warm climes of a holiday location they could not afford to visit, while the economic advantages of closer links to our main trading partner was more than apparent to the CEOs of Footsie companies. Once the Irish Union was moved out of the way by attaching it to the west coast of Scotland there was nothing obstructing the English Republic, south of the Berwick Dyke, from crossing the Atlantic Ocean to its new anchorage. 

         Nothing that is but Aarry Sullivan who likes Britain where it is and would rather not be separated from his brother who lives across the border in the Independent Nation of Scotland. While Aarry should be keeping his opinions to himself he is inclined to share them with his drinking companions at the Boris Tavern, a grade four alehouse for unskilled operatives engaged in non-essential work. 

         Once Aarry had hopes of promotion to a grade three tavern where there was a carpet on the floor and an inside loo, but his application to be upgraded on the grounds that his father had once been a grade three until demoted for unspecified contraventions of the Citizens’ Code was rejected on the grounds that Aarry was unable to prove that the unspecified offence had not taken place. The official notification of this decision had been followed by a further form withdrawing his non-essential food ration for three months. 

         So, here he was at the Boris, drinking cloudy beer in the company of Mase and Albe whose tacit acceptance of the ‘Great Journey’ was based on the assumption that nothing they said was likely to make any difference.

         “It’s bound to be a bit choppy on the way over,” said Mase, who had once been seasick on Southend Pier. “Should be warmer though.”

         “By twenty degrees at least,” agreed Aarry. “Alright in the winter but just you wait until summer. Be hotter than an oven then.”

         Mase who earns a living by pulling a rickshaw absorbed this information with a deepening frown.

         “And then there’s the alligators,” said Aarry. “Big buggers they are, the size of a launch. Won’t take long for them to swim across from the mainland. Heaven help anyone who gets too close to one of them.”

         Mase took another swig of beer while wondering why no one had mentioned this before. “Are you sure about the alligators? There’s nothing about them in the Daily Truth. It will all be wonderful that’s what the paper says. Prosperity for everyone, even us.”

         “So you know that for a fact?”

         “Of course I do. Can’t be anything else if it’s in the Truth. Blimey Aarry, don’t tell me you’re one of those Differentalists. You know what happens to them.”

         “No,” said Aarry, “no one knows. Here today and gone tomorrow, but that’s not going to happen to us if we keep our voices down and no one hears. Why shouldn’t we have opinions that are different from the Government? Bring back Parliament. Government for the people by the people that’s what I say.”

         “But that’s democracy,” gasped Albe, looking in panic at the listening device on the wall above their heads. “Just saying that word is a crime against the state.”

         “Well, you just have,” said Aarry, unable to repress a chuckle, “but don’t worry, Mase and me ain’t going to shop you and neither is anyone else. The listener up there don’t work and probably never did. It’s just a dummy to discourage dummies like us from getting out of line. The only listener in here is Jo behind the bar. A Government spy, that’s what he is. Earns far more doing that than selling this swill. But while he’s there and we’re over here out of earshot, we can say what we like.”

         “Are you sure?” whispered Mase who, like Albe, was peering anxiously at the listener.

         “Of course I’m sure. OK, let’s put it to the test. Viva the revolution, power to the people. Now, if that thing is working, this place will be full of the Guard by the time I get back from the karzie.” And with that, he departed for the shed out back. 

         He returned five minutes later to find his companions still waiting tremulously for the squeal of brakes and the slamming of car doors that usually preceded a Guard raid. 

         “Now, where were we?” said Aarry. “Don’t think that moving the country to the States will be doing us any favours. Whatever happens, we’re always be bottom of the heap. It’s the Plebs at the top that will be cashing in. As for the three of us, it couldn’t be worse.”

         “Not sure about that,” said Albe glancing nervously through an uncurtained window at a passing car.

         “Well you should be,” interrupted Aarry. “Just think about it. You run a treadmill to heat homes while me and the Misses work in a factory making fur coats for those who can afford them. None of that will be of any use where we’re going. As for you, Mase, I don’t fancy your job pulling a rick in the heat of one their summers. Hot work for those who can stand it.”

         “But then,” said Mase as Aarry abruptly changed the subject.

         “Then Spurs scored from a corner and…. Hello Jo, what you doing over here. Come to wipe down the table. That’s very civil of you. Don’t miss that green bit in the middle. Lord knows what that is.” Aarry returned to his commentary on the Spurs until Jo was safely back at the bar. “So, as I was saying the move is not for us. The question is what we’re going to do about it?” 

         “What can we do? It’s Government policy. Their minds are made up. They even asked some of the people.”

         “The people,” scoffed Aarry. “Aren’t we the people? No one’s asked us, and never will while we do nothing but what we’re told. There was a time when people like us had rights when we had a say on who was going to be the Government and kicked them out when we didn’t like what they were doing. It don’t happen now. Why I’ll tell you why we don’t have the vote no more.” 

         “And a good thing too,” said Albe. Don’t you know it was the vote that divided people and set them against each other? Surely you remember what they taught us at school? 

         “Yeah, along with all the other crap. They didn’t bother much with the reading and writing but they were never shy of telling us our place. Citizens’ Rights they called it, two periods every day. Two hours of them telling us we weren’t good enough, that Government was done by those who had the most money and the big estates, that only they were fit to run the country. And us, at the bottom of the pile? What use were we? Not much according to our teachers. That’s why school ended for us at fourteen, and we were set loose to do the jobs no one else wanted, for the doles and privileges that came the way of those who did what they were told.” 

         “Well, that’s the way it is, Aarry,” said Mase. “We can’t be going back to the bad old days of mutiny and anarchy when the gutters flowed with blood,”

         “It never happened,” said Aarry in a raised voice that was heard behind the bar. “It never happened,” he repeated in a gruff whisper. “It’s all lies, there never was no armed uprising, not by our sort, no looting, no burning, no violence beyond the shouting of our grievances.”

         Albe’s mouth sagged open in disbelief. “That’s not what it says in the history books. Where do you get all this stuff?”

         “From my grandad, that’s who. Some of it he saw for himself, most was told him by his father. I also saw it in a book he had. My mother burnt it when he died but by then I had read every page. It was the army that rose up, paid to do it by those at the top of the money tree who wanted to be free of all regulation so they could become richer and more powerful. No more Parliaments for them. At first, they made themselves popular by giving everyone tax cuts but in the years that followed they made sure that the rich got richer and everyone else from the middle down was slowly, but surely, made worse. The Unions that stood up for the rights of their members were suppressed and public services, like hospitals, were starved of the money they needed to keep going. And when the people had had enough, when they were half starved and only paid a pittance, they took to the streets in a great demonstration called the Just Remonstrance, but by then it was too late. That’s when the revolution happened, the bloody suppression of the people by the army. Thousands died and when the newspapers and TV reported what had happened they were shut down and replaced by Truth Media. And since then we’ve done what we’ve been told until no one knows another way. Ours is the hard way, the only way, that’s what they taught us at school, and that’s what we hear and read every single day. And, if the likes of us don’t tell the people what’s really going on it will only get worse.”

         “No, no, Aarry, it’s all going to get better. Once we’re on the other side of the pond it will be…”

         “Worse than before,” interjected Mase.  “Aarry’s right, right about that, and right about the Just Remonstrance. Grandma said those words when she was going silly with the mind rot. Spoke about soldiers shooting down the people and bodies too many to count. We thought it was nonsense, crazy talk. The only thing crazy, was that she was now saying what she had kept inside her when she had her wits. ‘Keep your mind to yourself,’ was one of her sayings. And that’s what she did until the last year of her life when it all came spilling out.” 

         “What about you?” said Aarry to Albe “do you believe me now? Not sure? Well one thing you can’t ignore is that running a treadmill in 40 degrees heat will do you nothing but harm. How old are you? Fifty? Little chance of you making it through to sixty. Is that what you want for you and your son?”

         “But what’s to be done? How can we possibly make things right?”

         “By telling the people the truth, the real truth, that they are poor because they have been made poor, that they are oppressed when they should be free, and that none of this will change until they seize back what is rightly theirs. We must be like the farmer sowing seeds, seeds of truth that will take root and become a mighty harvest. If the people rise up, too many to be denied they will be free. It must happen, we must make it happen. At home, I have leaflets telling people, people like us, what they must know and do. We each take some and hand them out to the workers leaving the second shift tomorrow. It will be dark, keep your faces covered, and as soon as you’re done get yourself out of sight in the back alleys. Any questions?”

         “Where do we go?” Said Mase.

         “Me outside NPI, you at the steelworks, and Albe outside the generating station in Crawley Street. Is that OK, Albe? No need to say anything, just nod your head. ….Good man! OK now, drink up and come back to my place. There’s a bag of leaflets for both of you, one hundred in each. And in case you’re wondering we won’t be the only ones out there tomorrow, there’ll be five more in Sectors One and Three. Come on now, let’s be going, we have a great work to do.”        

                                               *****        

In order not to endanger each other it was agreed by the three of them not to meet at the Boris until the following week, an arrangement that left Aarry free to return there by himself the following evening. Bag in hand he made his way into the back room and, as Jo locked up for the night, poured himself a Scotch from a bottle on the dining table within. Having downed it in one he was in the process of replenishing his glass when Jo entered the room and sat down beside him. 

         “Everything OK? Your mates in position and ready to go?”

         “You must be kidding. Have them hand out seditious propaganda? No way. Even one leaflet in the wrong hands can cause trouble down the line; remember what I said about little seeds. No, they were arrested at dawn, their possession of subversive literature more than enough to make them enemies of the State. We won’t be seeing them again.”

         “No point then in drinking to their good health.”

         “None at all. And to think I use to be like they were, sticking to the rules, rules meant to keep us down. Then I changed, but not like them. If you can’t beat them join them. Make yourself useful. No one goes hungry where I live. So, here we are, in the money again. Your share’s in the bag, in kind, just as you wanted, ten bottles of Scotch and four of gin.”

         “And what about you?”

         “What about me? You mean how much do I get? Maybe more, maybe less. That’s for me to know and you not to think about. But one thing I can tell you is that I’m moving up in the world. Got my grade 3 today, so this will be our last drink together. Soon, I’ll be a regular at the Phoenix, downing grade 3 beer with journeymen mechanics and semi-literate clerks, folks who are keen to get on in life and who might be tempted by those like me fomenting revolution. As for you, you’ll be getting a new man, Suji. Very keen is Suji. I’m sure you’ll do well together. So, here’s to us, to past times and better ones to come.”        

“Cheers.” 

The End.

          

Copyright Richard Banks