“Each democracy that dies is one less candle shining in the darkness”
Despite the twilight and the fear of what will happen when night comes there is almost a festive feel to the camp. It is not just boys! Teenagers! Toughs! It is every sort of person! Teachers! Shopkeepers! A dentist is helping to load the toy water cannon! There are professionals dragging crates and garbage cans and all sort of junk to buttress the barricades side by side trash collectors. Goths are manning the bungee catapults. Nurses from hospitals are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. Doctors on leave are lining up first aid. There are trucks being set up to act like ambulances to ferry any injured down Chinna Lane to the real hospitals. I hope that will not be necessary! No one know what to expect! One of my cyber reporters told his mum to take the family dog and run for it. She said she and the family dog are staying!
Mums are by their sons helping prepare non lethal arsenal of snow balls and small rocks for sling shots. Sisters and sweethearts are helping their brothers and boy friends load potato launchers. Non lethal— sorta. The organizers are bellowing for everyone to stay non lethal. Kinda. I see a truck come with more snow balls. The organizers must have a manufacturing camp on the South Dales making snow balls! I don’t know if I should laugh or cry! Someone brings me milk poured into a water bottle. I said I don’t like milk. She says I must pour the milk over my eyes if I get wacked with tear gas. A lot of lucky souls have come with gas masks or else motorcycle helmets with visors. They are wrapping clothes around the visors to try to protect their eyes. Most people just have fun Fawkes masks or Teugu masks. Silly. Flimsy. Useless. Hell! I am just wearing a Kitsume mask when someone found out my last name is Kitsume. That is our word for Fox. God! I don’t want to die wearing a stupid mask of a duplicitous fox! No one knows if anything will even happen. This is Zendula. Violent riots just don’t happen here. We are a democracy after all. ‘Petty Bourgeoisie’ is our middle name. I asked some of the new Chinna Lane volunteers why they joined even as the crisis became more dangerous and she petted her pug. ‘Because we are all Punk Patriots now! The Punk Patriots represent all of us! They are the only genuine thing left who does!’ I ask a Logan party member who is handing out free emergency rations. ‘Don’t confuse my presence here with my party. The great thing about the Punk Patriots is that it transcends all parties! All classes! It is Zendula standing up and shouting we are mad as hell and we are not going to take this anymore!’ I asked one of the English tourists as he tapped away on his laptop why he is risking his life. He said ‘Democracies have to stand by each other. Democracies are an endangered species. Each democracy that dies is one less candle shining in the darkness.’
