The Protest

The Protest

“Are you ready, Debbie?”
He was putting his coat on, a black wool overcoat with various pins on them, one of them saying “If I walk away, you’ll shoot me in the back.” He had jeans on, his hair was short and black, and he had a backpack on.

“Yeah.” Debbie came down from the stairs. She had a sign that said “USA= Anarachy” in her hand, a cigarette in her mouth. She had long, blond hair and was wearing a Working Class Hero teeshirt and black jeans.

The young man said “You know that this is going to be serious, don’t you?”

Debbie looked at him and said “Of course.”

“You have the camera?” He looked at her.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

She was putting on her shoes when she noticed that Koscow had a backpack on.

“Koscow, what’s in that backpack?” she was eyeing the young man’s backpack suspiciously.

“What’s in your mouth?” he hated it when she smoked. “You know I hate it when you do that. When you buy those f------ packs, who gets the money? The people who worked for it? Or the fat cats?”

“Koscow, stop changing the subject. Tell me what’s in that backpack.”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not going with you if you don’t f------ tell me!”

He paused, looking into Debbie’s eyes.
“A gun.”

Debbie's face was in shock. “Why the hell are you going to need a gun?”

Koscow looked at Debbie and said, “Because they want to kill us. But they won’t- Debbie, I promise you it won’t be fired unless it has too. Unless one of us is going to die.”

“I-”
She was cut off.
“Debbie, come on. Were going to be late.”











The old Volvo rolled into the parking lot near the deserted mill. Koscow opened the passenger side door, and ushered Debbie out of the car. He held her hand, leading her through an alleyway, to the place where the protest was going to start.

There were infront of what looked like a massive industrial complex, like an old mill. Huge smokestacks poked out of the middle and the corners. The entire place was made of bricks, and there was already a huge crowd forming near the front.

“Were going to be late!”
Koscow pulled Debbie across the street and into the massive crowd, making there way toward the front, where a man in a leather jacket stood on a small podium.
“Mike. Were here.”

“Koscow. Nice to see you.” the leather jacket man had a Mohawk, and a bible in his hand. He nodded toward the seats to the right of him. The VIP section, consisting of thrashed fold out chairs.

The excited babble of the crowd diminished when Mike lifted his arm.
“So. Here we are.” he looked at the crowd, most of them young.
“We are all united in a cause. We stand, now in front of the cause. We need to bring down the establishment and today, or tonight, rather, we will. Our parents screwed us over. So, now, we fight.
This is what the new generation thinks of old values.”

He took a lighter out of his pocket, and held up the bible he had in his hand. Grinning, he watched as the bible caught fire. He turned and threw it through an open window in the building.
The crowd screamed excitedly. Mike raised his hands again, and they fell silent.”
“This is the home of the establishment. Shall we bring it down?

“YES!”

“Go ahead.”

They went wild.

Rocks flew into the windows of the massive building, and someone lit a Molotov Cocktail. He threw it through an open window.
“REVOLUTION! REVOLUTION,” screamed the crowd.

From the madness that was on the stage, Koscow pulled the gun from his backpack and jumped over the fence separating the crowd from the building. He fired twice into an open window.

Suddenly, a door burst open and armed forces streamed out of it, shooting at random.

“s---!” screamed Koscow, as a bullet skinned his arm. He dashed back to the fence, cleared it, and hid behind a dumpster near the crowd.

A grenade explosion boomed, and Koscow had no idea what side it had came from. Suddenly, the world was smoke. Clothing and debri rained down from the sky, and he waited.

When the smoke cleared, he saw piles of burned bodies. He began to scream Debbie’s name, disregarding the armed me running toward him.
“DEBBIE! NO! NO! f--- NO!”
He dug through the heap of bodies, looking desperately for Debbie. The armed men were coming closer, and he looked up into the dead tree above him.
He saw the shredded remains of Debbie’s shirt caught in a branch.

He grabbed the gun from his pocket and aimed it at the face of the nearest armed man.
“YOU KILLED HER, MOTHERf---ER!”
As he fired, three bullets ripped through his body. He fell, limp, to the ground.