Spiceday

For the beginning of this series see HERE

The story so far: Imperial Stormforce trooper has been captured by rebels in the Truehome desert. He's been brought to an underground chamber where he is challenged to fight the warriors who captured him.

Now read on…

"We need you for trainin'," says Vozin the Spokesperson. "Some new warrior adepts just come up. They need to learn how you Stormforce troopers fight.”

Simon Gettson squares up to face the pair of turbanned warriors, gripping his utility dagger. He feels as if destiny has dragged him here against his will, a destiny that has determined that he should somehow prevail this day. Once he has bested these warriors, who knows? Perhaps he himself can become a leader, a leader of these Truehome freedom fighters, become at last a somebody himself. He can envisage himself striding across the Grossdesert, perhaps taming the Great Serpents and calling the tribespeople to arms, his woman at his side...

He adopts a fighting stance, holding out his fighting blade with the two-handed grip taught to him in the Stormforce, ready to twist where instinct leads, ready to...

A single burst of gunfire. Vozin the Spokesperson emerges from the shadows behind the dais, a simple hand-made submachinegun in her hand.

"See, warriors?" she calls, standing over the body of Simon. "The key thing we learned in trainin' today: never bring a knife to a gun fight. Never fight face to face with your enemy when you can sneak up behind 'im. Never offer quarter, never ask for quarter. We in it for the long haul, brothers an' sisters!"

The assembled people in the cavern raise their fists and listen.

"With that, my warriors," calls out Vozin in a clear voice, becoming decades younger in vigor and resolution, "with that lesson, let us think about what is ahead. I wanna read to you all a poem of resistance."

She steps forward and speaks:

I no longer dream of tomorrow

of holding the hand of this boiling sorrow

This world is too hollow

I have no hope

to keep

or borrow,

for you

for me,

for a world

watching us die

in the open

of this sorrow,

alone and shallow,

as a displaced sun

left to follow

the shadow

of a shallow tomorrow

And the entire cavern erupts in a triumphant cry. The Truehome warriors yell their defiance and the sure knowledge that they will stop the spice. They know, as they have seen with their own eyes, that the Empire cannot long survive. It depends only on impossibilities to survive, while these rebels depend only on love.

Only the one who is prepared to die, who is prepared to do anything at all to achieve victory, is prepared to live in this world made of wolves. This is what they have learned from the fallen trooper. It has been his gift to them, and his destiny.

=== SPICEDAY / END ===

NOTE:

Poem by Mohammed Moussa of Gaza, from GAZA POETS SOCIETY