Standing there, I stood out quite well. I wore no mask, the colours of my clothes stood out amongst the sea of black. I wanted to be noticed. I wasn't afraid one bit of people who might see me, and remember my face. I wanted them to remember it. To see that there were humans behind these masks, and that not everyone felt like they could potentially ruin their lives just because they saw their true face. I was so young then. I call myself old now, and the much older brothers and sisters scoff and shake their heads full of grey hair, laughing. They mock me. But still, I feel so old. It gets hard sometimes, to see things I have seen, and done the things I've had to do, and still wake up and smile to my brothers and sisters in arms, and tell them we are rising, that we are all okay, and laugh at their jokes. That day that I stood there, unmasked, in a set of clothes that made me the center of the Powers' eyes, I knew that there was no turning back. Many people who had been born into a family that held Rebellion status, tucked tail and rain towards the Neutral families, seeking shelter, or even ratted out their families for safe places among the Powers' pretty white solid structures and paper currency. When people here speak about the people that have betrayed us and left, we mourn. Our tones seem to bring back the life of once living, because to us here, we see them as completely gone from us, they are no longer considered family in the traditional sense. If we see them again, we recognize them, but do not offer them a place amongst us. If they could leave us, rat us out, have us killed,what would stop them from doing it again after they have supposedly promised that they are true to us?
I have been asked many times by people who are just curious, why we call each other 'comrade' or 'brother', 'sister'. We refer to each other as such because we keep our units close enough together that we feel as such. We are equal, so I don't give my friends in camps and settlements and camps titles based on the job, or amount of education they have.
My mother, Emma, always taught me to never be afraid to voice my opinions, and stand true to what I believe in. Now perhaps the people that trade sides are doing as they believe in, and that's good that they stay true to their own values, but it's hurtful when they join a side that slaughters their own brothers and sisters. I have seen my very own blood brother upon the pages of their newspaper supposedly "outing us out". My own blood brother! Never before have I ever thought that someone literally of my own blood become such a horrible lying monster. Maybe that's another reason why we pay no attention and speak of the traitors like they have passed from this world, because if we found out what they were doing, we would feel cheated, broken, and deceived. Why, if my own brother could do such a thing, what is stopping me?! We had the same upbringing, the same parents, we got along well, I always regarded my older brother Francis as a smart man.
Emma had pride, she had grace with her words, beauty in her words and features. She mended clothes and hearts. Never once have I heard her raise her voice. She scolded us for our actions, and sometimes her lectures seemed to drag on (which in some cases was punishment enough!), but even her harshest words I miss. Before I make a choice, I have a quick thought of what she would think, or if there was anything she would want to do. She focused on teaching us right from wrong, how to handle things, how to create, fix, and change things. If things were getting tough, how to ride it through and change things to make everything smooth again. She was devoted to the Rebellion. She stood out in the crowd with me, bare, just as I was that day when I was only 17. That was the day I knew that I would always push the Rebellion forward in their actions, even in small ways.
17 seems like such a young age from the age I have reached now. It all seems like just yesterday though, I can recall the smell, the heat of all the people pushing together, the light breeze we all cherished, the hot flames before us, the shouts, how nervous I was. Everything comes rushing back once I close my eyes. My mother was beside me, shouting along, throwing her fists up and rallying the people around her.
The Powers had killed six entire families,
six, small children, hardworking women, hardworking men, all innocent. The soldiers had destroyed their homes, their barns, killed their livestock, and burned it all down, along with the families inside, back down into the earth. We were there to take back six families worth of their soldiers to exact revenge. We didn't care what kind of story they made of it, what kind of lies they told about the families and how they had stolen, traded with and harbored "terrorists" within their home. All we wanted was revenge for a family, we knew that no one else would speak up. So we did. "Eye for an Eye!" "Man for Man!" we pushed forward, lighting their buildings and streets on fire. Night turned into a hot summer day and we wanted blood. There were soldiers with all types of armour on and everything possible to arm themselves with, beating us back. So we hit back, hard. This was not the peaceful protests of our ancestors. When we had done enough damage and gotten our revenge. We had done enough damage to cost them.
But we had lost members of our own family as well. With each attack, there are always all sorts of casualties. Some fatal, some not so much. The only blood that I lost was the blood that my mother lost. Emma had attempted, with others, to bring down a soldier from upon his horse. The man grabbed onto her as he went down, the horse began to panic from the angry people all around it, the flames, the loud crashes and shouts. She was trampled, the horse's strong legs ending her life.
We take our dead back home with us. Sometimes we are unable too, but we still hold funerals. We burn their bodies. The flames representing their spirit, how strong it seemed, before it goes out once the body is gone and the fire is reduced to cold ashes.
And you move on, because the next day you must help feed people, take care of the sick and the cold, talk to the people who you plan the next attack with. I took up my mother's strong spot in the settlement before I was able to even mourn her completely. I was able to correctly mourn her, take time from my day to have time to think of things that allowed to me to get past all of it, but you never
completely lose someone you love. People live as long as someone remembers them. Some people will live forever, and they are the truly lucky ones. All I do now is remember my mother telling me that morning before I lost her. "Let's not wear our masks and black clothing. They need to know who truly hides behind those masks, to see we look just like them!" Because we are them, and they're afraid of that truth. So we continue to push it.
The peg me as a "leader", but there are no leaders here. Everyone has voice over what they will and will not do. Everyone pitches in because they know what someone will always help them, they're never alone in the daily chores, or even the fun leisurely activities, unless they want too, even that's a choice.
So every morning, this supposed "leader" goes out, asks the opinion of the people that he apparently "rules" over, helps people build things, help carry food out, sit down with his brothers and sisters to lend an ear to their complaints, their problems, concerns, and lend a hand to help solve them. He sits alone at night crouched over his desk writing letter after letter to know fellow camps and settlements of abundant supplies to see if they need anything we have too much of. I have my company of "elites", or the men and women I have known my entire life, or at least for many years, that I trust, and relax with laughter to end my long day. I have my meetings, with the farmers, the tailors, the artists, the musicians, to help them, I meet with men and women who help the rebellion through force and other means through out the day. What I don't do is sit behind a desk, signing papers, and having press meetings, claiming to be a man of the people while the only "people" I see are rich men who want to have more money, and men who want kill hundreds innocents, even to just kill one or two rebellious people, or 'cleanse' an area of people of certain descent and cleanse the area of natural resources for themselves.
I am no leader. There are other people within the Rebellion that do more then I do! How it is possible I don't know, maybe it's a secret that comes with aging, because they all seem to have at least a decade on me. I ask, but they only smile and say that I'll get the hang of things one day. The farmers do the same as I, the tailors, the mechanics, they all help out each other, trading, sharing, asking if they have anything they need to talk about or need help fixing. They have friends and family they sit down with at night to relax after a long day. I'm no different. I just showed my face.