Last month, I worked on a submission for writing contest. As the title reveals, I didn't win. But I had the best time creating this piece and I wanted it to go along with my public writings. This was the first time in a long time that I wrote just for the fun of it. I figured I wasn't going to win. This is my first writing contest. And while I thought my story was good, I need work. Either way, I was even more excited to see who the winner was, and boy did they not disappoint. So descriptive and vivid. The shocker at the very end. And it's a scary one. Very current. The link to the winner's story is here. My original submission is below. I'm already looking for the next contest to participate in, but what I'm also excited about is how much it encouraged me to continue to write. We all have wonderful stories to tell. It's really about getting it out in a way that can be felt by others.
ENOUGH (officially)
August 24th, 2020
I am Blake Overton: professor, travelling environmentalist advocate, and what I saw was real.
I’m running jail support at the Resist RNC demonstrations in Charlotte, NC. Tensions are high and rumors of Blue Lives Matter counter-protesters disguising themselves float through the crowd. “This has been declared an unlawful assembly”, announcement blares over a megaphone. Chants of “No Justice, No peace” ring out from the arm-linked protesters faced off with a barricade of police, beyond them counter-protesters, all blocking inner city traffic.
Poppoppop. Gunshots starting from one direction soon came from every. I ducked under the table where I was standing as frantic feet ran past.
Out of my peripherals, I see a boot clad to a 6’3 frame donning a beige trench coat with fur-cuffs approach. Each click of the heels could be heard over the roar of feet and panic. Once in full view, they turned inward and faced the chaos. Their hair whipped around their head in slow oscillations, not possible in the sweat and chemical-hazed air. Eyes like encapsulated lightning rods producing their own fluorescents, they stood in suspended power stance as muted madness overtook the protest.
Then with sudden movement, their polished hands shoot into the air and commands “ENOUGH!”. A force of electricity burst from their hands and tendrils of energized light reached and entered every person within the energy channelor’s lit radius. The protesters, the police, me, everyone. I could feel a mother’s hurt, a father’s anguish. I could sense loneliness from a young girl. I was empathic to the frustration and anger all coated with fear of the young men shielding behind a parked car. I could even make out the weariness of the police officers. These emotions: rage, hate, hopelessness, loss, fear, worthlessness, raged inside us, mixing and melding into one another until everyone that was infected were all under the deep belief of ENOUGH.
The energy tendrils became brighter, continuing to reach into us, holding most of us in suspended awe and hostage to the collected intensity of the crowd. As it grew stronger, the outliers not connected became apparent. The few that I saw, a plain clothes figure in the street, one of the cops at the police barricade, a store owner, looked around in wonder and panic. Our joint-consciousness lit up the street like stage lights. As the few disconnected individuals start to scramble for an exit, the initiator lowers their arms out in front and whispers “There”.
The emotions come again, this time like an electrical surge. The connection augments and the full intensity of the protest swells inside each person; each emotion within the energy field amplified by a thousand. Then complete darkness. The silence of the energy transfer ending is broken as sounds of hundreds of footsteps descend in isolated areas, the darkness broken only by the flood-light eyes of the energy channeler. As the trenched Amazonian’s lit eyes roamed the crowd, brief glimpses of the enmasse takeover were visible. Flashes of militarized marching. Flashes of wild arms descending over the plained clothes figure. I hear steps descend and yells follow where the cop stood. I see a group march as one, and hear yells follow where the store owner stood outside their shop, their panic stricken hollers being overcome by steps moving on.
This continued on for 10 minutes. The marching, the yells, then the continuous marching going to the next person in the area that was not one with the melded-conscious. Then it stopped. It was still dark, but regular evening dark. The carnage from the crowd stood mostly in shadow, not fully visible to my unadjusted eyes. And then, everyone just walked off. Slowly at first, but then with the hasten paste of being late for an appointment. People left by foot, police hopped in their cruisers and drove off. No one spoke or acknowledged one another as they made their exits. I made my way out from under the table and immediately ran until I was in my hotel room. I closed the deadbolt, and turned on the tv expecting to see the news on high red alert.
The news was doing a nightly segment on local restaurants. There isn’t even a mention of the protest, let alone the energy multiplier.
And even as I write this, I know I won’t hear mention of what I witnessed tomorrow. The biggest question I have now is: Am I the only one who remembers? And if so, why?
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