Dark, heavy rain clouds hung over the land; they had started to come the day before, like a crowd begins to gather at some great and highly anticipated event. It was slow, patchy at first, the sky still kind of light, but as the event drew nearer, the crowds became thicker and thicker, and they arrived in greater masses, joining up with their friends and beginning to make a commotion, a low rumble in their excitement. Soon the excitement grew, along with the rumbling, and the masses were thick at this point, with little room left to move, and so congested, they began to complain, to strike out thunder when they rubbed the wrong way with a neighbor that got a little too close. There was no authority here. They were the type of clouds that not even the sun can penetrate to break apart, that make the day seem closer to night and rob everything of its color.
Apart from all of this, but very much a part of it, a very tall, large and strong man, a human workhorse, was walking down below in an empty street close to the middle of town. His face was serious, contemplating the grayness of the sky, its sporadic grumbling, and the possibility of rain. He contemplated the weight of the heavy sledgehammer balanced across his right shoulder. His hair was black with a mature touch of grays here and there, and he was covered in tan from head to toe. The man worked and lived on the ships, and his muscles were the proof. As he walked, he encountered no one, and he felt the heaviness of his steps on the old red bricks that made up the old streets. The streets were uneven, unlevel, with small potholes scattered throughout; bricks jutting out randomly above the others, where the weight of overloaded carts had forced them out of their place. The man walked the street, felt the familiarity of it under his feet, slowly rising to the middle of town, centre square, and the old capitol building. He was in no hurry; he wanted time to think about things before dealing with the future.
It could be said that times were simpler before, and certainly they were simpler than times would be in the next few months, possibly years. But it was so much harder dealing with day to day life back then, and that heavily outweighed the certain comfort that they had found themselves in under the regime which pretended to provide for the people under false promises and with heavy tolls; financially, mentally, and socially. No one would deny that it felt better now, immeasurably better, as an inexplicable thing that each and every person felt within their chest, but was unable to communicate to the next person except with a smile and an understanding nod. Only most people didn’t have to deal with the technical progression of things. All they knew was the romance of the situation. How romantic!! It would be a story to be told for centuries to come, of the rise of the lower classes and the beginning of a new life for all as equals. It all sounded so marvelous, so obvious and simple. It wasn’t. Maybe it could be, but to get there would require painstaking work on the part of a few good men. The masses can move to overthrow a government, but they can’t come together the same way to set up a new one. It would be a never ending struggle, and so a few men, like it must be, had to be in charge.
These were the real burdens on the large man’s shoulders, not the physical weight of the sledgehammer, but the metaphysical weight of human progress and order. The dilapidated houses and shops stared at him in utter depression through their aged, wrinkled windows and slacking doors. They communicated their angst to him, fearing their demise to make room for something better. He attempted to reassure them in his mind, letting them know that their place in this town would remain the same, at least for a while. The slow and torturous battle to topple the regime did nothing to fill the pockets of the liberated people with gold or silver. There would be no en-masse renovation of the town, no industrious wealth that would pay to line the streets with gold and build new, fancy houses for everyone. Everything was the same, and yet, as they all knew, completely different.
In the still gray he made his way around a tall building which contained the little patio café he once frequented as a younger man. That was a time and a place filled with less worry for him. The realities of the world at the time were drinking caffeine in the mornings after a long night and saving money for the weekly trips he made down the coast. Those were some of the best times of his life; his youthful ignorance combined with adolescent hormones did not leave much space or time in which to think about the horrible conditions around him. Like most young people, when he did think about, he felt like there was nothing he himself could do, having no voice, and so decided not to let it trouble him too much. He spent his weekends sailing south with his friends, landing at different harbor towns where the conditions of government were not so limiting, and where they could meet up with local girls and take them dancing. He never got serious with any of them, nor they with him, and the whole thing flashed by so that he often wondered what had happened to those summer days. There was a girl, once, that meant something to him, but such memories seemed so far away right now. He had other things to worry about now. Even the condition of the building seemed to tell him to forget about all of that, at least for now. The awnings were old and ragged, beaten by the ocean winds; the metal chairs and tables around the outside, which were once dark green and new, were now painted in odd colors to make the appearance of a fresh appeal. He moved on, both physically and mentally, and turned the corner: there it was. Everything. The centre square, the history, the crowd, the decades of suppression and stealing, the capitol building that symbolized everything bad.
He stood before it, beneath it, it seemed. Even with the consideration of all the negative connotations that its walls, its rooms held for him and the people, it could not be denied that it was a magnificent construct. A classical architectural design carried out in the finest fashion. The white stone used in its exterior made the building rise out and above the meager surroundings, though it would have stood out regardless, only this made it seem more impressive still, if not out of place. The building looked solid, heavy, immovable, and yet it was all a fallacy, a mere costume over the reality of the state which was quickly crumbling within its sturdy foundation. The whiteness of the building, the visage it presented to all who saw it and admired it cast a shadow of irony upon not only its immediate surroundings, but so far as the description of it had been carried by the mouths of strangers. It was time for that shadow to fall and be cast no more.
Between the man and the building was a crowd of about eight hundred assembled. As he entered the centre square, he felt the air escape from the entire area as all his kinsmen, their wives, their children turned and put their eyes upon him in total silence. The man expected loud cheers, and would have hated it, so this was a strangely pleasant surprise. He stood there, aware of his accompanied loneliness, and stared up at the top of the building, where the damned flag still rested. It was dead, at least. Dead like the government for which it once flew. The thing appeared to him as a blood-soaked handkerchief which was unable to stop the fatal hemorrhage which had slowly bled the people as they toiled for no comfort whatsoever. He thought of burning it, but then, for a second, his mind was sure that it was drenched in blood, and that because of that it wouldn’t burn, but then he realized how foolish he seemed to himself, making reality out of a vision.
He shook himself out of the trance, and began walking to the building. The crowd parted as had the Red Sea, allowing him to pass through untroubled, and then coming together again as if to block the horrific past, or to drown it as it tried to catch him and pull him back. When he reached the top of the stone steps, he leaned back and took a last look at the building standing so tall above him. He turned and faced the crowd slowly. As he lifted the sledgehammer, he heard the sound of a woman break down and cry somewhere to his left. He knew it was the sort of release that didn’t need consolation, it was held in for so long and now was finally able to escape freely, unrestrained. It created a strangely serene background music for what he was about to do.
The man got in his stance, legs wide apart and bent at the knees. He elevated the massive hammer in the air with his powerful arms; this move was followed by a thousand eyes and by a communal anticipatory gasp which took all the air in the centre square and left a vacuum, a neutral moment suspended in time. The man bent his body back, and then swung with all his might at the carved stone topping the stone steps. The first strike was almost deafening in the silence, like thunder, as the metal blasted through the white stone, sending vibrations through the man’s arms and chest; with pieces and chunks of marble flying in every direction, hitting the onlookers who were closest on their hands and faces and their children, too.
No one moved. They didn’t mind it as they stood there watching with a strange sort of determination, as if watching the man would help him, would give him more strength, or perhaps imagining that they were the ones swinging the hammer, and they were so busy doing it, they didn’t even think about anything else. They just stared at him as he swung.
No one cheered, either. The whole thing was surreal and quiet. Masses stood together in diligent silence, as if a strict order had been issued, and they were like soldiers in formation: all standing perfectly still, facing the same direction, in complete silence. It would have made the man feel strange to have this total attention on him, but he was blind and deaf to it all. So engrossed was he with his current purpose that even had a giant cheer shot at him from their mouths as he took the first swing, he would not have heard it. His whole life at that moment was to swing.
He swung for all the people standing there, watching him. He swung for the remembrance of the past, the learning of the present, and the betterment of the future. He swung to the end of the regime. He swung that hammer again and again like a crazed maniac, increasing the intensity at points, and slowing down now and again to take a massive swing at a certain spot, sometimes yelling, grunting, all the while breathing heavily and sweating vividly; the dust flying around sticking to his wet flesh and slowly turning him the same color as the building.
The man did not stop swinging until his arms could no longer lift that instrument of destruction, of rebirth. All the time the chunks of stone and the bricks were flying, and someone finally picked up a single broken piece of that building and took it with them back to their simple home. Immediately, the rest of the people began to pick and choose from the debris, some selecting several smaller stones, and others opting on oversized ores. This way they would always remember, and they would always know they finally got something back from that corrupted building that held within it even more corrupted men.
When the man could no longer swing, he fell to his knees, clutching the wooden handle like an old man clutches his cane for support. As the dust settled on and around him, the crowd watched the man, and, exhausted in a peaceful way, he turned to face the crowd. The dust had accreted onto his body in such a way that he looked like a statue made of the same material as the building. He hoisted himself up after a moment, and stood strong and tall at the top of the steps, the handle of the hammer in his right hand, standing tall next to him, the weapon of a true hero. The people watched him and captured the image of the man statue standing in front of the broken building with its blood flag still above, and knew they would never forget the sight. It lasted only a moment, for the man himself did not realize the image he was projecting, and after only a moment of unspoken Grace and everlasting poignancy, he began coming down the steps. Finally, several persons made their way to him. Two men hoisted him up by his arms while a third man, not as large, but still well built, took the hammer in hand. A woman wiped the man’s face with her dress, bringing it back to its leathery tan shade, and yet another brought him a cupful of drink. They sat him down at the other end of the Centre Square, and he watched as the building slowly came down, and even more slowly the crowd dwindled away.
The romance of it began fading with the clouds, and as darkness approached, it became impractical to continue with the sledgehammer. A home-made explosive was placed within the heart of the building once the crowd had mostly dispersed on its own, a long fuse was drawn out of it, and quite unceremoniously lit. While the fuse hissed on to its ultimate end, the makeshift bomb team got as far away as they could and took shelter in the surrounding buildings. The tension grew as they all watched through windows, from behind fences and even behind trees. The fuse ran sparkling down the center of the square samely named, climbed briskly up the stone steps, and quickly disappeared within the front doors. A deadly silence followed.
It seemed to take longer than it should, and like it always is with these things, apprehension and wonderment filled the minds and guts of the onlookers. There is never a good time to decide whether to come out and check or to wait it out in the name of safety. This is the position the men were in now. As the men glanced from the building to each other and back, they were haunted by this final stand the building was making. No one dared to move.
Hours seemed to pass, and every few seconds, minutes to them, someone would start forward and fall back immediately, every ounce of courage draining just as quickly as it had come. The men were in total silence, and never once did any of them invite his neighbor to be hero and step forward. They were men unlike men, completely aware of each other, but completely shut up within themselves. Eyes turned red while staring, teeth were grinding down unknowingly, and hands, fingers were grabbing on to anything that was nearby for support. The air was thick with the tension, and the weight of it came down on the men with increasing pressure, until they felt they were about to explode themselves.
Finally, one dared. It was a man in his early thirties with a brave face and a work ridden body. He climbed over the fence that once offered him protection, and slowly, very slowly, and looking back frequently, he left a snail trail in the dirt with his boots. The men watched as he closed the distance between himself and the building, and when he was precisely in the center of the Square, the bomb went off.
The explosion was silent, it seemed, and everything was as if in slow motion. First, a bright flash emanated from the inside of the building, shooting rays through the windows and then the roof, causing everyone to freeze, and in the next instant, the pulse of air was felt as it radiated outward, followed immediately by the recovery of sound, a deafening roar from which everyone shrank, and the blast, which shook the ground violently and rattled the buildings all around. Everyone fell back and took cover, the man in the center of the square lying flat on the ground. They all got their eyes and ears and senses back slowly, and watched the building collapse into itself now that all the pieces from the explosion had been shot out. The large man watched as the pole on which the red flag had once flown lost its footing and toppled over, becoming nothing more than the heart of the rubble.
The building was finally dead; the heart within it no longer beating. The blood, which had for so long run cold through its veins, had long since been bled out. The head, with its evil thoughts and its dictatorial thinking, was more recently separated from the body, now dismembered, and that had allowed the people to finally come together and put an end to the whole thing. The final step had been to bring down the tough outer shell, the building, so that no other force could ever find its way into it and bring it back to life. Some men argued that the building itself did not deserve destruction, and it was the most beautiful building by far, but everyone knew that they would never be able to take one step within those doors with a sense of peace. Thus it was done.
One by one, the men stood up and came out from their hiding places, staring in awe at the now demolished building. It’s hard to describe what thoughts go through a person’s head in a moment like this, but the certain thing is that all of their thoughts were separate and unique. One may well cheer inwardly at the absolute destruction of the regime, while another might wonder what life will hold for him and his family in the coming seasons. Lost in these thoughts and more, a part of eternity passed by, unmoved, undisturbed, the simple fantasies of simple men playing out without restraint and within their minds. The men moved slowly and apart from themselves in this ethereal state, until at last one of the men realized that the man at the center of the square was not getting up. At his beckon, several of the men rushed the spot, but not the large man; he merely stared in that direction. He began walking towards the rubble with a deliberate step, not even stopping as he passed by the group of men at the center surrounding the still figure of their brother; attending to him in any way they knew how, which was not much. The large man continued on his way, climbing over rocks and glass and pieces of furniture, all broken and jagged.
At last he found what he was looking for at the center of the rubble. He used his knife to cut the flag from the bent pole; he didn’t make a great effort to cut cleanly, and it’s possible to imagine that the knife really didn’t do as much work cutting as his hands did in tearing the fabric. He then folded the thing over his hand like a bandage, and made his way back to the center of the Square. The men moved out of his way, and he looked down at the body of a man he had known a good number of years, now lifeless, gone. His face expressed fear, possibly from the tremulous walk, the heroic footsteps he had taken just before the bomb went off. Blood was inching its way along the fibers of his shirt, radiating in an imperfect circle away from his heart. The man covered the body with the flag. There was nothing else to do. Someone suggested having the piece of stone removed from his body. Glances of consideration shot back and forth in the group, but none spoke.
They moved him to a nearby house, and a message was sent to his young wife and his two children, an unexpected tragedy in the yet unstable joy of the current circumstances. She wept bitterly through such emotions that only a few can really understand, and no one should ever have to bear, and only later did she find solace in knowing that hers was a brave man, and professing resentment, bitterness, hatred at the cowardice of the stupid, useless men that allowed him to go out there on his own. The men could say nothing to counter this, but the wives of those men were secretly glad for that cowardice, and soon everyone would move forward, past a dreadful moment in time, to reach a furtive peace.
The next morning, at the first light, the town gathered to give final rest to the man; the church graveyard was the place, and solemn songs were sung as the body, simply wrapped in that blood-soaked flag, was brought forth. Words of bravery, of courage, and of what this life just lost signified for the greater humanity were spoken. Women stepped forward and placed white roses across the body, some squeezing the stiff hand of the man through the cloth and whispering inaudible short phrases as they did so, then they returned to their families. The stone slab on which the body rested was placed over a dark hole in the ground, which had been quickly and laboriously dug out throughout the night by a determined group of men; the same men who had been there when the bomb went off. A few other men had also helped, but none worked harder than those who felt guiltiest, for reasons known only to their individual consciences. The night had been still and silent, only the sound of metal cutting through dirt was heard continuously throughout the night like a dark pendulum, a monotone, to drive home the reality of the tragedy into the hearts and minds of the men. Conversation was non-existent, and words were limited to requests for water and to pass the pick or shovel. The grave was completed just a few minutes before the ceremony, and it’s possible that the timing of the ceremony was entirely reliant on the completion of the grave. Now the men were standing around, dirty and tired, but feeling just slightly more at peace with themselves.
The flag would be buried with the man; the blood of so many people shed over time would finally be laid to rest in peace. At the head of the tomb was placed the carved keystone from the arch that just the day before stood over the front door to the Building. It depicted a magnificent lion in a prowling stance, the mouth open, roaring; a bold symbol of what that government had been to the people, a fearsome predator. As they began to lower the body into eternal rest, the clouds parted a little to the east, and rays of bright sunshine broke through and bathed the body of the man, the red flag vibrant and powerful, but subdued by the intense white purity the rose petals gave off in the sunlight. It was God’s acceptance of the circumstances. It was time to leave the past to the annals of time, to preserve the present with clarity in action and purpose, and to look ahead for a better future, never forgetting the price that people pay to ease the suffering and provide for the comfort of others.

The last life taken. The end of the regime.

The Beginning.