Fading, Like the Stars

I watched as they took the woman away.

I watched them as they dragged her off the road and pushed her into the vehicle, without a care. Everyone else in the street was cautiously looking away, pretending that they could not see. But I couldn’t tear my gaze off of what was happening. My blood was pounding in my ears, so loud that I was deaf to all other sounds around. Fear made my throat constrict in a painful way. I dug my hands in my pockets, deeper, to hide their trembling.

Everyone around me seemed oblivious of what was happening, but I couldn’t look away. The light of the morning sun was reflected on their guns and on the shiny buttons of their uniforms. It was captivating me in an almost sickening way. I should have been more careful, but there was something about the woman that rendered me incapable of moving. Her face. Her eyes, which were glinting strangely, as if tears were invading them. She looked so scared, so vulnerable, as the soldiers roughly grabbed her.

Suddenly, the woman looked up, and her eyes met mine. Hers held a silent plea, but mine were only wide with fear.

I lowered my head, ashamed.

Don’t react. Don’t acknowledge what is going on. Follow the example set by everyone around you. Don’t pay attention. This is a usual thing. This is nothing out of the ordinary.

And then, suddenly, it was all over. The dark SUV left in a screeching of tires. The soldiers were gone. And so was the woman. They had taken her away with them. I didn’t know to where exactly, but I knew that she would never come back. What her crime was, I didn’t know. Nearly everything was a crime nowadays. I didn’t know what her crime was, but I knew what her punishment would be. Death. Nothing less than death. Always death.

My head was throbbing, and I was feeling dizzy. With a start, I realized that I had been holding my breath all along.

They’d been so close to get me, though. So close to get me…

I breathed again. Carefully. As if the air that filled my lungs could be poison. As if every breath was precious. Because every breath was precious. I sure knew that. It could easily end tomorrow. It could very easily have ended this morning.

I wondered who the woman had been, if there was someone, somewhere, who was expecting her return and would be missing her. She had just disappeared, and no one in the street had seemed bothered. This was how awful life had become… And me? How much longer would I be holding on? I knew for a fact that no one would bother if it was me that they came to take. I knew that there was no one out there who would wait for my return, no one left to miss me.

But I couldn’t let these thoughts linger for too long. I had to move on, always move on. And Hell knew I had been moving for a long time now. I had started running so long ago, so, so long ago. But I still remembered what it was like, before. I still remembered how it was like before the Authorities barged in, and my entire life went up into flames, and I was forced to hide in the shadows.

I still remembered my mother’s last words.

Run, Aimée, run.

A gust of wind blew some dark strands of hair in my face, as if to remind me that the world around me was still spinning and that I had to keep moving with it. With a weary sigh, I moved on, I left the spot on the sidewalk from which I had been observing the soldiers as they arrested the woman. I quickly walked away, blending into the crowd, disappearing completely. I would say that I was getting good at this, making people forget that I was there, making it so that they didn’t notice me. But it wasn’t such a difficult thing. People were not paying attention. They naturally ignored those who were walking next to them. It wasn’t a difficult task, to go unnoticed.

Everyone around me was walking at a reasonably fast pace, and I adapted my pace to theirs, melting even more into the crowd. Pretending that I was one of them. It was still early in the morning. They were all hurrying to work. In an hour or so, the streets that were now jammed with people would be empty, deserted. By then, I had to be out of town, or have found a hiding place. I’d only be an easier target to spot, if it wasn’t the case.

I followed the crowd, pretending that I knew where I was going. I hoped to find those who were working outside town, in the farms, and follow them as they walked pass the walls. It was safer to be in the countryside because there was less surveillance there.

I glanced around me. I had heard that Europe was beautiful before. I wish I had seen that. I wish I had lived in those times. Around me now, it was all grey, unyielding concrete. A town like so many others. I didn’t even know its name. Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t stay. I was on the run. I had been on the run for such a long time that I wasn’t really sure what I was running from anymore, or why I was running. But I knew that I couldn’t stop. Not if I wanted to stay alive.

It hadn’t always been like this. There had been happier times. For me, and for the world. But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. I continued to follow the crowd as we made our way through the streets. I discreetly glanced at the people walking next to. They were all cautiously avoiding to look at each other. They were all hurrying, because they all had somewhere to go to. The man walking next to me caught my glance and threw me a rather nasty glare, before quickly looking away.

I couldn’t expect help from any of them, I knew that. I had learned long ago that there was nothing to expect from humanity anymore. What I had seen this morning was only comforting me in that thinking. No help would come from fellow human beings. The best I could hope from the persons surrounding me was ignorance and indifference.

I didn’t blame them for that, though. I was like them, before. I wasn’t aware; I didn’t realize that things had gotten so out of hand. Like them, I didn’t really know that it hadn’t always been like this, and that there had been a time, before the crisis, when freedom actually meant something. I knew what it was like to be blissfully ignorant, so I understood why they didn’t react.

Why, after all, would they be bothered by the fate reserved to a few rebels and outlaws? They were safe, they were happy, or at least they thought they were, because they hadn’t the faintest idea of what they were missing. I understood why the passers-by were all too oblivious of what was going on around them. When I was a child, I had trusted the Authorities too. That’s what we were taught. We were taught that they were there to care for us, we were taught that if we obeyed the government, then the government would care for us. The Authorities had, after all, been the ones that eventually managed to restore the economy.

That’s how it all began, with the economy crumbling down.

I don’t know what it was like before it all began. I wasn’t born before the Crisis, and I wasn’t born either when the situation was at its worst. I can only retell what I’ve been told. With the Crisis came poverty, governments fell, borders were closed because, after all, we couldn’t help everyone. That’s how it started: each man for themselves. You don’t worry about your neighbour that is hungry when your own children are dying.

But the situation only got worse.

And then, when things were at their worst, the Authorities emerged through the mist, promising a new order, a change in the way the world was working. It was no wonder that people agreed to put their fate in those promising hands. They did, after all, make things better, if only for a while. The change was slow, and people didn’t really notice it. All that they could see was that things were getting better. What did they care, really, to give up a bit of their free time, and a few of their hobbies, if it boosted the economy? What did they care, to follow orders, if orders meant that they would have a better life?

They trusted the Authorities, with their lives. That was exactly how it was. They did not see what was wrong. But it wasn’t their faults. I, too, had thought that it wasn’t so bad.

But then they came, killed my mother and burned my house. And I started to run. And I have been running ever since. Many years have passed. But I haven’t forgotten. I still see the flames whenever I close my eyes. I can still picture the look on my mother’s face when they accused her of rebellion, and then shot her.

My mind tried to block out the unpleasant memories in a sort of defensive way, and brought me back to reality. I cursed under my breath when I realized what was happening. The streets were slowly getting less populated. The crowd wasn’t so dense anymore. People were entering buildings and deserting the street.

I knew that there was no time to think about anything else than finding a safe place, and yet I had let my thoughts linger away. I knew that my own safety had to remain my only concern, but I still had lost precious time lost in my thoughts. I bit my lips in a gesture of annoyance. It was too late now to leave the town. I couldn’t risk a control. If that happened… If they opened my bag, and saw what was in it… If they saw the books I was carrying, then it would all be over… I would be dead even before having fully realized what was happening….

I had to go away. Find a place to hide, and do it quickly. This world was a mess, but there was nothing I could do to make it better. I thought about the woman again. Her face was already starting to fade away from my mind. Only my own life mattered. I didn’t have the time, the courage or the determination to worry about others.

I couldn’t change anything. I didn’t even want to try. I wanted peace more than anything. I wasn’t a fighter. I wasn’t rebellious by nature. I was only on the run because otherwise I would have died.

I didn’t want to fight my parents’ war.

I knew that there were a lot of things that were wrong with the world, but I didn’t want to be the one changing it. This world was a mess, and the only thing that mattered, for me, was to stay alive.