{"id":2036,"date":"2016-01-23T11:36:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T16:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2036"},"modified":"2016-01-30T14:10:43","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T19:10:43","slug":"scene-7","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2036","title":{"rendered":"Scene 7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\"07tigresses02\"<\/p>\n

Two Black women in an underground ruin sitting at a small table. Lucille wears some kind of semi-military garb, Althea is just scruffy, except for her helmet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

So did they even get close?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Late afternoon on a clear day. Young\u2019uns took the first ranks, all hopped up about dying just like grownups. The old, crippled and sick brought up the rear. Gunner squads waited until they be well within range, one hand on their triggers, the other on their dicks. Another 40,000 be gone. No, Althea, they didn\u2019t get close.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Comrade Lucille, I don\u2019t mean to be presumptuous \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

But \u2026<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Yeah. But, can\u2019t we strategize these attacks better? You know, basic tactics, like using cover of darkness, coordinating the charge, targeting the gaps, feints and diversions, special teams for penetration and demolition, stuff like that? I mean, we weren\u2019t even armed! That bespeaks a low level of political consciousness.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

You pushin\u2019 the Boston model?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Not exactly.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Not exactly. Boston\u2019s rap sheet on you was quite succinct. Quote:\u00a0 Highly talented but can be a royal pain in the ass. Unquote.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Boston didn\u2019t quite get \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Look, honeychile. Don\u2019t you be lecturing me about what they get, eh? You don\u2019t get shit. For sure we don\u2019t plan these runs. The timing is set by hunger. Order established by capacity to advance. Those go forward who are willing to go forward. Welcome to the godalmighty Supreme Revolutionary Headquarters!<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

In Boston we tried \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

And in Boston you died \u2026<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

But at least we died trying \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Boston says they sent you here to report. So report. The state of the Boston wing is?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Moving methodically to victory. Our forces achieving hegemony among the three main factions, the few deviationist tendencies increasingly isolated \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Which means that your Vanguard National Movement is expecting to bushwhack the other groups. Correct?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

I suppose one could interpret it that way.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

And how\u2019s that going?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

While there seems to be a temporary artificial equilibrium in mobilized strength among the factions, the Vanguard National Movement has successfully exposed their cowardly opportunism and expects that when \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Just what the fuck are they doing?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Rallying advanced elements and \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Comrade, do you think I got no idea what\u2019s the real deal? You oughtta be wondering whether I\u2019m trying to spec out Boston, or trying to spec out you. But perhaps my inquiry could be more particular. What does the Vanguard National Movement eat?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

What we eat?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

What you eat.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Naturally, we combine tactical flexibility in acquiring supplies with our people\u2019s natural creativity to \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

What do you eat?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Uh, rats.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I see. Fresh rats or moldy old maggoty rats.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s hard to say \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

But I\u2019m sure your diet exhibits tactical flexibility and natural creativity. I don\u2019t suppose you could give me an equally forthright account of your struggle for hegemony? Concrete acts.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

We\u2019ve begun \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

You for sure know that filing a sham report with HQ is a 3rd-level deviation. Even if the official reprimand is delivered with sharp bloody sticks instead of bullets?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

(sobs)<\/em> We scurry through the cellars and fight it out with whatever weapons we can make, a few that even shoot. We keep killing them, but we are fewer and fewer \u2026 (shouts)<\/em> I don\u2019t even know if any of us are still alive right now! This message they gave me to convey \u2026 oh, no \u2026 it couldn\u2019t be that \u2026 it was so important \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

\u2026 they thought you were worth saving, they sent you here to save your sorry life.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

No, they said \u2026 it was important \u2026 you had to be told \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

As though I didn\u2019t have my own connections. (breaks out in hysterical laughter, which turns into a sob, gets control)<\/em> Althea, my dear, you stand accursed in the very worst way.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Accused of what?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Accursed! \u2026 Accursed! Accursed! To live. To wonder why you were spared when you are no better, no more clever \u2026<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

No, my report \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Doubly accursed! Cursed to wonder and wander, when it all would have been so simple if an incendiary round had just ripped between your lovely eyes. Oh my precious sister!<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

You\u2019re mad!<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

And that\u2019s a problem because?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

I\u2019ve heard about you. Elitist tendencies, collaborationism, opportunism, refusal \u2014flat out refusal \u2014 to provide our people with revolutionary leadership. Case in point, today. Another 40,000 comrades, our brothers and sisters, our children, torn to pieces, cut down like animals. And you sit here unmoved that the fires lighting our skies are their burning bodies, and \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille interrupts her with a right to the jaw, sits back down while Althea rolls around slowly on the floor and finally tries to pull herself back up.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I wanted straight talk from you. I\u2019ll give you the same. To restate what you should know, the perspective of the godalmighty Supreme Revolutionary Headquarters is that it\u2019s better they die out there charging that wall than die cutting each other to ribbons in here day after day after day. You got a problem with that?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

(one hand clutching her chair)<\/em> What the fuck you talking about?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Do you know what it was like in here after everything went to hell, while the Ministry kept tightening the perimeter, with us all crammed into lower Manhattan? Fuck your high conceptual framework. Mobs of drug-crazed kids with machine guns cruised around in caravans turning every street into a free fire zone. Men slashed the throats of wives and girlfriends and children and then their own, despairing of their destroyed manhood. Whole blocks were dying slow from disease. Half the community walked around in a constant rage ready to kill anyone in their path, the rest living in constant terror And then they burned Brooklyn, hundreds of thousands of us swimming over \u2014 yes swimming \u2014from burning Brooklyn. The stronger trying to pick their way across a raft of the drowned bodies of the weaker before the currents pulled them all into the ocean \u2014 forced to choose between the water and the flames.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

(finally pulling herself into her chair, slumping against the table)<\/em> That\u2019s why we built the wall.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Dumkopf! We didn\u2019t build the wall \u2014 they did! White dollars, white troops, white construction teams. And our politicians claiming credit like it was some damned community development project, some new senior center or swimming pool. Then, the first time folks tried to cross over \u2014 to return to their families, to look for work, just to go scratch around for food, the scraps of wrath \u2014 they were gunned down by snipers. Snipers on both sides of the wall! Black and white both! Didn\u2019t they teach you anything about those days, before the gunners?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

No. They didn\u2019t teach us any of that.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I know. That\u2019s not your bad.\u00a0\u00a0 Why I don\u2019t just order you to do a single-handed General Custer. I mean, it\u2019s not your fault that the Vanguard didn\u2019t teach you more than the Little Golden Book of the people united who will never be defeated. But it\u2019s for damn sure your bad that you never dug any deeper, that you swallowed it so easy when the lies were everywhere around you, those inflicted by the Ministry, those inflicted by the African Improvement Society, and those inflicted by the Orthodox Revolutionary Headquarters. Ever listen? Just listen, listen to the occasional rumbling beneath your feet, ever wonder what it means?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

I wonder about the duplicity of the godalmighty Supreme Revolutionary Headquarters.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t press your luck. So just how should our community die?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Revolution is the alternative to both your false options.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Right. You mean like Boston? The perspective of the godalmighty Supreme Revolutionary Headquarters is that it\u2019s better that some die out there charging that wall than that we all die slashing each other to ribbons in here day after day after day. Please address that?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Dead is dead, goddamn you! Dead is dead! What difference does it make, how we die? It may as well be \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

The point, chile, is how we live. Maybe you don\u2019t notice, but we\u2019ve got a certain dignity around here. Those that died today, they\u2019re our heroes, our chosen ones. They choose to starve so the rest of the community might eat. And when they finally get too weak, most of them, when they get so weak they can barely make the run at all, then they go for the gusto. Prunes the population and keeps up the notion of resistance at the same time.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

That\u2019s sick!<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Yes, it is. Way sicker than you know. But because of their noble sacrifice, we maintain some semblance of a dignified life, enough that we can keep organizing for a better day, so that if opportunity arose, there\u2019d be enough of us left in condition to actually do something. Smaller and smaller, we get, but we maintain some cohesion, some hope<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Hope for what?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t know. I just want us ready. I listen for the trains.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

And you, madam commander, if you\u2019re so goddamn noble, how come you never signed up for the final run.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Oh, but once I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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previous scene next scene Two Black women in an underground ruin sitting at a small table. Lucille wears some kind of semi-military garb, Althea is just scruffy, except for her helmet. Althea So did they even get close? Lucille Late … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2036","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P77v4L-wQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2036"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2367,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2036\/revisions\/2367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}