{"id":2051,"date":"2016-01-23T13:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T18:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2051"},"modified":"2016-01-30T14:26:20","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T19:26:20","slug":"scene-11","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/?page_id=2051","title":{"rendered":"Scene 11"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\"15chicago\"<\/p>\n

Althea and Lucille continue their conversation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Once you did what?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I chose to die, I charged into the guns. For real.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Uh, pardon my stating the obvious, but you seem to be alive.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

In Chicago a couple years ago.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Do you take me for a total retard? Kamikazes die, and Chicago died.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

You wanna hear it, or don\u2019t you? Good. To continue, we fancied ourselves kamikazes. Japanese for the divine wind that wrecked an invading fleet way back. The Chinese Armada or something. We liked the poetry of it. I\u2019d volunteered because my friends had, and that was about all that mattered. I was terrible weak but still tough and stringy, put in a middle rank. The young\u2019uns were up front, the weakest at the back. \u00a0Even if them in back couldn\u2019t make it into the killing zone, they\u2019d still die soon enough from exhaustion or exposure. Long after the big rushes, sometimes you\u2019d still hear the guns popping away, picking off them who had to stagger or even crawl into the firing zone. So anyway, we started to charge, and right away I could hear the guns. All over the place. I was a wreck, but all pumped up with adrenaline. Still, best I could do was a brisk walk. I made it into the firing zone, and I remember hoping that I\u2019d get one right through the head. I mean, the worst thing was to get shot in the leg and fall into a ditch and get burned alive by the helicopters after it was all over. Know what I mean?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

(smirks)<\/em> Yeah, I hate it when that happens.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

But I didn\u2019t get hit.\u00a0In fact, the guns in my sector weren\u2019t firing at all. You could see the gunners sitting there at their guns, but they weren\u2019t doing anything at all. Already dead, but I have no idea how that happened. Well, we kept going, right up to that wall, and there was some kind of long-range crossfire cutting into us for a while, but not too effective, and even that stopped. Bodies were piled right up to the wall, mostly children on the bottom, and that was kind of, uh, unsettling. I mean, we were supposed to be dead already, and nobody had ever figured out what to do if we ever got that far. Like the stupid dog that finally caught the car. But us folks coming up behind, what the hell, we just kept going cuz keep going straight ahead was all we knew, and I figured there had to be gunners on the other side to finish us off. But as I made it over the top, there was now this pile of crushed bodies on the other side too, so I walked down it like it was the Easter Parade. Thousands of us all together.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

And you were free!<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Well, sort of. But free to do what?\u00a0One minute we were in hell, next we were in this nice residential neighborhood, shade trees and all, and we could see some white folks running away, so we wandered around for a few blocks and cleaned out a couple of small grocery stores and broke into some houses, but we never got too far from the wall. \u00a0Like a housecat who suddenly finds the back door open.\u00a0I guess we were expecting this mighty army of white people to suddenly descend on us and kill us all, them being such monsters. And I suppose the white folks were expecting us to come rushing through their streets with knives and clubs killing everybody we saw, us being such savages, you know. But mostly we were just dazed, wandering around like night of the living dead. Maybe some of us even began thinking about living, but what the hell did that mean? Nothing was making sense. I mean, this went on for a day and half, everybody confused and scared, but nothing happening, nothing at all, except for the weakest of us dropping dead and these helicopters flying overhead, doing nothing but watching.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

I don\u2019t believe \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Then, late that afternoon, there\u2019s this rumble, and we figure, this is the end. So I\u2019m looking down some long avenue, and there\u2019s this big truck, a big semi, lumbering down the road, and it turns into this whole convoy of trucks, heading straight for us. When the lead truck got about 100 yards away, one of the copters dropped out of formation and you could see its Gatling guns swiveling to take a bead and we hear this click, strangely loud. Then quick as a flash, rockets shoot out of two other copters flanking either side of the road, and the copter that was taking aim turns into a ball of fire and hits the ground. Blam! And all the other copters just keep formation as these trucks pull up to us. What the fuck? Then these two great big white farmers, wearing overalls and checked shirts and mud stuck to their boots, biggest hayseeds you could imagine, get out and go to the back of the truck, and they come back to us, looking scared but determined, carrying these bushels of apples, set \u2019em down on the ground in front of us. And folks in all the other trucks start doing the same, all sorts of tomatoes and corn and everything, and our folks, a few run away panicked out of their minds, but the rest start passing the food back and stuffing what they can into their mouths, and y\u2019know, getting sick all over the place because it\u2019d been so long since they ate.. Nobody says a word. But we all know something beautiful is going down here. Almost religious. Me, I\u2019m thinking, this doesn\u2019t make sense, but it\u2019s happening, and folks everywhere gotta hear about it.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Hear what? That white people are our friends?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

I\u2019m not saying that. But these white people \u2026 who were they, how did they know to come to us, how did this all get organized? I mean, it wasn\u2019t supposed to be \u2014 that much I do know. Yet it was. It was totally mind-blowing. So this old man, he tells me I gotta travel, shows me how to hotwire a car, tells me about the steering wheel and brakes and siphoning gas out of tanks and stuff, cuz I had never driven a car, of course. But I pick up on it real quick, and by then it\u2019s getting pretty dark, and I drive off alone into the twilight, not knowing where I\u2019m going or what I\u2019m gonna do, but figuring I gotta do something. It turns into this dark and stormy night, and I\u2019m driving faster and faster down this spooky country road, and there\u2019s no other cars out there, I don\u2019t know why. And \u2026 and \u2026 (sobs)<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

So you\u2019re driving down this country road. You\u2019re running away \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Not running away. No! Thinking about what was going on back there, and who could I tell, and all confused and crying and terrified and feeling, I don\u2019t know, free in some way. Like I was flying. And wanting to get out of the car and start screaming something like \u201cit\u2019s all different, you don\u2019t know, it\u2019s all been lies!\u201d And then there\u2019s like this voice in my head, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t look back,\u201d and I\u2019m thinking what the fuck, when all of a sudden it gets all light and it\u2019s like this giant fist hits the car and I really am flying, me and the car, flying through the air like I was the fucking Dukes of Hazzard. The treetops all around me light up like they was torches and my car hits the road and bounces hard a couple of times but somehow I hold the road and keep driving on like I was driving through the canyons of hell. Finally I hit the brakes and turn around and get out of the car to look back, and the whole horizon is lit up real bright, and there\u2019s this huge glowing purplish cloud over where Chicago had been, and I knew what had happened, fell sobbing down onto the pavement like I was just going to lie down there and die.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

But instead \u2026<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

But this voice, it seemed like, says to me, \u201ctell the story, tell them that nothing happened,\u201d and I freak out, tell who, and what do you mean, nothing happened, they just blew up Chicago, ain\u2019t that something, though it\u2019s just me out of my mind talking to myself. But this nothing happened thing keeps echoing in my head, and then it starts making sense in a nonsense kind of way, all this stuff was supposed to happen, everyone knew it, and it didn\u2019t, and I didn\u2019t know what to make of it, but it was like I got this almost religious feeling, and mind you, I\u2019ve never been religious a day in my life, this feeling that I had this duty to tell the story no matter how much I wanted to die right on the spot. So I got back in the car and drove and drove until dawn, then pulled over and slept all day behind some barn. For days, that\u2019s what I did, drove all night, siphoning gas out of cars when I had to, sleeping in the car by day, a pile of coats over my head, sticking to back roads and avoiding most of the traffic, wasn\u2019t too much of that anyway. Till I made it to the ruins of Brooklyn. By then I was a total zombie. I don\u2019t remember why I headed for Brooklyn, but once I was there, wrecked buildings all around, I had nothing left. I was sick, I was hungry. \u00a0I was dying. I just lay on the hood of my car, and waited. For a half a day. I still don\u2019t know how the revolutionary headquarters found me, or why. But they did, carried me on a stretcher through the tunnels, past the Ministry patrols, and I\u2019ve been here since.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

And since you were such a wreck they elected you head of the godalmighty Supreme Revolutionary Headquarters? Fearless leader? Doesn\u2019t add up.<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

And why does anything have to add up? No. My nickname was the Witch Queen, I had this messianic energy, or I was plain crazy if you prefer, and I\u2019ve never lost it, while everyone else had stopped believing and were just acting out their revolutionary rituals. And, I\u2019m not sure how to put it, but Chicago had cleared my head. So, besides having hope, I wasn\u2019t too blind. Blinded, to be precise. I decided to play for time, even though my gut instinct, in some ways, is still that we have no time, everything is collapsing around us, and we have to do desperate deeds now. But them that did desperate deeds, brave revolutionary gestures, they\u2019re all dead. And those without hope hadn\u2019t the heart to stand in my path, especially after a few of them turned up floating face down. And I took the lead in stabilizing relations with the Ministry.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

You did what?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Stabilized relations with the Ministry. We had to. You really think we could just live on rats?<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

With our murderers!<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Yeah, with our murderers. It’s a cruel deal. We direct workers to the Ministry\u2019s African Improvement Association to work on the bloody tower \u2026<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

Tower?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

That\u2019s another story. We send workers to build the Ministry’s tower over in Africa, and we get enough food to keep a certain percentage of the rest of us alive. That’s Section 1.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

And Section 2?<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

Crueler yet. We keep charging the wall. We die. It’s a glorious spectacle for all. Brutal repression versus crazed savages, usually around the networks’ sweeps week. If you must know, more viewers tune in than for the damned Superbowl and World Series combined. But per subparagraph (h), secret subparagraph (h), not everyone sent to the tower ends up in the tower. Where do they go, you’re dying to ask? Dunno. I don\u2019t wanna know, because what I don\u2019t know I can\u2019t betray. But they get diverted, so to speak, and they\u2019re out there somewhere in that big old world, trying to figure out how to spread my message. Everyone out there\u2019s got to hear it, not just us. Chicago. Nothing happened. For two days, anyway. Nothing happened. It\u2019s subversive. It\u2019s far more destructive than any of the flaming jive that my predecessors were hawking. Maybe that\u2019s why they had to blow it up. Call it politics, they can crush it. Call it religion, it has a certain elasticity. Whether it\u2019ll be enough, I probably won\u2019t live to find out. But it\u2019s hope. Nothing is more valuable than hope, and nothing is our hope.<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

You craven traitor! You cut a deal with the bloody Ministry? You\u2019d betray our brothers and sisters into slavery for their pathetic handouts?\u00a0In the name of the revolution? You\u2019re sick! You\u2019re mad!<\/p>\n

Lucille<\/h4>\n

(stands)<\/em> I\u2019m not mad. Or not only mad. Everyone betrays everyone, I betray the revolution, the Ministry betrays its masters, the only ones who don\u2019t betray someone are the dead, and I\u2019m not even so sure I can trust them. But know ye this, I am your messiah! Your fucking messiah! I tell you, you must believe. And what you must believe in is nothing. Nothing! Nothing!<\/p>\n

Althea<\/h4>\n

I\u2019ll see you dead! (Althea stands up. Althea slaps Lucille. Lucille\u2019s head snaps around.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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previous scene next scene Althea and Lucille continue their conversation. Althea Once you did what? Lucille I chose to die, I charged into the guns. For real. Althea Uh, pardon my stating the obvious, but you seem to be alive. … 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-2051","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P77v4L-x5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2051","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=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2376,"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2051\/revisions\/2376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeinspice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}