The city square was 50 yards away from our home, magnificent oak trees made a ring that outlined my neighborhood with a wondrous park in the center of the neighborhood. Beyond our homes In the distance, were large towering warehouses with distinguished shadows hovering over the town. Beyond that, stretched countless miles of the corporate farming grounds. Scattered between the farmlands were the detainment centers for those who had spoken out against the military-owned corporate empire which controlled our country and every movement of its people.
The park in the center of our neighborhood had a community plaza where people sold balloons and ice cream in the summer. It was easily viewable from my families front yard and was shared by families, lovers, and friends. Our country has been dominated by the military for 30 years. Anyone that questioned their tactics or corporal practices was murdered on sight. Even when my neighbors and friends spent time in the park people were cautious of what was said, as to not offend or be arrested. Within the last five years, the country has changed drastically and a national call to open free speech centers was demanded by the masses. The first free speech zone in the country was established no more than 50 yards in front of my house.
My mamma always said we were the first town to have a free speech zone because no one ever heard of us. It looked good to the press but no one ever came from the big cities to talk to us or see it. Until people gathered at the circle park in my front yard in the hundreds.
When it was illegal to speak your opinion in public, the censor police would shoot you immediately onsite, and then kidnap your family and slaughter them in front of the town.
That was over now, our country's president and his team had successfully ended the speech ban, and stated communities could now gather and shared ideals of morality, ethics, and principles in public. The city had installed a rustic looking square in the center of the park and called it the protest ring, two steel podiums which rotated to face the outward or towards each other stood 8 feet apart. It started slow, like small drops of water. Someone would walk to the stand nervously say a few inaudible words and run in fear for their lives.
People had been traumatized, but slowly like a pail collecting small drops of water, if not emptied, eventually will overflow. Close to five months had passed with no type of action. My brother and I would always be looking for some type of excitement and sometimes we would peek through that fence and look at those podiums wondering if anyone would ever use them.
Then one hot day in mid-July, a crowd of close to one hundred people gathered around a man whose voice sounded like thunder rolling over the crown. Grown folk could be seen looking over their shoulders for the censor police to arrive. All who gathered had a collective bond knowing in their hearts no matter what happened, if they were to be slotters by machine guns or blasted by the water cannons till their flesh ripped from the bone, my town gathered knowing that this space was a historic moment in time. The censor police never came, and those hundred people walked away feeling more inspired and liberated than they ever had in their lives.
Over the five months, the podiums gain a nickname called the protest pin because people would protest and engage with other speakers. They would debate like their lives depended on it. Like they were at one point close to death and finding revival by drinking water from a fresh spring in the middle of a desert.
My brother and I watched every event. Peaking out behind the wooden gate In our front yard. Only tall enough to see through the cracks in the wood but wise enough to listen.
One day, I remember a grown man who spoke, fueled by rage
“We’re being forced to participate in a system which we do not agree with.
The only jobs we can get in this town is at an organization owned by the corporate empire, who supports child labor, they create genetically modified foods that kill us, and create environmental theft and disaster anywhere they settle their factories. These organizations are literally killing us and hiring us at the same damn time. We demand these corporations leave our communities at once.”
A small child out of the crowd requested to speak, raising her small and dirty little hand she was encouraged to up by the crown. She couldn't see over the podium so her father lifted her to the stand.
I remember on that day My mother standing behind my brother and me. She didn’t usually take breaks to stop and listen to what the speakers in the protest pen were saying. She was always working on a project or doing something around the house. She would always say “why do I got to listen to these people’s problems when I have enough of my own." She believed her attention belonged only to her family. It was a commitment she made and an obligation she fulfilled with pride. She told my brother and I that day that anyone was allowed to speak on that stand, didn’t matter the age, didn’t matter the style. Everyone had access to the protest pen.
The little girl's voice cracked, she was almost in tears and with a gasp, she began to scream “We can’t keep doing this! The lands have dried up and died. We killed her! We destroyed our land. She has been poisoned. No plants can grow here anymore. People are sick, they’re dying. My mother is dying. She stopped abruptly. Her body looked like it was convulsing. Her father had set her down and was now at eye level asking in inaudible tones if she wished to keep going. She nodded and he raised her to the stand These big businesses don’t know how to treat the soil or the living things on this earth, we must make it stop!! We can all make it stop!!!
Her father turned her to face him, he kissed her forehead and cradled her like an infant disappearing into the crowd. I really wasn’t sure what she was saying. Even though she was only a few years older than me I still had trouble understanding it all. What did she mean we killed our earth. I looked up at my mother and wondered what it all meant. Just then a woman's scream could be heard from the crowd; run!! Run for your lives!!!
In the distance, the censor police could be seen marching in the distance. The government has been overthrown by the military, my mother whispered to us in panic. Just then the child who had been speaking freely moments before was seen running beside her father. The crowd began to run and scream in terror. Then over the cries, the crack of a machine gun let off. My mother told my brother to run for the fields she grabbed me and turned, the last thing I saw was the father of the litter girl with his hands in the air begging them to stop. His body dropped, his daughter hovered over him, just then she was shot in the head. The rest is a blur, my mother ran for her life and our freedoms to speech died that day. It died just like those I loved back in my town.
