Joseph’s bare feet left red liquid footprints on the cool, debris covered cement. He knew the small pebbles and splinters of wood that scattered the long, dark corridor lodged themselves deeper in the shreds of skin and muscle that were once his feet with every step he took. He gripped a long metal pole in one hand; his wrist shackled to it by a heavy chain. The burden that chaffed the very skin from his arm was now his only means of support. Joseph had long since lost feeling in most of his body.
At the end of the cement corridor, a crowd roared.
Days of teaching ancient history flooded Joseph’s brain. He could imagine himself walking into a den of lions, hundreds of civilians prepared to watch him fight to his death. A bloody gladiatorial competition waiting for him to be destroyed.
The click of the end of the metal pole against cement faded away as Joseph closed in on the end of the corridor. Weak light streamed in the open archway at the end, and the crowd grew louder. For once, Joseph was thankful his hearing was damaged.
Joseph stepped from the cement to the parched, grey grass of an old football field. The crowded stands roared louder at the sight of him; if anything was left in the world to throw, it would all be directed at Joseph.
Ignoring the muted insults that echoed from the crowd, Joseph walked straight ahead to the stage that had been set in the center of the field. It was a rickety, makeshift thing that trembled under Joseph’s weight as he ascended the few steps attached to it. Old remnants of wood and sheets of metal had been stuck together for this; it was an important event in the eyes of the remaining public, the wasted use of the few remaining building materials proved that.
A tight-faced woman awaited him on the stage. Miss Mary Lane, hard-hitting reporter of the news, desperate to seek the truth for you. It was the phrase everyone associated with the woman who dominated the TV screen Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights at ten and two. She was the one sent to attempt to destroy Joseph more than he already was.
“Mister Rayn,” she greeted. Joseph was impressed with her serenity, given the current state of things. Ms. Lane turned to the packed stadium and lifted the microphone to her lips, “Mister Joseph Rayn, ladies and gentlemen.”
Her voice boomed over the roaring crowd, but met Joseph’s ears as if she was speaking normally to him. He wondered how much wasted time had been spent on repairing the sound system in the crumbling stadium. Though he had expected where the priorities of the many had lay, it still shocked him that this was more important than repairing the desolate wasteland that had once been their world.
“Mister Rayn, Joseph,” Ms. Lane said, still speaking into the microphone. “You are aware of the ruined state of our world, correct?”
A short, squirrely man clipped a small microphone to the torn remnants of Joseph’s shirt and stuck a battery pack on his belt.
“Yes,” Joseph said. “I’m aware.” His voice was rough and his throat burned with each syllable that passed his cracked lips.
“And what caused this ruined state, Joseph?” Ms. Lane asked. The way she spoke, she talked down on him. Joseph was a whole head taller than her, with a thick metal pole even taller than him, but she spoke to him as if he was lower than the ground.
“What I believe was World War Three has caused this ruined state,” Joseph stated.
The crowd reacted strongly, erupting into an uproar of insults and violent movements. Ms. Lane raised a hand to calm them, waiting for them to settle before turning back to Joseph.
“No, Joseph,” Ms. Lane said. “It is you that has caused this; you and your band of rebels.”
The crowd cheered. Ms. Lane lifted her hand in the air.
Joseph scratched his scraggly chin with his unshackled hand. There had been no opportunity to shave, not for months. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that makes much sense.”
Ms. Lane raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. Joseph loathed her for taking time to worry about her immaculate image. She was even clothed in a clean, un-torn pantsuit; her hair styled just right.
“How is that, Joseph?” she asked.
“It’s plain logic, Ms. Lane,” he said. “If my ‘band of rebels’ and I had started this war, then why would we have gone to such lengths to stop it?” He felt almost guilty with a vague claim of ownership to the group. He had hardly been a key member until the end, which is probably why he is one of the few that survived.
Ms. Lane walked away from Joseph, covering the length of the stage. “Maybe, Joseph, maybe it was regret? Fear of being destroyed? An attempt to cover up the atrocity you caused?” She spun to face him again. “Yes, a cover-up. That’s it, right Joseph? To save your sorry selves, you pretended to be heroes, saviors?”
“You’re an intelligent woman, Ms. Lane. You know that is a ridiculous assumption,” Joseph said.
The crowded stadium had quieted to a point where Joseph was only barely aware of any noise they caused. All were intent upon the words passing between the reporter and the broken man.
“Let’s hear an explanation, then,” she said. “Convince us to believe that you have not caused the utter destruction of the world as we knew it.”
Joseph turned his eyes to the crowd. Every person was focused on him, ready for him to stumble over an expected lie, ready for the firing squad waiting outside the stadium to end his treacherous life.
He took a step forward, to the edge of the stage, the metal pole gripped tightly in his numb hand. “We’ve seen the mountains, the very mountains, crumble into the sea. We’ve seen the stars fall from the sky,” he began. “We’ve seen men and women, mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons fight for their lives, for a tomorrow that was never expected to come.”
Joseph loosened his grip on the metal pole, only to tighten his fingers around it again. “I’ve seen them wake up to the sun, and still not smile. Because of this war, because of what we have all done to this world, we have all seen things we were never meant to see. We have experienced things we were never meant to even know about.”
He took a few steps toward Ms. Lane and stopped again. He lifted a foot and examined its underside; stark white bone revealed itself between swollen flesh. Joseph grimaced and put his foot down. “We are all to blame, and we are all responsible.”
“Avoiding the question, I see, Joseph?” Ms. Lane asked.
Her voice booming over the sound system failed to excite the crowd.
“This ‘band of rebels’ you are so quick to blame is very well the only reason that you’re all not cowering in the dark somewhere. These ‘rebels’… You ought to be thankful that they’re the ones who died instead of you,” Joseph said. His knuckles burned as he strangled the pole with his hand; the first real feeling in his body for weeks.
“Yes, wielding a power far more terrible than anything our world has developed,” Ms. Lane said. “A power that would have killed us all, if they had not been stopped first.”
Joseph’s knuckles were on fire. “You can charge them with starting this war. You can blame them for the destruction. But you can never take credit for their deaths!” He clenched his teeth and kept his face lowered to the stage. “They died saving the world, not by your hands.”
Ms. Lane walked back to Joseph. “If that’s true, then why aren’t you dead with them?” she asked. “Why didn’t you die to save us, Joseph?”
Joseph didn’t respond, he didn’t even meet her eyes. His free hand clutched the tattered edge of his shirt.
“Why are you still here, Joseph?” Ms. Lane asked. She grabbed his chin and thrust his head up for the crowd to see his face. “Tell us the truth, Joseph! The world deserves to know!”
He pushed her away, knocking her in the face with the metal pole. It was an accident, the impact of metal to her perfectly designed face, but a pleasant one. She screamed as she fell backwards, her microphone fell from her hands and shattered on the stage.
The crowd roared at the stumble of its leader.
“I tell the truth!” Joseph shouted. His throat burned.
The crowd fell completely silent. They looked from one to another, each confused, insulted, even curious.
“If you had stood with them…” Joseph started. His voice cracked, his throat flamed. “If you had seen the sky…” His dried lips split along the corner of his mouth, releasing a thin stream of blood into his mouth and down his chin. “If you had heard…heard prayers whispered in the wind…heard cries for an end…” His gaze swept over the filled stadium, his eyes meeting with every person there. “Maybe then you would know… But you must believe me!”
Ms. Lane pushed herself up from the stage. A new microphone was placed in her hand. “How can you expect us to believe you, Joseph?” she asked. “How can you expect us to believe that you rebels wielded some abnormal magic? Admit it, admit where you obtained the weapons you used.”
“It was magic,” Joseph said. “No mere weapon could have ended that war. Everyone can see that, everyone saw the destruction. Everyone saw their loved ones killed, their homes destroyed, their world obliterated.”
“If it was magic,” Ms. Lane said, now approaching Joseph again. “Then why were you and your rebels the only ones who could use it? Why couldn’t the rest of us use this magic?” She chuckled, “Magic, what an absurd claim.”
“As cliché as it may seem, we were the only people to believed in it strongly enough,” he said. “It is absurd, as you said yourself Miss Lane. Just absurd enough to be the means to an end.”
Ms. Lane shook her head. “I can’t imagine you even believe yourself,” she said. “You’re talking like a crazy person. Or, like someone who has something to hide.”
“Something to hide?” Joseph asked, taking a step forward. The smooth bottom of his foot met with old, splintered wood. His lips were smooth and dry. There was a hint of something in his gaze. “If anyone has something to hide, I believe it is you and your government, Miss Lane.”
She narrowed her eyes, her thin lips set in a line. “It seems like a great coincidence that this magic suddenly decided to surface at the same time you and your rebels managed to gain an advantage in this war. Why discover the magic now?”
“This is far from the beginning of magic in our world,” Joseph said. “It has been here for centuries upon centuries of time. Some have suspected it, few have mastered it, and many have denied it.
“Its existence has meant nothing to the world, and will continue to mean nothing if we continue to deny it. Now is when this magic should be the most important, it should be valued. Without it, our broken world may never see healing. If we deny it, if we deny the sacrifice these ‘rebels’ have made for our lives, if we deny the opportunities it can give, well… It means nothing if we don’t accept it.”
The shackle around Joseph’s wrist shattered and he released the metal pole, letting it clatter on the makeshift stage. He rubbed his hand on his bare wrist, the skin pale and new. He unclipped the microphone from his shirt and let it fall with its battery pack to the stage.
Joseph descended the rickety steps and crossed the grey field, bright green patches of grass showed his path behind him. He could hear the complete silence perfectly.
It could be the dawning of a new era for the world. If the people chose to believe Joseph’s truth rather than the government’s lies, it could be the beginning of something new. It could be the beginning of healing. It could be the beginning of a better world. It could be the beginning of magic.
As Joseph stepped from the old football field into the cement corridor, the crowd cheered.
I think most of us understand what its like to post those pieces that aren't the best, but beg to be put out there for their few moments of.. fame. I liked it.