Young Writers Society

A few hours later, Aaron opened his eyes. There was another man looking over him, staring into his eyes. It was Luke, his older brother by three years. His black hair was unkempt and an expression of worry covered his dark features.

“Luke?” Aaron asked weakly.

“I’m right here Aaron.”

“Something has to be done. This can’t go on any longer.”

With that Aaron lost consciousness again.

Luke has placed an ice pack on his brothers head where he had hit the ground and bandaged his hands where he had been injured by shrapnel. It was all he could do given the capacity of his home, but he was sure that Aaron would make it through. He had too.

Luke stood up, leaving his brother to sleep. He walked out of their dark bedroom and into the other room, which consisted of a living room area and a small kitchen. It wasn’t much, but they made it with what they had. Luke always wished more for his brother, but alas, there were bigger issues to deal with, he couldn’t worry about it now. The door slammed open and in came Eunice, Aaron’s girlfriend.

“Where is he, is he all right?”

Luke pointed to the other room and Eunice rushed in. Luke leaned over the sink, thinking about what his brother had said. Something had to be done. He knew that, everyone knew that, but that’s not what his brother meant. The whole population of this so-called democratic republic had been waiting on change, waiting for someone to come around and fix it for them, but nothing had happened, except for the occasional bombings that so called reformists planned, thinking that it would change something. A whole lot of good those had done.

Eunice came out of the bedroom and sat down on the musty couch in the center of the room. It was never terribly comfortable, but she didn’t seem to notice at the moment.

“What do we do Luke?” she asked, on the verge of tears.

There was a moment as Luke thought about her question as well. He nodded gravely as he came to a decision.

“Stay here, take care of Aaron.” He stated, grabbing his coat off of the counter and putting it on.

“Where are you going?”

Luke stood in the doorway for a moment.

“To do something.”

With that he shut the door and made his way down the drive.

If Luke and Aaron’s house didn’t seem luxurious from the inside, it definitely didn’t from the outside. The roof was covered with moss and caving in at some spots, the driveway was halfway covered in weeds, overgrowing from the lawn. The paint was peeling off, but that didn’t really matter because no one could remember what color it was anyway with all the dirt covering the walls. Luke walked the down the street, not bothering to check his surroundings, no one could afford a car in this neighborhood. He thought about what he was about to do.

The United States had existed for over three hundred years, and in theory it was still a democracy. But everyone knew that was a lie. As the population swelled to practically unbearable people stopped voting. It’s not that they didn’t care about the outcome, but their influence became so miniscule and the system was so easily corrupted, that it didn’t seem worth the time to wait in line. That was when the real trouble set in. With such a poor voter turnout the quality of elected officials declined drastically, and so did the country. Almost everyone now worked a twelve hour a day minimum wage job in front of a computer, unless you were rich, then you didn’t do anything, but abuse the power that the corrupted government had given you. There were a number of political movements. The most recent one pushed to reduce population size to increase the value of votes, which is why the bombing occurred. In the end though, it was just too little too late.

Luke marched down the street until he reached the largest house in the neighborhood. It was the nicest living space within five miles, but the most occupied to cover the cost. Luke walked up the driveway and knocked on the door. A large man wearing a stained white undershirt opened the door.

“We heard, come on in.” He said.

Luke wiped his shoes on the front mat and walked into the spacious living room. There was no furniture, but there were about twenty five people all sitting with their backs to the wall in solemn silence. They were all male and all of a similar build, tall and muscular. They all worked construction on the skyscrapers in town, and only made sense that they resided in the same home. The man who opened the door was Bill, their unofficial leader. He was in charge of keeping everyone in like and no one questioned it.

“Is he okay?” asked Bill.

“He’ll live.” Luke replied.

Bill nodded, there wasn’t much else to say. This type of thing happened a lot, everyone had felt the impact, just not to Aaron, and everyone liked Aaron. He was the most charismatic kid on the block. Silence continued for another minute or two, then Luke broke it again.

“I have…… an idea, sort-of.”

“What kind of idea?”

“A revolution.” Luke stated firmly.

Whispers scattered about the room. The word “revolution” repeated like a hiss. Bill sighed.

“Kid, I’d like to back you up on this, but you know how those things turn out.”

“So because other people have tried and failed means that we can’t?”

“Well what makes you think that this time will be any different?”

“What makes you think it won’t be?”

Another moment of silence, there was a feeling about the room. Everyone felt it. A sad feeling of helplessness.

“Look,” Luke put in, “I’m not expecting you guys to just jump on board, all I’m asking is that you hear me out. I came here first because you’re the most level headed people I know, you know how to get stuff done and I know you want change. Everyone wants change.”

Bill thought about this for a moment, finally nodding in consent.

“Okay, kid, shoot.”

Luke nodded and took a deep breath.

“Fascism.”

“What was that?” someone in the circle blurted.

“Fascism, that’s what I’m proposing.”

“Kid, how could you think something like that?” Bill said, crossing his arms.

“No, just listen. I’m not talking genocide here, just prevention, population control.”

“What do you mean by that?” questioned a man, still wearing his hard hat from work.

“Sterilization, reversible sterilization. The technology is out there, even though there hasn’t been a real medical breakthrough in a hundred years. If every man, woman and child is prevented from reproducing then the population will go down. We will test potential parents, make sure they are adequate care-givers, if they are intelligent enough, and whether they are good human beings. We can reverse the wounds in this country in a single generation.”

“Isn’t fascism what Hitler used?” someone input.

“Yeah, no one like Hitler.” Another voiced.

“Sure, but who remembers Hitler?” Luke said “We haven’t had a good education system in thirty years, no one remembers World War II. I’m telling you this could work.”

“That sounds great kid, and I can tell you’ve put thought into this,” said Bill scratching his head “but how do we make it happen.”

“By force.”

“Luke, you might think we have the manpower or the numbers, but the truth is, the government has the weapons, they’ll burn us down before we pull a trigger.” Bill stated.

“How else do you expect us to do it?” Luke said, frustrated.

The energy that existed in the room while Luke was talking fizzled out. Bill was right. It seemed they were back to the drawing board.

“What about the election? It could be a write in. In the other category.”

As corrupted politicians came into power, the ballot changed drastically, one addition was the other category. Anyone could write in a candidate for any position, which is how we could have positions like dictator or prime minister, which were just excuses for individuals to remain in power. The president was still voted on every two years, but that job title was a practically a joke anymore.

“That could work.” Bill said, “We get enough people to write a new leader in, then we can fix it, but it has to be someone that they can trust to put into power, to spend their time voting for.”

“I’ll do it” Luke firmly stated.

There was an uncomfortable silence again.

“Kid, I like you, but you don’t exactly have a way with people. You have great ideas, you’re the brains of this operation, but we need someone with…. with charisma.”

“You’re talking about my brother.”

“You’ve gotta admit, everyone like Aaron, he could get a backing.”

Luke sighed.

“Aaron’s too innocent, he would never make the tough decisions that you’d need to make.”

Everyone paused, they had hit another wall.

“What about they split it?”

Everyone turned to the voice. A man dressed in overalls had spoken up.

“Why not? That way you have the balance that you need.”

There was a mumble of agreement throughout the room.

“So it’s decided.” Bill voiced. “The election is next month, that gives us time to spread the word, but no flyers. If this gets too big too fast anyone with power will squash it like a bug. We’ll start going house to house, talking with the people in this neighborhood, see if we can start a following for you two.”

Bill slapped his large hand down on Luke’s shoulder.

“Thank you kid, this is the most hope I’ve had in a long time.”

With that everyone flooded out of the big white house. The revolution had begun.