Death in the City by Kyle Giroux (read my book TXT) 📗

in the dense darkness of the city streets. “Watch where you’re going, huh? I got a mob on my tail, and now I gotta go back to get a new one.”

“A new television?” asked Death. “Did you…did you steal that?”

“Well yeah,” said the man. “Look at this place, not a single light is working. There isn’t a cop within fifty miles of here since the HaffCaff incident. The city center is complete bedlam; everyone is looting, pillaging, fighting, you name it. No lights in a city equals anarchy, buddy!”

“A television, I want one,” said Tim.

“Oh no, here they come,” said the man, running in the opposite direction.

The three friends spun around and saw a large mob of people carrying an assortment of torches, shovels, and farming tools. Men and women clanged their weapons together and rush down the street with smoke gushing and shouts echoing high above them. Death felt compelled to reap the people who were being jabbed at and trampled. But he had to fight to resist the old instinct and, for the first time all summer, he seriously wondered if retiring was the right thing to do.

The mob ran towards the man but when they could not find him, they decided to flip cars and light them on fire instead (as angry mobs generally do). As fuel tanks erupted high into the sky with great bangs that enveloped the soundtrack of the fray, Death sighed and looked up. The stars were no longer visible; now the raging bonfires were plentiful throughout the street, and they enveloped the light of the sky in their unending, scorching fury. Death could have sworn he heard deep, maniacal laughter coming from below the sidewalk as he, Tim, and Maria tried to get away.

Death Joins the Movement

Death walked down Maine Street with hopes of getting another job. But the buildings were blocked by a massive group of people banging pots and pans together. He gazed at the many signs they held, which read: “Free Money For All,” and “We Are The 99%” and “We Should Not Pay For What The Rich Takes From Us.” A lone woman in a yellow vest held up a sign that read “Homosex is a Sin,” and another sign in her other hand that read, “I Like Protests.” Their chants rang high above the city, punctuated by megaphone-amplified shouts from a tall man with curly red hair. In the mayhem, Death marveled at humankind and its ability to band together. His last encounter with a group of loud people did not go well, so he was cautious as he walked up to a skinny man in a yellow sweater vest and box-rimmed glasses. “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me what this is all about?” asked Death.

“Yeah,” screamed the man. “The corporate fat-cats want to bring us down so they can buy their fancy mansions while we can’t even get jobs.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, totally. This country is run by nothing but greedy bankers and fascists who just want to see us college students waste away. Finding jobs is hard, so we refuse to keep looking for them.”

“Oh, okay,” said Death. Wow, he thought. A whole group of people who don’t have to work, and can just hold signs instead. Perhaps this was what being human was all about.

“What brings you here, friend?”

“Oh, I was just fired from my job, and—“

“Ah, see,” he shouted. “The man has brought you down. Those fat-cats are putting us all in the poorhouse, taking all our money, and stealing our jobs. We’ll have nothing left soon. So let me put your information into my iPhone and get your email address and cell number.”

“My what?” asked Death. “Your what phone?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t have an iPhone,” spat the man. “What kind of protestor are you?”

“Protest? You mean where people get maimed and savagely beaten?”

“No. Those aren’t the only kinds of protests.”

“Those are the only kinds of protests I’ve ever been to,” said Death. The man walked away, chanting along with the group as Death cast his gaze over the vast sea of people. He walked closer and closer to the action, so intrigued by it that he did not realize how close he was getting. A man within the flow of the crowd bumped into Death and fell flat on his face (stone-dead, naturally), sending his sign flying into the air and falling into Death’s hands. To avoid hitting any more people, he walked with the current of the people, his new sign (which read, “We’re Really Mad About Stuff”) held aloft.

The crowd seemed to notice neither the addition of their new comrade nor the trampled dead man on the sidewalk. At first Death resisted his presence, trying to figure out a way to leave the group, but soon he began to feel involved. He chanted along with the citizens, pumping his fist in the air like they did. A very excited man in blue suspenders ran down the row of people who were holding signs, high-fiving each one. Death, in his disorientation, put out his hand and the man slapped it and promptly crumpled to the ground. The crowd laughed, not realizing the man was in fact dead, and the passionate protest continued.

“Fellow citizens,” shouted the red head with the megaphone. “Welcome to the official Occupy Hair movement!” The crowd cheered. “We gathered one hundred-thousand ‘likes’ on Facebook and continue to gain followers. If we keep changing our profile pictures on all our social network pages, we will without a doubt be getting free money from the government.” Death shouted his approval along with the crowd, with very little idea of what was going on. “Which we no doubt deserve, because finding jobs has become too hard, and our money is being stolen by somebody! But today is a special day. We have in the crowd a very extraordinary man. He is a former CEO of the investment firm Prude and Prewd. He fought for our rights as