Forch

Cafe Locked Out

Today my senses betrayed me. I felt alone, though I know I’m not. But here on the streets, where I once saw a free people, ignorantly drunk on a liberty brewed from the blood of their ancestors’ battles, and bottled invisibly in their broken chains, I now saw those chains had not only healed their links, but that these offspring had reattached them to their limbs and to their lips, and worse, to their childrens’.

I walked down an op-shops aisle like a fading memory they didn’t care to recall, for in order to keep their birth right, this freedom, it was clear that they had chosen to give this freedom away.

I was amongst plump chickens contently sharpening their farmer’s axe with the oil from their own feathers. I was amongst slaves humming, as they decorated their chains with chalk drawings of wings, whilst concurring, in silence, and lock by lock, that not being able to fly was far safer than flying.

I want to, but I no longer know these individuals, who, while drinking lattes in cafés that I am forbidden to enter, were chatting and smiling, whilst failing to taste, apparently, the warnings their forebears ground into the beans.

And why would they hear it? For it’s clear they know that they are too clever to be stupid. Too victimised to oppress. Too rich to be poor.

They are instead, it’s clear they believe, the chosen ones who, as I continue to fade, are dutifully laying their offspring’s necks upon the chopping block, whilst whispering to them, proudly, their one fresh truth,

“The farmer is your father, and his axe will never taste your neck, as long as you, my beautiful little chicken, my gift from the gods, always remember to act like a sheep.”

But then, with my soul sore, I heard, that earlier in the day, one of my tribe had taken charge of a failing march, and with the farmer’s workers, the police in tow, he had led them towards where he hoped that light, that a few of us are still seeking, would, like a beacon, be there, before him and a glow. And as he searched, I wondered if he knew, that by finding the courage to rise, he had become that light. Ignited that ancient truth, which states,

“In the relentless war, where each day is a battle, by trying to save a few, you can light the world, and in doing so, at least for one day, one person, starving for freedom, can unleash the power to save us all.”

Michel Gray Griffith

For Forch Darrigo

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