Member-only story
Fiction (and all of the arts) is an important tool if we are to change the culture and save the climate. We must be able to visualize success. This is one such vision. It was written at the height (or perhaps depths) of COVID, during the Trump administration. This story doesn’t mention the climate crisis — but this approach could easily be adjusted to address that.
Cynicism was deep. There had been hundreds of gross violations of human rights before. And yes, some protests. But those protests were crushed by police violence — always cheerfully justified by those who cheer such things — and everything quickly returned to “normal.”
The focus was always on the misbehavior of the protesters, never on the bloody acts of those in power who shoot unarmed people to death, cage children, and perform other unspeakable acts. The unspeakable acts were rarely spoken of.
But this was different. Nobody knows why it happened this time and not before. Nobody expected it to happen at all.
Nobody gathered. Nobody chanted. Millions, yes literally millions, stood in front of their homes and held signs. They were every age, gender, ethnicity. They wore masks. And they said nothing.
At first, it was ignored, then laughed at. But by the end of the first week, the Regime and its supporters began to get nervous.
