The Dark of Ages Past-An Enjolras Fanfiction

Chapter 11 The ABC Café

"There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world."

~Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

Chapter 11 The ABC Café

"Enjolras!" Combeferre yells. "At Notre Dame the sections are prepared!"

"At Rue de Bac they're straining at the leash!" Feuilly adds.

Courferyac leaps to his feet. "Students, workers, everyone; there's a river on the run! Like the flowing of the tide, Paris coming to our side!"

I look around the room; the tables all around me are filled with students watching me enthusiastically. Yes! I think. We can do this.

I put my hand on Combeferre's shoulder. "The time is near! SO near, it's stirring the blood in their veins, and yet, beware; don't let the wine go to your brains." I glare pointedly at Grantaire, who is seated crookedly, drinking deeply from a wine bottle. He scowls at me. "For the army we fight is a dangerous foe with a men in the arms that we never can match. It is easy to sit here and swat 'em like flies, but the National Guard will be harder to catch. We need a sign; to rally the people, to call them to arms, to bring them in line!" I hear the door slam and look up to see Marius strolling in. "Marius, you're late."

"What's wrong today?" Joly asks. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"Some wine and say what's going on." Grantaire drawls, offering Marius his bottle. I walk to Lesgles who hands me a supplies report.

"A ghost you say? A ghost maybe. She was just like a ghost to me. One minute there, then she was gone." Marius replies.

Grantaire's harsh voice draws my attention. "I am agog, I am aghast; is Marius in love at last?" My hand foes to the brass button the front of my coat. I finger the hyacinth pattern absentmindedly. "I've never heard him ooh and ahh." Grantaire mocks, grabbing Marius' chin and shaking his head back and forth. "You talk of battles to be won, and here he comes like Don Juan; it is better than an opera." Garantaire bows, taking the map from the center table and throwing it into the air. The men around me clap, amused by Grantaire's performance. I am not amused.

As the applause dies down I clap my hands slowly, without mirth, as I walk to the center of the room. I examine the students around me; they are back to joking and drinking, the seriousness of our task forgotten. I sigh.

"It is time for us all to decide who we are." I begin. "Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now? Have you asked if yourself what's the price you might pay? Is this simply a game for rich young boys to play?" I allow my anger to seep into my voice as I push down memories that threaten to choke me. "The colors of the world are changing day by day." I glance down at the table; a red piece of cloth covers the wooden surface. I grab it, brandishing it above my head for them to see. "Red: the blood of angry men! Black: the dark of ages past! Red: a world about to dawn! Black: the night that ends at last!"

I don't say what I'm really thinking: Red--sunrises on the roof of the café. Black--the cover of Her sketchbook. Red--blood staining an empty alley. Black--the soil covering Her fresh grave.

The men cheer. I walk to the edge of the room, desperately trying--and failing--not to see a familiar pale face with sparkling green eyes and tangled golden hair. I finger the hyacinth button again.

Marius grabs my arm, preventing my escape. "Had you been there tonight you might know how it feels to be struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight." he insists. The wall in my heart crumbles and memories that have long been buried dance in front of my eyes; visions of her smile, her laugh, her tears, her death. the name that I haven't allowed myself to even think since that night echoes in my mind; Lissette, Lissette, Lissette. The blood drains from my face and I feel lightheaded; I grip a chair for support. Marius continues, oblivious. "Had you been there tonight you might also have known how your world may be changed in just one burst of light," I think of how Lissette's death has changed me; my life is like two juxtaposed paintings: the first adorned in bright colors, the second sketched roughly in black and white. And in the center, the tear between the two phases, the night Lissette died outlined in far too vivid detail for me to bear. "and what was right seems wrong, and what was wrong seems right."

"Red!" Garantaire bellows.

"I feel my soul on fire!" Marius answers. The memories my friend has stirred burn my heart.

"Black!"

"My world if she's not there." I feel anger rise in my throat; how dare he talk about a world without his love as if it is something he knows, something he has experienced. if he had, he would know that 'black' does not even begin to describe it.

"Red!" I yell along with the other students.

"The color of desire." he insists.

"Black!"

"The color of despair." he sighs. Despair. you don't know despair. I hiss silently. My anger propels me forward, pits air behind the words in my mind. "Marius, you're no longer a child. I do not doubt you mean it well, but now there is a higher call." I scold. "Who cares about your lonely soul? We strive towards a larger goal; our little lives don't count at all!" The last words are as much for me as for him. With them I shove the memories down, down, down, back into the hole they burst out of. They are nothing but pain or fuel; they can either beat me down--which I will not allow--or feed the flame inside of me that will burn France's corruption to ashes and allow a new, better world to rise from the, fiery and free.

Red--the blood of angry men!
Black--the dark of ages past!
Red--a world about to dawn!
Black-the night that ends at last!