The Stand

Stand.

There was a riot, as there usually are when right are taken away. When there is misery and lost chances. There will be riots for there is a discomfort, the need for a change. So, as change needs of agony, misery loves company. They held no chance for a different outcome. Can one believe they knew that? Does it smooth one’s conscience to believe it was fated? That they knew what ought happen?

When the students had walked through the streets and the army had been ordered to shoot, there had been no doubts on either side of the confrontation. The students were sure of their rights, so they screamed them. The soldiers were trained to follow orders, so they did. With no doubt they lashed down every living shadow to oppose to their guns. Corpses fell, lifelessly, one by one. Blood tainted the pavement. Within time the cries of those who lived longer where silenced by the steps of a marching army.

They had ravished all. But he stood his ground.

A single body, lying against a wall, eyes still open, stood his place. He had been shot. The dark stains over his clothe were a proof to such. And yet this corpse standing among corpses imposed himself over the silence and stained pavement.

His expression in death had been daring, expecting. It would make one believe he knew it would happen, and had somehow, known he would be able to defeat death itself. That he had won his last stand against it. Against them.

Against all sense of logic he stood up, as if there was will still with his body.

As if even in death, the boy would stand for his ideals, for his hopes and promises.

A small squad of soldiers stared at him, unsure of how to react. They had stopped in their tracks to acknowledge the single corpse left standing by unknown forces and balance. One could say they respected him, they where granting honors to the boy in his death.

If the boy had a name, they never learnt it. If he had any future, he would never reach it.

Still, his expression spoke as if all his life was meant to naught but that single moment of glory, in which he stood against the death and logic. When in death he overpowered those who took his right of life.

They had a reason to respect that.

His eyes stared at nothing, lifeless as they were, and a small smiled curled up his lips. There was ecstasy radiating from his presence. His dominant figure had conquered the slaughter. He had defeated the soldiers even after they took the spark of life that had moved him to that same spot. He had found his change. He had stood his ground.

A soldier, sufficed with the disrupting sight, then, walked over to where the corpse laid standing and with an insecure hand pushed the body down into the ground.

There was an ease to all of their consciences. As he hit the cold ground, they fooled themselves into believing they had won, and walked away.

It was over.