Six years. Two revolutions. The sunset was bloody red and he was lucky to be alive. He wasn't wearing a black uniform anymore, but he still had a gun and they still called him --
"Commander," she said. "They're waiting for you to begin the trial."
Traitor, he named himself darkly, and followed her into the courthouse. She wore a black uniform and he thought it looked wonderful.
***
He wasn't a fundamentalist until the fundamentalists won.
He wasn't a revolutionist until the revolution began.
***
There was a woman on the condemned stands. She was a fundamentalist and therefore guilty. The jury sentenced her to the labour camps. The commander spoke three words during the debacle, presiding over the trial as a wholly unnecessary judge.
Then the trial was over, and the guards dragged the condemned in tattered green frocks away. The jury began leaving, no doubt returning to the arduous task of restructuring society. Busy work. Important work. Not his work. The wooden chairs in the courthouse were uncomfortable, and the commander wondered what happened to his Martha. Was she alive?
Was she at the colonies?
"Hello, Commander," the woman in the black uniform slipped into a chair beside him. She offered him a cigarette, which he took. She lit one for both of them.
A free woman, red-lipped and smoking would have been blasphemy a year ago. How quickly times changed.
"They're making some of us commanders," she said. "Us Mayday women."
The cigarette tasted sickly sweet. Smoking was more enjoyable six years ago, before the Republic. He didn't look at her. Didn't speak.
"We'll make our futures. Make it better. We'll do it right this time."
For everyone?
The conviction in her voice sounded like steel and fire, but he already knew she had guts of steel and passion to match. She was a veteran of two revolutions. They fought on the same side the second time.
"I've always wondered one thing," she continued carefully, her eyes finding his. "I've always wondered if you remembered me."
He pulled away from her scrutiny, and instead chose to smother the cigarette against a wall. Her lips were as red as the dress she used to wear. She wore black now, and it suited her too well. "Are they assigning you a manor too?"
She hesitated. "Yes."
He remembered his fingers against her thighs. There was a child, and there was such joy, and then there was a child-sized grave, and he joined the revolutionists soon after. He wondered if he should offer her a warning -- any warning -- about walking too far down one path. Then he imagined his fingers around her neck.
She stood, and dropped the cigarette from her hands. "Back to work," she said. "To liberty. To justice. To our future."
"To liberty," he echoed. "To justice."
He imagined her fingers around his neck. It felt like a noose.
***
He slept dreaming of gunshots and revolutions.
Then he dreamed of silence and revolutions.
