YAWP: A Collection of Short Stories

Bloody Sunday

October 2, 2017

I have never in my life seen things for what they really were. At least, not when I needed to. I have never ceased to see or feel things in color. The day the minister banned all paradesian marches, I felt a seething violet clench my heart. I remember blinking my eyes the moment I heard the news from my brother, clearing the haze that had swept across my vision. I felt the color writhe through my veins, urging me to act in such a dangerous way. When the anti-internment march was held at Magilligan strand, so close to Derry I could sense rather than hear the synonymous pounding of a thousand footsteps, my lungs were enveloped in a dark mist of green. Ambition gnawed at my bones and rested itself like a crushing weight on my chest. The last time I would felt such an intense burst of color behind my eyes had been the protest march. The drum bass followed the winding roads of William Street to Free Derry Corner. The beat echoed in the rattling chests of the protesters, their hearts swelled with hope and the need to right the wrong of internment. The rioters did not come to disrupt the peace. They came to rally for their freedom. I don't think the paratroopers quite understood that.

They said it happened first at the British Army barriers. Their path was blocked by those soldiers whose eyes gleamed like polished metal. Their mouths were a grim line slashed across a face of tungsten. The organizers crowed at the sight of the barricade, their fists raised in a symbol of disobedience. The march broke off from the barriers, down the street where I would see the first stone being thrown. In a small encroachment on the corner of Rossville Street was my ramshackle house where my brother and I sat, listening to the steady rhythm that vibrated our chests and rattled our teeth. I stood to the window and drew the drapes, meaning to glimpse the events unfolding outside for only a moment. That moment when the rock struck the rusted cleaver that was my roof lasted under a second. The hailstorm of stones that came after would last much longer. I shielded my face as if this would bring any protection when stones were surpassed by bottles and other detritus from the ground. I heard war cries and shouts, but did not consider the damage that was being made. I simply turned to look my brother dead in the eye before hiking up the strings of my rough-worn boots and strode to the doorframe. I did not hesitate for a second before I ripped open the door and witnessed the destruction outside. From the ground level, stones and debris were being catapulted to the barriers farther ahead, striking the heads, throats, and abdomens of the soldiers.