Hurters and Healers

7

Alex went to pack his stuff leaving me to think about what he said. I went to pack my stuff and within 15 minutes we were on our way to the lobby to check out. When we walked out into the cold, I remembered that I was still in my dress and had bare arms and legs. I guess Alex realized it too because he gave me his suit jacket.

"You've been pretty quiet," Alex said when we were in the hotel shuttle that would bring us to the train station.

"I've just been thinking."

"About what I said?"

"And the meeting."

"Yeah, Amanda doesn't like to be told she's wrong, but you were right. Everything they were suggesting would never work but I can't think of anything that would work," Alex said.

That lady didn't seem like an Amanda. When I think of Amanda I think of a nice person, that lady seemed more like a Karen.

"I thought of something, but I doubt people will support it. Honestly, I don't really support it either but it's all I could think of," I told him.

"What'd you think of?"

"We have to go to war with them," I said putting my head on his shoulder.

"What do you mean?" he asked quietly.

"They were thinking of us as workers and the government as our bosses. They were suggesting things that workers used to do when they went against their bosses but it would be easy for the government to figure out ways to shut them down. I think the government sees us more as a country they can boss around, and what happens when countries have disputes?"

"War."

"Exactly. If we go to war with them, they'll have to fight back and the public will find out. Who do you think the public would support, the people who were taken from homes and families to fight their battles or the people who kept it a secret for years and didn't see a problem with it?"

"It seems a little extreme. We need to do something else first then if it doesn't work, we can see if the compound supports a war. I already know that most of the fighters would support it," Alex said.

"What do you suggest we do first?"

"Try to negotiate. Tell the government extreme versions of what we want and hope they settle for what we actually want."

"I think if we're going to tell them what we want we should be straightforward and not accept anything else."

"Then we'll bring it up to the compound and see what they think. If they don't give us any of what we want then we have a reason to rebel against them."

"What do we want?" I asked.

"I think they need to be less dependent on us. We could tell them that we want to be the last resort to settling conflicts instead of the first thing they go to. They need to only send people to us if they don't have a home and allow us to check if they were supposed to go somewhere else. We're not taking anyone under 5, but we were already pretty good with that one. And I think we should be allowed out of the compound more. Some people haven't been out of the compound in years and I think we need to be more in touch with society."

"We should let everyone suggest things in case we forgot anything."

Alex agreed and we both sat for a few minutes feeling the rocking of the train.