I'm Only One Match (But I Can Make An Explosion)

With her legs tangling over the edge of the rooftop, Olga observes the town; the empty, dark roads littered with old cars, the cheap looking, unkempt apartment buildings. Over their form, she can make out the huge chimneys from the factory sitting just on the edge of town. She gathers her hands on her lap, scratches at the mole inside her palm, a characteristic she inherited from her father. She's so lost in thought she doesn't even notice Theo when he comes to sit beside her.

"Penny for you thought?" He says, smiling with a smile kinda forced, lopsided and sad. He knows what she's thinking about.

"I'm terrified, Theo".

It's no use denying it now, everyone's terrified. Her mother has been having nightmares, every night for over a year, since the court date had been announced and they had only started getting worse during the last few weeks. She can hear her every night screaming her husbands name, Giorgos, their - Olga's and Theo's - father.

Every night those screams take her back to that fateful day, six years ago when the fuel tank in the factory exploded, bursting the whole building into flames, instantly killing twenty workers, her father including. The news reported only one death. Olga remembers sitting outside the barred entrance of the factory, holding her mother in her arms while the workers and the firefighters tried to put out the fire. She remembers the sound of the ambulances, their sirens wailing when they came to collect the injured. And the dead. They used white sheets to cover up the bodies while transferring them to the vehicles, but, just once, one of the men carrying the stretchers stumbled, causing a hand to roll under the sheet. Olga caught only a glimpse of it, tangling lifeless in the air, its skin red and black and peeling. When they called her mother to recognize his father's body, she said his face was burned beyond recongision.

Now, she looks at Theo, sitting beside her and she stretches her arm, taking his hand in her own.

"Please," she begs, "tell me everything's going to be all right. Every night I think of him."

"I know", he nods.

"I did everything I could."

He nods again, smiling sadly "I know."

"I fought so hard."

Theo reaches for her, takes her into his embrace. Tenderly he kisses her head and holds her there, close to his chest. He smells familiar, so heartbreakingly familiar, like a family dinner, like the cookies their grandma bakes, like home. The tears start streaming down her face, wetting his shirt as she let's it all out; all those feelings, all this pain she covered up during those last few months as she was fighting tooth and nail to accomplish this, a court date, this chance to bring justice.

Noone was ever punished for that accident. No, not accident, it wasn't an accident. It was murder. The factory had no safety legislations in place, that tank that exploded was old and dysfunctional. Her dad didn't die in an accident, he was murdered by negligence and corporate greed. Even after the death of twenty people there was no change in that place. Five years later the workers still work under the same dangerous conditions, playing the waiting game before the next fatal accident.

"He would have been so proud of you," says Theo after a while, stroking her hair and Olga nods, slowly. Her mother is not the only one he visits in their dreams. Her father comes to her too, every night, but the dreams are always soft and tender, clouded in that dreamy memory of childhood. He always tells her he loves her in her sleep and Olga answers "I love you too, I'll fight for you" and hugs him, repeating it endlessly.

She doesn't know what will happen tomorrow. But she knows this; the city is brimming with hope, with the will to fight. There are banners hanging from the windows, there are people gathered in the streets right now, in anticipation for the trial to come, there had been people in the streets for days. One of the members of her group, the people she started this movement with - this search for justice - had took her hand between theirs. "We were just the match", they had said, pointing at the people on the street, "that started the explosion."

"Come on," says Theo now and helps her up. He smiles mischievously and then, stepping dangerously close to the edge of the rooftop, he puts his hands around his mouth, forming a cone, and starts booing towards the the factory. Momentarily Olga stills and then, when he repeats "come on" and makes an encouraging gesture, she joins him, shouting too with all her might. Adrenaline rushes through her body and she continues shouting as tears start streaming down her face, tears of sadness, of justification, of hope. She reaches with her hand, forming her fingers around the shape of the chimney, so it looks likes she's holding it in her palm and then she closes them.

Boom, she thinks. An explosion.