The Doves that Strut

18

"Watch out! Stay off the road!" Halfway returning from Viktorija Street, where a battalion composed of about three hundred frontliners garrisoned behind the line of red-and-white water-filled barriers they had set up, we heard shoutings and clatters of metals knocking on the ground.

In front of us, red bricks were scattered all over the go-lane, but subtly placed in a patterned way: each set was built of a brick lying on top of two vertically positioned bricks. A group of our allies, wearing caps and sunglasses, crowded at the curb, scooping bricks out of the sidewalk with shovels and spades while others ran back and forth between to place the bricks, as if knitting a beckoning sign on the sooty asphalt.

"Some sort of way to protest?" I asked, kind of having gotten used to being a teenage Molotov-transporting criminal. "By placing the bricks this way, to represent the City Hall?"

Vandalism just didn't seem so much as a big deal after we had delivered those beer bottles. On top of that, we had sprayed our slogans on so many buildings anyway. That day, destroying the sidewalk was already no more than some slightly worse delinquency, a dime as the toll for our path to victory.

"Hmm, I guess that's just a cherry on the cake." Claire pointed over at the return lane, the scale of demolition there almost indiscernible in comparison to our side as we stepped onto the sidewalk. "Haven't you noticed that there aren't any bricks there?"

I looked over. "How come?"

"I guess they're blocking the go-lane so that the cops can't drive their wheels through straight away later on," she answered, her tone firmer than a self-proclaimed guess.

"That makes sense," I frowned, "but how are we so confident to ascertain if they would follow some traffic rule and not drive in the reverse direction, on the return lane?"

"Well." Claire lifted her tune and shrugged. "Then that'd be another proof explaining why they're unqualified of being our civil servants."

"I think they've broken enough laws to care about this one," I pointed out, then breathed out my frustration.

"Well, step by step, Captain Negativity," she said. And I wasn't sure how many steps we had left.

With our allies' effort, roughly the entire sidewalk of Fifth Avenue at that block had had its bricks removed while a long sandpit had emerged. I tiptoed to avoid getting sand into my shoes as we walked alongside the shops on our very left, making space for our allies to continue their work, barely trudging forward on our narrow lane since people were going in both directions. Most of the owners had decided to take a day off from business, their collapsible gates shut in front of their shops, while only a few restaurants were still in business, providing us with free meals, like army chefs.

"Ugh, what time is it now? I'm exhausted and desperately need a place to sit down," Claire mumbled, taking her phone out of her jeans to have a glance. "Five thirteen," she spoke to herself.

It was our fourth time returning from Viktorija Street. In the past five hours, we had either been transporting resources like pure alcohol and gasoline and masks and cloths and scissors and first-aid tools, shouting slogans, or doing both.

"Just about two hours before they make their move," I noted. It was just about two hours before nighttime.

"Yeah, but no worries, we'll get out of here before that happens," she reassuringly said, stroking my hair for a bit. "We don't trade lives with them."

I gazed over the path of bricks, subconsciously picturing the scene that would take place two hours later. Once the cops had managed to breach our front line and overcome this six-hundred-foot-long bumpy road, Fifth Avenue would look just like any other nighttime protests I had seen on the news: cops jumping off their vehicles, chasing our allies, and beating them up to indulge their thirst for power before sending them onto those criminal-transporting vans license plates didn't come with. If Lady Luck favored you that night, congrats, you're going to the station; if not, you're probably going to get locked up somewhere in the suburbs, wherever even the light couldn't mantle.