Red

• Caitlin Archer, Grade 12, St Brigid's College -
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

The whip comes down upon my back once more, but I can't feel it, having lost count of how many lashings have rained down upon me. In front of me, a crowd watches with blank, yet solemn faces, not daring to say a word.
The loaf of bread I worked so hard to get sits on the platform beside me, blood-flecked – proof that my family will perish, waiting for me to return home.
The guards standing around me do so with smirks plastered on their faces while doubt glimmers in their eyes. And yet, none of them do anything.
Now I regret yelling myself hoarse when I was caught. I just wish to tell my family – my wife and children – how much I love them. How I wish to sing to an audience, just once more.
Perhaps it is madness, strengthened by pain, but I start humming. No tune in particular, but in the silence in between lashes, I hum. It surprises the crowd, and that hint of emotion swells my heart, and I open my mouth to release one single note, pushing it out of my throat with all my feelings of love, anger, regret. Pushing it into the cruel world that sits back and watches as I'm punished for feeding my family, for wanting to live. Pushing it out into the silent crowd and their hearts, begging for mercy, or even just respite.
My energy spent, I hang my head, my eyes closing in defeat. I don't see who acts first, but the crowd surges, grey faces blooming red. Red, the colour of the rivulets of blood they splash through. Red, the colour of the jackets of the guards who abandon their post to join the riot. Red, the colour of the dress of my angel who cradles my face gently in her hands, tears running down her face as she whispers my name like a prayer, begging me to stay, just stay with her. Stay.
The ropes holding me up are severed, and I fall face first into a puddle of my own blood, sweat and tears, the grey of the dying world changing into colour as the people speak up for themselves.
But all I care about is my angel dressed in red, holding the hands of my children, who are old enough to understand that they are witnessing the birth of a new, living world.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"
- Martin Luther King Jnr