Fodder

Fiction Study #2

[ play the song above in the background at low volume for an optimal reading experience]

Smoke rose to the sky, completely covering the rays of the noonday sun. One could not walk through the streets of Nairobi without their eyes tearing up from the mixture of teargas, burning tire fumes and dust. In the streets, the city was composing a symphony of terror: machine gun bullets were the rhythm, explosions the bass, and shrieks and desperate screams the melody.

A war was being fought. On one side were riot police, decked in body armor and armed with shields and guns. On the other side were regular people, armed only with rage, rocks, rusted bits of rebar and insults. The riot police pressed on like a mobile fortress, shields up, guns blazing. With every shower of bullets, bodies fell like flies. It was a massacre, and yet behind those clear helmets, they were getting more and more horrified.

Every minute a wave of protesters fell, the very next another hurled itself at the wall of gunpowder and iron. The operation commander in the rear was screaming into his walkie talkie.

“Command!! Command, come in, over! We’re being overrun, send reinforcements!!!”

No reply would come and he would try again.

“Command!! Come in, over...!”

With every attempt, the commander grew more and more frantic, almost crushing the communication device in his hand. When the commander’s patience finally snapped, he threw the device at the incoming protestors. His men were running out of bullets, and when that happened, they would all die. They had to mow through to get out of this hellscape. Grinding his teeth, he barked an order.

“Charge through and carve out a path to retreat!!”

The unit moved like a machine now, focused in one direction. An unlucky rioter stood in the commander’s way. Without skipping a beat, he let the bullets rain, watching her body slump to the ground under the torrent of bullets.

“Takataka!”

He swore and spat on the body as he passed.

Farther away from the fighting, on the roof of an old highrise building, two men dressed in military uniform were calmly watching the chaos unfold. The older man stood tall at more than six feet, a scar ran through the length of his face, granting a certain ferocity to his otherwise austere, disciplined aura. In his hands he held a pair of binoculars. The younger military man was slightly shorter, more polished, much less like a soldier and more like a professor. He was manning a device that jammed all communications in the city.

The younger officer hesitated for a moment then turned to the older one. “Sir, couldn’t we have at least allowed them to receive the order to retreat?”

The older man smiled and turned.

“Going soft on me, are you?”

“No sir, I...”

“It’s fine, I get it, but you need to remember, why are we here? Remind me.”

“To make sure that the government is spread thin dealing with the protests, leaving them understaffed and open for attack...”

“Exactly, and in all 47 counties right at this moment, there is a similar scene to what is going on here. Is it right? Is it wrong? That doesn’t matter, as long as we get what we want. I get your feelings right now, son, but feelings have no place in a place like this. Remember that.”

“Yes sir.”

A minute passed.

“Out with it, kid. I can feel you stewing in your juices.”

“It’s just, the people down there don’t know jack about what’s actually happening. They’re innocent and yet they are being used by them... by us. To what end???”

The older man took a long drag on a cigarette.

“They’re not innocent, they are ignorant, and for that they can only blame themselves. The ignorant become cannon fodder, and for what is to come, God knows we’ll need cannon fodder...”

You can read my first fiction study here :