by J. T. Marsh
A searchlight reaches up and down the façade of an apartment block in the working class district, sweeping for any gunmen who might be waiting to open fire on the troopers assembled below. Moments later, troopers barge in through the front and back doors, going from room to room, pulling anyone out into the halls who looks at them the wrong way, soon with a dozen or so piled into the back of a covered truck, handcuffed, to be driven not to a holding cell at the storm troopers’ station but somewhere else entirely, somewhere more sinister, somewhere the working man never would’ve expected but should’ve seen coming. It’s only in hindsight that these truths may yet become self-evident; in the heat of the moment such things are lost amid the rising passions and the fiery rage of the thousands of voices turning the streets into an inferno unlike any the world has seen before. After blood spilled and the bodies broken on election day, the students withdraw to their halls to lick their wounds and plan their next move. They agree to mount another demonstration the following day. Still the university remains closed, and as the crisis in Britain deepens any hope of reopening fades into the night. Sean Morrison thinks to move back to Derry, Northern Ireland, but events soon put that possibility out of reach. He looks into the streets and sees the columns of smoke rising, the fires of liberation burning through the days and into the nights, and he relents. For he is the student lacking in the guidance of the teacher, but when the way of things is faded into history the student will need no teacher. From his vantage point atop a tower, the city seems splayed out before him, over the smoothly undulating hills the urban landscape seeming so ragged and haggard like the charred remains of a forest once ablaze.
Another burst of action, in the morning not long after dawn’s first light an order coming down from the skies, in a burst of darkness the sound of thunder booming across the city. In Valeri’s apartment block, there’s not optimism at the violence spiralling out of control but a vast and discontented malaise. They’ll fight, as they’ve been fighting every day of their lives against one thing or another. As matches to kindling, all the working man’s forces must commit themselves fully to the struggle for self-determination, must assail themselves against the still-invincible forces blocking the way to the future. Valeri knows this, even if all he can articulate is a burning rage. For the men of the cruiser Borealis, this still-invincible force governs in the Captain’s edicts, leaving Dmitri and the rest of the men in obedience to the steadily worsening crisis all around.
Aboard the cruiser Borealis, Captain Abramovich announces over the loudspeakers their orders to put to sea the following day. Once underway, the Captain makes another announcement, this announcement on the suspension of pay for the men until further notice. It matters little that the suspension still provides for a small stipend, nor that all pay deferred is to be paid at a later date. Later, there’s talk; Dmitri seethes with rage over the crew being made to abandon their homes when there’re working men being slaughtered in the streets of Great Britain over nothing but the right to live in their own homes, the right to earn a decent wage. But as the crew talks, a consensus emerges, in the nightly whispers and in the cramped spaces between drills the men agreeing to a new plan. They’re edging closer with each passing day to outright rebellion, to casting their lot in with the working men dying in the streets. When the time comes, the men of the cruiser Borealis will smash their names into history so violently as to be remembered for so long as anyone’s around to remember them.
To the working man it makes little sense, to take the country to war even as it’s being torn apart from the inside. Remember this critical truth: the abundance has only disappeared because it has been made to disappear by those very people who now seek to plunge the nation into a war few want and even fewer need. As the working man puts himself through the motions of making good through this day, he finds himself needing no more energy, no greater effort than before. With so many hidden terrors in the shadows slowly edging into the light, the working man must commit himself wholeheartedly to the righteous path laid out before him. Seeing the path is inadequate; he must walk the path. While Valeri, a woman named Tonya, and the other residents of Dominion Courts form their plans for the coming surge in violence, instructed as they’ve been by their contacts in the Popular Front, all seems lost. For Valeri, the moment’s dominated by these practical concerns, making sure they’ve stored enough food and water in times of constant shortages. But there comes the little moments when Valeri considers the ravenous beast unleashed in the time it’s taken working men to rise. Though we’ve not yet reached the point of no return, already men like Valeri have come to confront the soon-to-be, the shocking turn of events which none of them can see coming but all should. It’s almost his time to rise, and as Valeri counts the meagre stockpile of food shared by residents he looks with a mounting anticipation towards the coming day.
Wherever the working man finds himself, know that his is the path of righteousness, of self-denial and of self-intuition, his character lending itself not to the way of things as they are but to the way of things as they should be. It’s not the working man but the working man’s enemies who seek to drown him in a sea of excess, in drunkenness and in lechery and in insanity, in so drowning him rendering him incapable of fighting back. But this is different, this is new, in the early part of this century the working man finally realizing the wherewithal to resist the agency under which his is subjugated.
22. Veil of Doom
The revolutionary Elijah and the popular front resists the urge to escalate the war on behalf of the working man, knowing full well his role in waiting for the anti-revolution to escalate their war on behalf of the wealthy man. Still, it’s a tempting urge, and every day that passes sees him remind himself on the necessity of the long war, on the need to preserve his own strength and in so preserving forcing the anti-revolutionary to give in to his own mounting urges and make a mistake. It’s as it’d been when a steadily mounting pressure had erupted in the form of a massacre in the streets. And as the revolutionary quietly gathers his strength and awaits the course of history to deliver him an opportunity, other events soon force his hand, events he foresaw but made no effort to forestall. “I’m not done yet,” says Valeri, still thinking to get Hannah away, “but I’ll be done soon. You can count on that.” A pause. Hannah’s on the other end of the call. She’s not been home in days, the current crisis seeing her work twenty hours a day and sleep four, all at the hospital. “You must always do what’s right,” Hannah finally says, her voice a nearly-inaudible murmur. “I always have,” Valeri says, “and I always will.” With that, he ends the call, resisting the urge to tell her he loves her. Every time they speak could be the last time they hear each other’s voices. But without the certain knowledge of death there comes the freedom of life. After ending the call, Valeri turns back to the work at hand, and looks over the pathetic arsenal he and his fellow residents have assembled. A veil of doom has descended on them, with no lifting of it in sight.
Underway, the cruiser Borealis makes through the North Sea for a destination still unknown to the crew. Cut off from the outside world, they have only terse, infrequent announcements from the Captain to inform their feelings and feed the revolutionary fervour already simmering in the hearts of ordinary sailors like Dmitri Malinin, the son of common labourers, them the children of migrants to Britain from Russia who fled their homeland in the midst of its deep depression following the breakup of the Soviet Union forty-five years ago. It’s this past he thinks on, whether lying in his bunk or manning the guns, while the Borealis proceeds towards its fate at twenty-five knots. Dmitri, like Elijah and Valeri, comes from a long line of the lowest among us, the poor, the tired, the prostituted, the addicted, the hopeless causes. It’s in this quiet before some insidious event is about to descend on them like a dark cloud; Dmitri can sense it, even if he doesn’t realize it. As the decks of the Borealis heave while she powers through the waves of the North Sea, men like Dmitri consult their past in search of a way through
to the future.
Still, the counter-revolutionary forces the revolutionary’s hand. As the troopers advance in a long column of armoured vehicles into the working man’s quarters, the revolutionary Elijah watches, waiting for the right moment to strike. As the troopers stop halfway along a city block and fan out to cover the street, the revolutionary holds fast, resisting the urge to strike at the first target to present itself. As the troopers take their positions and ready themselves to fire, the moment comes when neither strike nor withdrawal will suffice. Then, an explosion, the thunderous boom cracking across the sky. A column of smoke rises. Flames colour the night a dull orange. From across the skyline, Valeri recognizes this explosion as having struck at the area around the hospital where Hannah works. “Are you ready to go out?” asks Tonya, stepping into his flat. “As ready as I’m going to be,” Valeri says. “Don’t be nervous,” says Tonya, “we’ve got nothing to lose but our lives.” In response, Valeri nods grimly, then looks out the window and onto the street below. It might seem, for a moment, he’s lost in the minutiae of his own thoughts, but still his heart brims with a confidence born from a self-assurance in the righteousness of the cause. They’ve come too far to allow the weakness of doubt into their hearts, and the spirit of the revolutionary cause surges in him, in each of them with every moment that passes, with every beat of their hearts and with every rhythmic contraction of each muscle in their bodies.
But Valeri is fully committed to the cause for which he’s already sacrificed so much, for which his parents gave their lives in the failed rising fifteen years ago. “If we can summon the courage to stand for what’s right,” he says, “then we can never fail.” He thinks only of the struggle even as his thoughts are dominated by concern for Hannah. “I don’t know if you realize what’s going on in there,” says Tonya, gesturing towards the door and by implication into the hall, “but things are getting grim.” Valeri stands and starts towards the door. “Show me,” he says. Together, they inspect the building. From the basement, floor by floor to the roof, they look through every room, accounting for the residents left, the new residents having moved in, their food, weapons, and what little they have in the way of medical supplies, a few rolls of gauze and some paracetamol. They look ragged and haggard, the last working men and women still living in the building, for the imposition of martial law has had some serious effects on daily life for the residents of Dominion Courts. Many residents have fled, others occupying their flats without registration. No one’s paid rent in months. Graham hasn’t been seen in weeks; Valeri, Tonya, and another tenant named Roger force their way into his suite, finding it empty, with no sign of where he might’ve gone. They’re left to wonder what’s become of him, a question to them forever in search of an answer.
Overnight, eviction notices bearing the seal of the police are posted to the building’s front door. A sign goes up outside in front of the building just like the sign once put up in front of the building next door. Tenants of Dominion Courts are surprised but not shocked. They’ve been expecting this for a long time. The notices gives no date. No date is needed to make the point. Still, it’s some small wonder the police have bothered even with this measure, instead of simply deploying bulldozers escorted by troopers to demolish the working man’s homes while still he lives inside. Amid the chaos of the war in the streets, it seems the new government, or at least elements within it, have decided to muster their strength in one great offensive against the working class districts, hoping to smash the revolutionary cause while it can still be so stopped. But Valeri, Tonya, Roger, and all the others don’t know this. They can’t. All they can know is the time to commit themselves irrevocably to the cause is almost at hand.
“They’re clearing us out,” says Roger. “It’s all right for them,” says Tonya. “It’s not all right for us,” says Roger. “They’re coming to evict the working class apartments,” Valeri says, “one by one. Like driving a bulldozer across a homeless camp. They just want to force us out.” Tonya and Roger nod their grim assent. But none of them can know what’s happening, why it’s happening to them, nor can they surmise the policeman’s next move. They can only sense the coming strike against them, in a visceral, almost instinctive way. Valeri notes the uncertain spirit of his working class brothers, later to report on it to the slowly-expanding alliance of parties. But no one will hold their tentativeness against them; with every step forward into the future, they’re making history. The streets encompass a triumphant spirit which remains steadfastly so in the face of withering attacks on its people, the working man and his natural allies in the struggle against dominion. The streets may yet seek deliverance from those who would take from the working man and give to themselves, for the streets themselves will always be, no matter what setbacks the working man should suffer in his struggle. Every tenant evicted, every dollar the rent raised, every working-class block levelled to make way for luxury apartments, all are a strike against the working man, and as he looks from within his cramped apartment over the street scene, home at the end of another long day at the factory, he thinks to reach out to the young woman he sees crying and offer a helping hand. Still, he knows better, having been taught better by a lifetime lived as a working man in a wealthy man’s world. A factory closes, then another, then another, soon the landscape littered with darkened shells sticking out of the ground like so many tombstones, marking the place where once industry had not only lived but thrived, the working man cast out, thoughtlessly discarded like some old piece of furniture left to rot in the rain on the side of the road.
As the final preparations are made, Valeri looks to the new tower next door. On the plot of land where once there’d been a simple, functional apartment block housing working men and their families there’s now a sleek, low-rise, glass-and-steel tower, the odd bullet-hole pockmarking the outer walls. On the façade, someone’s spray-painted ‘NO SURRENDER’ in the night. Homeless families, drug addicts, and prostitutes have taken up residence, parcelling off their own little spaces to squat in. Where Valeri might’ve once been bewildered by the sight of an expensive project sitting unused for its intended purpose, now he understands. This is something not meant to be lived in; it’s meant as a tool, a weapon of war, for the wealthy man to store his ill-gotten wealthy in the form of something real, to be sold for profit later. But it’s also a response to the working man’s agitation, the aim to engage in a massive population transfer by expelling the undesirable elements of the working class, the prostitutes, the elderly pensioners, the poor made to be addicted to illegal drugs and the common labourers deemed fit only to enrich their wealthy paymasters. Even as bullets fly and bombs explode, this weapon continues to be applied, diligently but not dispassionately. No longer used for its original purpose, now it stands gathering the hopeless among the working class, the police allowing squatters to gather in preparation for a final offensive into the working class slums. Valeri doesn’t know it, but this is, too, is deliberate; by concentrating in these properties, the most pathetic and despondent among them conveniently group themselves into fewer targets. All Valeri can know, at this point, is that when the police finally come, they’ll fight no longer for the streets but for their very homes. Over the next few days, Valeri speaks with the other tenants of Dominion Courts, mostly with Tonya and Roger, they meeting with others, the others meeting with others, a consensus having already emerged among them all: resist.
23. The Way Forward
As tends to be the way of things, something must inevitably set off a war between them, the mounting pressures inside each soon to compel them to seek an outlet, any outlet at all for their rage. A rock thrown, a rifle shot, an exchange of fire between two warships on the high seas and within weeks, only weeks the empires of the world have declared war on one another. At home, the working man finds himself beset by such troubles and overcome by such fear that he can’t but watch as this new caretaker commits itself irrevocably to some alliance of empires, all the while at home the working man stil
l worries where his next meal will come from, where his next paycheque will come from, all this started somewhere, somehow, by the looting and plundering of the wealth of the world in this very place where once the working man had lived. News makes the screens of the millions across Britain and around the world, but for Valeri and the rest of the working class measures close to home demand attention over all others. In the night, their fortifications continue, in the way they do.
After having given up on working as a day labourer, Valeri Kovalenko returns to his dark, empty flat and looks to his screen just in time to see the squawking of the wealthy man’s apparatchik proclaiming the virtues of this fight, calling on all his countrymen to devote themselves wholly to this new struggle. But as he sits in his chair and watches, Valeri’s stomach growls, his feet ache, and his back’s pain spasms slightly, just enough to remind him on all he’s been made to surrender for the wealthy man’s benefit. To ask, now, for more is the final insult. Astride a wave of revolutionary fervour, the working men of Britain, Europe, across the world surge towards a war decades in the making, while their paymasters fumble about looking for a way to head off their own demise. And although none of them had planned the next step, in fact it’ll take place in the way that it will through pure happenstance, when the dust has settled the future will look back on our past and see it could’ve happened no other way. Though now we can’t see more than a few days ahead, when a clarity emerges and the lost years of our lives are at last reclaimed, we’ll see it all. In Valeri’s life, this has become as his final resting place, without having died his consignment to this dilapidated, falling-apart apartment block become his castle, the last redoubt of the working man, the ramparts on which he’ll make his final stand for dignity and justice. As Valeri looks out across the street, he decides it’s time to leave, venturing out into the city again in search not of supplies but company, the last company he could expect to find amid the terror and violence gripping Britain’s streets.
