[The 500] Eating the Seed Corn

The crescent wrench was polished with the sweat and tears of the protesters Wa had beaten. He had not done this lightly. His family needed to eat. His grandfather needed medicine. Who were they to accuse him of being an agent of Tyranny?
His father had protested the British when they had left the ‘democratic’ government in place that the mainland was now so ruthlessly exploiting. His grandfather had been on of the earliest architects of the movement for democracy, but the business community had remembered the Shu family’s leanings when the British had been power and slowly business had tapered to nothing.
The family had fallen from grace.
Now his muscled back pounded the concrete barricade the democratic protesters had set up. Each time he put down his wrench chips spun out in a tiny gray galaxy of boring stars. The other ‘agitators’ were putting their first and kicking at the blockade. The police had given up three days ago, and everyone knew it was a matter of time before the troops marched in and shot the protesters.
But it was still taking too long.
So Wa was doing their work for them. Yes, democracy was important. Yes, freedom was important. Freedom would not feed his family. He saw one naive and desperate young woman interpose herself between his wrench and the concrete block which was toppling back and forth from all the bodies pressing against it. Wa brought down his wrench.
He had meant to only hit her on the shoulder, but the idiot put her head in the way. He heard a sickening crunch. He could just drop her here, and in the chaos no one would know the wiser. He took no chances and began to drag the woman out of the crowd, which was no easy task. The bodies pressed against him, the blood flowing from the unconscious woman’s temple.
Did she have brain damage?
It seemed like forever. He had to kick at least two people who got in his way. Where was his wrench now? Eventually, wading through the swamp of humanity, he reached an ambulance. He told the cops that the woman had been wounded. And they loaded her up and took her away.
Then they arrested him. How could they know? But then he realized when he looked around at the protesters in the van with him, haggard faces with eyes all puffed up from pepper spray. These were the democratic idiots. Wa couldn’t help but laugh at the irony.
The universe was cruel and strange.