text: Riot The street was full, packed from side to side. Hundreds, thousands of people, streamed down the avenue. A low roar came from the crowd. Windows shattered as they passed store fronts. Car alarms sounded, and then faltered and fell into submission. Street signs were bent, and then disappeared into the bulk of people. They kept marching forward, an unstoppable mass of humanity. Maybe it was caused by ever increasing taxes, it could have been a court judgment that they didn’t agree with, possibly their sports team won a championship. They could have been rebelling against unfair laws, or wars they didn’t agree with. The angry mob of people may have been supporting any cause that could be imagined, yet it didn’t stop the fact that they were marching through their own city, destroying their own stores and their own cars, ruining the streets that their tax dollars paid for. Their reasons for rebellion didn’t stop the fact that when a man fell down the crowd didn’t pause, it still pushed forward. Feet marched right over their fallen brothers and sisters. Ahead of them was a monument. A depiction of freedom maybe, or possibly a building that housed their government’s leaders, ahead of them could have simply been an open area where the group could disperse. But blocking their way was a single line of armed troops. Dressed in black riot gear, helmets with plastic visors hanging down over their faces, men stood holding tall shields, armed with large automatic weapons. In front of them were sandbags and red and white striped saw horses. Behind them were big black vehicles, armored to the teeth, like children’s toys. From the top of one vehicle stood a speaker and from that speaker an emotionless voice demanded that the people halt and disband. The speaker warned of the use of deadly force if they continued. But the crowd had no choice; even if the people in front stopped they would be trampled by the people surging forward behind them. That wasn’t what they thought though. The force behind them made them feel unstoppable. As a single unit of people they felt invincible. The gap between the two forces closed. Weapons were drawn, cocked and aimed. A final warning was given to the crowd, the speaker sounded like it didn’t expect any sort of change to actually occur. A man, dressed in black, held a gun and aimed it into the crowd. His mouth moved, the word ‘Ready’ was heard. His eyes focused on where his bullet would be sent. He opened his mouth again, ‘Aim’ came out of it. Which was redundant, everyone had already planned on where their projectiles would be placed. ‘Fire’, was the final word that was heard before people started to fall down before them. Guns fired rapidly, automatic weapons built for slaughtering people sawed through the oncoming mass of humanity. They fell in lines. Like waves they crashed to the cold asphalt. The gunmen showed no emotion as they laid people down to rest, they were coldly following orders. There was no moral objection; morals played no part in their job. The onrushing people marched over their fallen brethren, stepped over the slippery bodies and pushed closer to the men who were firing upon them before they fell in heaps themselves. Guns began smoking. Empty shells popped out and piled up on the ground at the feet of the men dressed in black. The crowd seemed to be never ending, only slightly slowed by the mounds of the fallen bodies that they had to overcome on their way to their goal behind the men who protected it with deadly force. The men worked like machines reloading their weapons, bodies lubricated by sweat, silently repeating trained motions. Guns began to overheat, and were automatically discarded, traded for side arms. The mob of people seemed to pick up their pace, getting closer as hot assault rifle after hot assault rifle was replaced by cool, single shot, side arm. The crowd over took the saw horses first, still falling to bullets, still piling up and being walked over. The wood splintered crushed under the trampling force of the publics will. Next they overcame the sandbags, which were soon hidden underneath the smashed and bleeding faces, arms, legs and torsos of those who fell while crossing them. Bullets screamed, cutting through air and flesh, destroying. Finally, as they approached the men dressed in black, whose job it was to protect what was behind them, whose task it was to keep order, while they were still falling to bullets being fired and they over too even them. Black uniform after black uniform, the men were engulfed by the oncoming crowd. One gun after another went silent. In the end, after hundreds of bodies had been tallied, after the crowd had stormed whatever had been their destination. Men and women were laid into the ground. Those men in black who shot down the oncoming crowd were laid in graves besides those who they shot. Their tombstones shared the same last names as those people from the oncoming crowd that they were laid next to. In the end, we seek a moral. Yet we may find only chaos.