Page 9 - BBR_fallwinter14

Flowers of Spring
Fiction by Adriana Brusgul ‘16
The warning came in the spring.
He had been walking to class, passing the Seine, when he saw the man behind him, the man he had been dreading. There was nothing but silence in the air as he continued to walk, keeping his pace even and steady.
[text to:(Étienne): I have one now]
He wasn’t scared. This happened to everyone eventually. That’s how the government worked. Anyone who seemed like a threat would be followed, terminated if necessary. He heard his phone buzz and checked it, praying for good news.
[text from:(Étienne): As do I. Cafe, 1800 hrs.]
He waited until he was around a corner before making a run for it, vaulting over a fence and swinging onto a ledge, securing his hair and bag before pulling himself up and onto a low rooftop. Glancing around for pursuers, he checked the roof for the small mark of a rose, which told him that this building was a safe house for people like him. Checking the other rooftops, he slipped through the roof hatch and made his way inside.
The woman who ran the house was kind to him, giving him news of who had died and who had vanished. There were twelve last night, mainly students like him. It wasn’t right that young people like him had to be taken away. They could be dead or imprisoned somewhere awful. He knew he would be in the next round to go anyway, he’d nd out what happens.
It was easy enough for him to slip out of the safe house, nding sanctuary in his classrooms for the day. Though he wrote down his notes and studied diligently, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man from earlier, and the fact his best friend now had a follower too. The government had taken away other people he knew, he didn’t want to lose another friend, especially not the one he had known his entire life. He still remembered the rst conversation they had ever had, the one when he had been running and Étienne’s car door had just happened to be open.
“This is my car-!” “Just drive, please.” “Is that the police?!” “Long story! Please!”
“...Where to?”
Étienne had always been there for him, even when others weren’t. Even when his friends started to distance them- selves from him, due to the fact he went through a ‘down with the establishment’ phase in secondary school- a phase that he never grew out of. Étienne had been there to patch
8
him up the rst time a rally went
wrong, and was there to bail him
out the rst time he found him-
self in a jail cell. If the govern-
ment took him, he didn’t know
what he would do anymore.
With that sobering thought in
mind, he shouldered his bag and
caught the metro to his usual stop, sprinting into the café he often called home.
Étienne was there, as usual, and he had brought all their friends with him. With a sad smile, Étienne pushed him up onto a makeshift speaking platform, so he could be heard.
“Friends, they marked me today. I now have a shadow.” His voice never faltered, keeping his eyes xed on Étienne’s calm- ing gaze.
The shouts of outrage shook the room until the very rafters seemed ready to burst and shatter. His friends reacted with mixed emotions, all of them passionate.
“How dare they?!”
“They can’t!”
“We need you!”
“What do we do?!”
He took a breath, trying not to panic.This is what I was made for, he mused. I was made for this ght.
Robin Wakely ‘17 The Blackbird Review