TW: violent imagery
Behold, the dirt. This is where the heads of the old regime lie in state: beneath the soil of the state. Behold, our former dictators. This is where they lie rotting. During the decades the despots reigned, the heads of the old regime stained the earth red with the blood of the people, with the blood of their armies, with their own blood as well. In the early days of the revolt, the haze of gunsmoke and battle tinged the sky purple. We have known strange spectrums, colors that ought not to exist. The soil we’re standing on is not the same soil one might find elsewhere.
The flag unfurls, a bold red and blue. The red is the blood, the blue is the sky, but the heads of the old regime are buried in the earth, which is brown. The color brown does not often appear on national flags. The reasons ought to be obvious. Nobility soars. We revere revolutions, not sewers.
Our historians argue about how the slaughter began, which side fired first. Informants holed up in the encampments around the capital’s central plaza must have snitched. Lies spun out over the airwaves, inflaming old aggrievements. There were signs and shouting, a few scuffles. The snipers took their positions. The heads of the old regime gave the order to fire, then watched from their turrets and citadels as protestors fell and the streets ran red. All hope died in that torrent of bullets. So the story goes.
The assassinations were subtle at first. An old general had heart failure. Another, a stroke. A third choked on a bolus of steak. Weeks and months passed. When in a single day a hunting accident took out two, and a third fell from a high window, rumors spread like black ink in clear water. The remaining heads of the old regime, and their aides and their families and their cronies all went into hiding. Some fled the republic. Some were shot at the borders. There were drownings and electrocutions. At least two were poisoned. The ones who stayed behind in hiding were rounded up. Death by firing squad, the bodies tossed into the sewers, headless. The color brown does not appear on the new national flag. Red, however, does.
Behold, the dirt: this raw soil, unholy. Not a blade of grass will grow here. It was paved over once, an attempt to eradicate a past that has yet to pass fully into history’s grasp. The asphalt shattered. The granite slab placed on top of it next met a similar fate. There were breakthroughs. Disruptions. The public, it seemed, did not want the heads of the old regime to rest in peace. So the story goes.
Victory eclipses accountability. Everything is allowed if it succeeds. The means encircle the ends.
The murders weren’t subtle at first, not at all. Leaders of the political opposition, the labor movement, and the student groups were found mangled, their bodies ripped to hunks of bleeding gutmeat and skin. Scientists warned of a new species of wildcat, a pack of wolves, even dinosaurs brought to life in the old regime’s labs. They wanted weapons more permanent than panic, more terrible than tear gas. Some would say they succeeded. In the waning days of their reign, they experimented on students, labor organizers, and opposition figures. There were breakthroughs. The science was described as disruptive. And some of the ones who survived the horrors wrought upon their bodies in those experiments were later found in shreds.
Even today, the slaughter continues. We have peace and stability, but agitators of a certain political bent turn up dead. Sometimes so little is left of their bodies that DNA tests are required. We have that capacity now. The questions linger, though. Why yesterday’s opposition—now today’s ruling party—still have enemies. Who those might be. There were purges. Mass expulsions. Even a penal colony in the far south of the republic. But why not the more conventional techniques—snipers, poisonings, defenestrations? Why do the bodies so often look chewed? This is where the heads of the old regime have been buried, but not their bodies. The soil shows signs of disturbance. We have known strange spectrums, colors that ought not to exist. Once again, the old ways are rising. Behold.
Marshall Moore is an American author, publisher, and academic based in Cornwall, England. He is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which is a short-story collection titled Love Is a Poisonous Color (Rebel Satori Press, 2023). He holds a PhD in creative writing from Aberystwyth University. For more information or to stalk him online, please visit linktr.ee/marshallsmoore.
Punt Volat 