The Free People's Village by Sim Kern

Author:Sim Kern
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

30

Downstairs, folks were already gathering in the Lab for the People’s Muster. I popped into Peter and Vida’s place and found Red killing skeletons in Hyrule. I tried to get xim to come to the meeting, but xe had “just gotten to the fire temple boss” and waved me off. In the Lab, I squeezed onto a bare patch of floor beside Gestas and Nimo, who were sipping their spicy root beers.

After Shayna quieted us down with a few siren whoops from her megaphone, a sanitation team rep spoke—pleading for people to do a better job cleaning up after themselves. “If you buy beer, please pick up all the cans and bottles. Bring it back to your permanent residence, if you have one, or take it to a recycling dumpster. Our trash cans are like ninety percent beer cans right now, and we can’t keep up.” Next, Damian asked for more volunteers to join the dishwashing working group. And someone raised a motion—which quickly passed by consensus—for the finance team to either buy more porta-potties, or at least get them emptied more frequently.

Shayna took the mic, and I sat up straighter. Even though we were supposed to be a “leaderless collective,” I still saw her opinion as the one that mattered most.

“As we’re ending our second week, I just want to say how proud I am of all of us. This occupation, what we’re accomplishing here, is truly incredible. And I want to thank y’all who have been working so hard to make it happen. Particularly the logistics people—sanitation and kitchen. Without them we wouldn’t be able to live here, folks, let’s give it up for them!” Applause broke out, and I couldn’t help but grin, glowing with Shayna’s appreciation.

“But,” she said, and paused. The whole room tensed up, knowing we were about to be fed some medicine. “This occupation is not a camping trip. It’s not a party. This is a protest against the state violence that is once again targeting our community. I see a lot of y’all nodding.” She looked around, and some people froze in the act. “Then I don’t understand why at yesterday evening’s action at Buffalo Bayou Park, we had only four people show up. FOUR. Out of all y’all.” She swept her hand around the room. “The night before that, seven. The night before that, a dozen. Now I know some of you had to be here because you’re on shift, and we need people to hold down the fort. And I know some of y’all work evenings. But this was an action at 5:30, just three miles from here. And when I got back, there were fifty people outside, drinking and smoking weed, and sitting around a damn drum circle. Next time, bring your drums to the protest!”

We all looked like kids caught cutting class as Shayna pursed her lips at us.

“Now I’m gonna bring up Juan Pablo, from the Gulf Coast Indigenous Alliance. They drove up here today and led a beautiful land-blessing ceremony.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.