In the night a metal truck with jagged teeth crawled through the streets and bit out the foundations of the houses. It smashed in the windows and small wiry creatures dressed in black ran in to steal out the furniture and the photographs.
In the morning men in uniforms came and gagged the homeowners for disturbing the silence and they cordoned off the area with red and white tape. When a small boy ran over to ask what they were doing, they tied him up to a tree and blew up his house with dynamite.
An old lady wrapped in a shawl sat their in her rocking chair watching them all as she pushed herself back and forth with her foot. ‘I see them, I see us, I see what we are doing,’ she said, bleeding softly onto the ground. ‘I see our fear, our deep black panic; I see the fight we make to protect ourselves, but what I do not see is hope. Trust does not grow out from under the pavement in the same way as the dandelions.’
The graffiti came in the night, it crept over the broken walls and tiles and tunnels, it read, Where is the place that we can stand to build up and not break down? How can we be a part of the change when we’re still a part of the cause?