A Convenient Lie

As the other workers, filled with rage, tired of their poor wages, threw their shov-els into the dark, uninviting pit within which they had toiled endlessly for the past few days, Yolen Trumble followed suit, recoiling from his tool in disgust.  Slowly, resigned to the fate he knew was to come, he thrust his calloused hands into the air, all too aware of the futility of this act, with the dark night smothering them.  The only notable differ-ence he noted upon exiting the darkness of the mine was the fresh air; this he relished, knowing full well that every breath may be his last.
Beside him, he felt, rather than saw, the other workers gazing at the starry sky, feeling the dirt beneath their toes.  He bent down momentarily to clasp a fistful of dirt in his palm, letting it run through his fingers as he stood up.  Looking forward, he was able to see figures approaching in the dim light, several of them holding torches.  The rest car-ried swords.
To the end, Yolen kept his head held high, even as the shining sword plunged down towards him.  Before he died, he saw the eyes of his killer; an Imperial, the eyes seemed sad, somehow.  Then, Yolen slumped over, lifeless.

In the silence of the night, a vulture, shrouded in darkness, descended upon a still figure stretched across the crudely built road.  The stationary figure lay surrounded by other bodies, all dead.
The stars peered down at the carrion bird like ever-vigilant eyes, almost sinister in their gaze.  The town of Silverage was sleeping as they watched, its citizens unaware of the tragedy that had just befallen the town’s greatest men.  They were brave men who fought for what they believed in, and died for their cause.  Weary of their unceasing jobs, they had lay down their shovels and stopped working.  Every striker was killed.
A group of men stood a small distance away.  The night hid their features.  Had there been light, the remorse shown in their eyes would have been evident, but only under close inspection.  The blood on their swords was not proof of their true feelings.  They had carried out their orders well; perfectly, in fact.  That was the reason the strikers were dead, that was the reason that, come dawn, all of the families of Silverage would weep for the loss of their loved ones.  They would huddle together, trying to find strength in the company of each other, confused by the world the cruelty of fate.
The men with bloody swords, clad in blue cloaks, would watch impassively, as always, stowing their true feelings into a well of sorrow deep in their soul.  Even now, one of the Imperials wiped his eyes, passing off the gesture as an attempt to brush back his hair.  The blue-clad men hid their hatred of the government they helped to create, each of them secretly sharing the feelings of the one beside them, all too afraid to voice their opinion.  And as they watched the vultures peck at the dead strikers, they all wished they had as much bravery and courage as the men they had just killed.

When the sun finally appeared across the shimmering surface of the lake that lay adjacent to Silverage, word of the tragedy had already reached the small, worn down home of Johnny Trumble.  The message came in the form of a frightened, pale-faced lit-tle girl, who, upon returning from the lake, had come across several Imperials standing stoically by the pile of corpses strewn haphazardly across the road.  The girl, stuttering, had told a horrified Johnny that one of the fallen men was his older brother.  This was several hours past midnight, and Johnny had stumbled weakly back to his bed in a teary haze, groping his way through the dark.  He barely registered the pain as he slammed his head against his bedpost.  He had drifted back to sleep, drifting in and out of confused dreams and nightmares.
In the morning, however, the pain returned, and with it, came the flood of memo-ries.  He reached a trembling hand up to his face and found that his cheeks were wet with tears.  A strange ache in his stomach troubled him, the ache that always accompanied a deep loss.  Johnny had never lost someone so close to him before, and, even now, the space beside him in his small bed seemed evil and malign, the absence of his brother filled with unpleasant thoughts.
Johnny had been close to Yolen, often staying up late at night, discussing how best to overthrow the Imperials.  Their once far-fetched plans, created as excited little children, had developed into fully-fledged acts of treason, with strategies for escape, for breaking free of Imperialism.  Yolen was three years older than Johnny; at twenty, he seemed infinitely more mature than his younger brother.  Now, more than ever, Johnny would have to get a job.  Money and food were scarce in the family, and medicine for his sick mother was an unaffordable luxury.
His mother had been sick for a time.  The exact nature of the illness was unknown to both Johnny and the countless that came to call, each of them demanding more money than the last.  Her breathing now came raggedly, seeming to fill the room with its harsh catches and uncertainties.  Every day, her fever increased, sending her into fitful spasms.
Johnny threw the glass of water beside his bed at the wall.  It shattered, falling uselessly to the ground.  Filled with anger, he punched the very same wall, but achieved nothing except a sharp pain in two of his knuckles.  Glancing quickly at his fingers, he saw a thin trail of blood dripping down the back of his hand.  Cursing, he bent down to retrieve the broken fragments of the glass.  It was a shame he had allowed his anger to control him, for that had been a good glass, one of the only ones his family still had.
He felt the fury rising him in again as he stared wordlessly at the room around.  Impossibly small, it was one of four rooms in the house.  There was one other bedroom, a kitchen that doubled as a dining room and bedroom for his little sister, and a lavatory.  The lavatory was nothing more than a hollowed out space in the ground, surrounded on three sides by walls, their paint chipping, but nevertheless solid.  A door covered the fourth side, its hinges snapped from years of overuse.
The house’s ceiling was made up of sturdy rafters that laced the roof, with tiles filling the gaps between the wood, mostly made up of dried mud and small fragments of rock.  The floor was composed of multiple planks strewn across the ground in a hectic manner.  In many places, the dirt had seeped into the house, the wood rotting and sinking into the crude foundation of the house.
But the failing house was not what made Johnny angry, nor the destroyed water glass.  It was not even the lack of money, for that was a problem his family had struggled with for his whole life.  True, the financial issues contributed in part to his overall frustra-tion, but the majority of the angry was derived from the feeling of utter helplessness, made worse, much worse, by the death of his brother.
A shiver ran through his body, followed immediately by a wave of weariness, as he thought about the fact that the rest of his family did not even know that Yolen was dead.  It was not news he would enjoy telling them; no, perhaps he would feign igno-rance, fake surprise when they eventually found out.
And then the anger was back, stronger than ever before, and Johnny was crying, storming about his room with blind eyes, seeing only the face of his dead brother, flushed with excitement as he wondered how best to break free from the restrictive government.  Yolen had been brave, more courageous than Johnny could ever hope to be.
Well, look where that bravery got him.  Dead…a lot of good that’ll do anyone.
Instantly, Johnny felt sick for thinking this.  Yolen was his brother, and also his best friend.  Resolutely wiping the tears from his green eyes, he steeled himself for what was to come, unsure how to begin telling his family the news.

He told his father first, finding him standing forlornly in the field.  Johnny stared at the small, hunched figure, his father’s obviously exhausted form reaping the meager crops, most of which would go to the undeserving Imperials.
“Dad!” called Johnny, jogging across the field.
“Johnny, what a surprise!  Up already?  I could definitely use the help, what with Yolen down in the mines still…” his father gestured resignedly at the expansive field.
“Actually…well, yes, of course I’ll help you.”  Now that the moment had come to tell him, Johnny felt the words tasting strange in his mouth, oddly bitter and rather diffi-cult to force out.
“Thank you, thank you, Johnny…”
The two of them worked in silence for a while, carefully extracting the good crops from the field, both of them dismayed at how many plants had gone bad from mildew.
“Dad,” said Johnny suddenly.
“Yeah?” his father did not look up.
“Yolen…Yolen’s dead.”
Now his father did look up, his body jerking involuntarily.  With eyes that be-seeched with him, pleading with him to lie, his father’s mouth fell open, unable to shield himself from the shock and the pain.
“H-how?” he whispered.
“Imperials,” said Johnny tonelessly; retelling the story brought back the previous night’s pain “They killed him.  He was on strike.”
His father nodded.  Johnny reached out hesitantly towards his shoulder, unsure of how to console him.  His father recoiled from the touch, turning away and continuing his work, not even acknowledging Johnny’s presence.
“Dad?  Dad!” cried Johnny. “Listen to me!  What am I going to tell everyone?”
“Don’t tell your mother, she’s weak enough as it is.  If she asks, just say…say Yolen was promoted and has to go on a mining expedition” His father’s voice was tight, constricted with emotion.  Johnny sensed the breaking point soon. “You can tell Arielle if she asks, but she’s only ten, so be careful with…with your choice of words.”
“I’m sorry, dad.”
His father waved Johnny away with an old, wrinkled hand, his frail arms demand-ing much more respect than Johnny had for the strongest Imperial.
“Go.  We will mourn for several days, but after that, enjoy yourself.  This was not your fault.  The Imperials will impose a new tax upon us soon enough anyway, and after that, more deaths…”
“What of his funeral?”
“We shall mourn in our hearts, no more.”

After the days of mourning passed, Johnny tried desperately to forget about his brother, but he remembered his face in every Imperial that he saw, always accompanied by a fierce, uncontrollable anger.  Its heat coursed through his veins, complementing the heavy feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when a friend reminded him of Yolen.  Johnny became an emotional wreck, working day and night to harvest crops, his spare time spent caring for his mother, who fortunately did not ask about Yolen.  When friends came to call, he turned them away.
To make matters worse, his father’s prediction came true.  The Imperials passed a new tax, called the Corn Tax.  More of a command than a tax, it ordered all corn growers to relinquish the entirety of their corn so as to greater benefit the “courageous” Imperial Armed Guard, the majority of which was “currently staving off evil, rebellious attacks.”  These “attacks” were essentially strikes, as Johnny well knew, and the courageous Impe-rials were most likely gluttons far too used to getting everything they wanted.
Unfortunately for Johnny’s family, their major crop was corn; it was easy to grow and usually reliable.  It had always been so, and his family had always been able to scrape through the winter.  Now, they would be reduced to scrounging about for spare change and begging for food, degradation that Johnny had feared all of his life.
“Johnny, you have a friend at the door.” His mother’s pitifully weak voice cut through his reverie.  Glancing quickly at the door, he saw that it was Hans Glendin.  Glendin, a sturdy, tall man of forty-two years, had a personality that reflected his stature.  However, Hans was his father’s best friend, and through years of friendship, Johnny had found another side to Glendin, a gentler, kinder side, that, regardless of its strange charac-teristics, did not lose his sarcasm and sardonic wit.
“Hullo, Johnny,” said Hans, tipping his hat as he came in. “Your father in?”
“Sorry, Hans, I think he’s in the fields.  That new tax has got us working con-stantly.”
“That’s actually the matter I came to speak of.” Glendin’s voice was gravelly and deep, always seeming gravely serious.  His eyes were the sole access to his true emo-tions; deep blue, they were his only changing facial feature, his mouth always held in a line, rarely smiling.  His hair was dark and curly, darker even than his skin.  Always wearing black, Glendin’s eyes seemed to positively sparkle, a sharp contrast to the subtle-ties of their surroundings.  Johnny subconsciously smoothed back his own brown hair, feeling awkward in Glendin’s commanding presence.
“Do you want me to take you to him?” asked Johnny.
“If you wish.  Incidentally, I heard about your brother.  I am very sorry for your loss; he was a good man.”
“Yes, he was,” muttered Johnny bitterly.
“Do not underestimate his sacrifice.  The Imperials grow weaker every second; soon, the commoners will rise as one.  I expect there are other forces at work as well, un-seen, working tirelessly against the Imperialistic regime.”
Johnny said nothing, but he disagreed with Glendin.  Yolen’s death had been un-necessary in the extreme, both unmerited and unneeded.  It did nothing to further the situation of the commoners, instead inciting another debilitating tax.
Beckoning to Hans with his hand, Johnny stepped briskly from his house.  His sharp eyes quickly located his father, and he set off, Glendin close behind.
“So, Hans, what do you propose to do about the Imperials?” he said, knowing full well Glendin’s opinion on the matter.
“I will fight if needed, Johnny, but you are aware that I prefer as little blood to be spilled as possible.  We must be careful, us commoners.  Too much killing will turn us into nothing but mere replicas of the enemy we seek to overthrow.”
“Your reasoning is flawed, Hans, for it presumes that nonviolence will work.”
“As I said, Johnny, I will fight, and well, if needed.  I am simply wary of becom-ing Imperialistic in our very nature, until another rebellion overthrows us in time.”
“That would never happen.  The people know what it’s like to be oppressed.  The Imperials don’t.  That’s why we, the people, should be ruling the government.”
“Once again, you are trying to fight me when we are on the same side, and it is precisely this division amongst divisions which I fear.”
“But we are on opposite sides!  You want nonviolence, I don’t.”
“There, Johnny, you have stated the problem of the world, but unintentionally, of course.  People tend to meld the true problem with those that surround them, and those people are their allies, their friends, just as the Imperials could easily be our friends if both sides sacrificed just a little.”
“You want to befriend an Imperial?” Johnny had actually stopped walking to-wards his father, so surprised was he at this new development in the conversation.
“Certainly.  Most of the actually soldiers do not believe in their cause, and I be-lieve that it is they who will be the most beneficial to our cause in the end.”
Johnny shook his head in disbelief, not wanting to even discuss the atrocious mat-ter of befriending an Imperial.  Still, a biting urge that constricted his chest forced him to voice one of his thoughts:
“Imperials killed my brother, Hans.  How can I ever look one in the eye and trust them with my life?”
Hans stopped walking as well, turning around to face Johnny for the first time in the whole conversation.  His blue eyes were solemn.
“Do not let vengeance consume you, Johnny; it will destroy you.”
Unnerved by the strange look in Glendin’s eyes, Johnny nodded and resumed walking hastily.  The almost prophetic tone in the older man’s voice, indeed the tone of his voice in general, was disconcerting.
Finally, they reached Johnny’s father, and the silence, which hovered between them in the midst of unspoken words and conflicted emotions, was broken.  Hans broke into a rare smile and embraced Johnny’s father, clasping him firmly on the back.
“It’s good to see you, Patton,” laughed Hans.
“You as well.  How’ve you been?” asked Patton.
“Good…” the youthful look that had fleetingly appeared on Glendin’s face was wiped away, replaced once again by a calm seriousness. “Well, not really.  The Imperials took my house away.”
Johnny started at this, as he had been unaware of this information.
“Why?” was all his father said.
“Didn’t pay my taxes,” replied Hans, giving a rueful smile, though the smile did not quite reach his eyes.
“Of course,” sighed Patton. “You didn’t put up a fight when they tried to take it, did you?”
“If knocking two Imperials unconscious doesn’t count as a fight, then no.”
“You have to be careful, Hans.” said Patton, passing a weary hand in front of his face in exasperation. “I suppose you need a place to stay?”
“Yes.  If it’s not too much ask, could I possibly¬-“
“Of course,” cut in Johnny’s father. “But only on one condition: don’t get in-volved in any more fights or protests while you’re staying here.  If anything happens to my family because of you, I will make you pay.”
“Well spoken, I would do the same if I were in your position.”
“Is that all you wished to speak to me about, because if not, I really must be work-ing.  This Corn Tax has–“
“That’s actually the matter I came to discuss.”
“Carry on.”
Hans took a deep breath, as if readying himself for a speech.
“I think that you shouldn’t pay the tax.  And before you interrupt me, let me ex-plain myself.  I’ve been doing some research on the way the tax works, and its essentially an income tax combined with an order to give up your corn.  You have to give up seventy percent of your corn crop, right, and then fifty percent of the profit made from the re-maining corn.  But if they don’t find out how much corn you’re growing, you can falsify the tax and give them seventy percent of a specified amount.  The same goes for the in-come aspect of it.”
Patton was quiet for a while after the speech, and Johnny stood by him, watching him curiously to see what his reaction would be.  Personally, Johnny thought it was a good idea, albeit a dangerous one.
“What do you say?” asked Hans, when Patton was silent.
“No,” replied Johnny’s father. “It’s far too risky.  The Imperials would surely in-spect my crops, and once they found out I was lying, I would be killed, along with my family.  I refuse to do it.”
“I thought you might say that.  But think of this, Patton!  If you were to grow some of the corn in a secluded, safe place, you would have access to it.  The Imperials would never think to check it, and if they found it, they couldn’t logically trace the evi-dence back to you.”
“That’s just it.  They don’t need logic.  They’re the government.”
“It’s a good idea, dad,” said Johnny. “We should do it.  I can tend to it most of the days if you need me to.”
“No!” his father looked angry now. “I won’t let you be dragged into this, Johnny!  You’re my only son, now that Yolen…I can’t lose you, too.”
“It’s better to die fighting than a coward!”
They were brave words, words that Johnny did not truly believe.  He considered the implications of that statement as his father stared at him with a stony face.
“I am no coward, Johnny.  I work every day to have most of my profits taken from me, and I try to make your life, the life of my family, as good as possible.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, dad-“
“Yes, yes, it’s easy for you to fantasize about dying a hero, isn’t it, Johnny!  But you know what?  The real heroes are the ones who keep living on, day by day, knowing that what they do is mostly pointless and in vain.”
“Perhaps you are afraid to fight,” interrupted Hans.
“Perhaps you are afraid to live,” shot back Patton.
“Yes, you could say I am.  I am afraid of living on like this, as you said.  I want my life to mean something, Patton.”
“He has a point, dad.  What point is there in living as we do, oppressed?  Should we not try to improve the lives of my generation, and the generation that will come after me?” said Johnny.
His father stared at him with a strange, indiscernible expression then, his eyes oddly watery.  Picking up his fallen shovel once more, he continued his work, finally breaking his intense gaze.  Johnny frowned in consternation, and Hans slowly guided him away, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
Behind them, Patton kept on toiling, bending down on the coarse dirt, the sun beating down upon his tired back.

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