Chaos / Χάος

COLLECTIBLE SOULS (945 words)

Welcome to COLLECTIBLE SOULS.

Here you will find fragments of stories about the old gods that still walk among us today.

Some are benevolent, some are cruel, others are purely selfish, but in the end, they all take what they need to survive.

Photo credit: Amine M'siouri on pexels.com

Nikos looks up at the coral-peach facade of the building where the fates of ordinary men are decided by lesser ones. From the roof, two flags fly, rippling and snapping in the wind.

All around him is a sea of humanity: pensioners, students, toddlers riding on their fathers’ shoulders, career women, gym bros, suits and tourism workers. Like them, Nikos is here for justice. Most of the time, it feels like mythology, this idea that the people in the coral-peach building will face the consequences of their actions. But Nikos strives to believe that here, in the cradle of democracy, the people still have a voice.

He looks around him and catches the eye of a young woman, her head a mass of auburn ringlets, her makeup expertly applied, her black outfit carefully chosen to show off her curves. She sidles over to him, smiling with perfect white teeth.

“Can you feel it?” she asks, leaning into him, her lips next to his ear.

He draws back, uncomfortable, unnerved. She smells like perfume and hair products and … something else. Something unfamiliar and intoxicating.

“Feel what?” he asks.

“The cocktail of mistrust and betrayal, and all that barely-contained rage.”

“Yeah, well, you can only push people so far.”

“Oh, I agree. And of course people make their own divisions: left-wing, right-wing, this uniform, that uniform—”

“Honest people and criminals?” Nikos asks, nodding at the parliament building.

“I hardly think everyone in this crowd is honest.”

“Perhaps not, but we’re not here to judge ordinary citizens, are we?”

“What are we here for, then?”

“The people in that building have been given power, and they’re abusing it. We want the truth, and we want justice.”

The woman throws back her head and laughs.

“Justice is a fairy tale,” she says.

“If you believe what we’re doing here is pointless, why did you come?”

She leans towards him again, opens her satchel and shows him three brown beer bottles, each with a length of cloth dangling from the top.

Nikos has never seen one of these before, but he doesn’t need an explanation.

He yanks the flap of the satchel out of her hand, covering the contents and resting his hand on top to prevent her from reopening the bag.

“If you throw those, you’ll destroy everything we’re working towards here. We’ll become the villains in the story.”

She shrugs. “Every story needs them.”

“Well, we’ve already got plenty.” He gestures towards the parliament building again.

“What do they accomplish with their papers, laws and talking? They’re destructive, but their methods are slow. I prefer instant results.”

She twists her body, pulling her bag away from him.

“Come on!” Nikos snaps in frustration. “Whose side are you on?”

“My own.”

“Is that why you came here? Just to start something?”

The woman removes a piece of black cloth from her pocket and gives him a beautiful, wicked smile before she ties it around the lower part of her face. Her eyes flash excitement at him as she pulls up her hood over her vibrant, lustrous hair. One hand goes to her bag, withdrawing one of those tiny, terrifying creations.

“Don’t! People will get hurt—”

She takes a lighter from her pocket and depresses the button. Nikos makes a grab for it, but she’s faster, touching the tiny flame to the cloth in the mouth of the bottle. Soaked in ethanol, it catches at once, and a blue glow engulfs the cloth. Nikos lunges, and she lobs the whole thing with a strength that belies her slim frame. Nikos staggers into her, then rights himself, and together they watch it sail through the air, unstoppable now. It lands at the feet of the police officers lining the square behind their riot shields, and explodes.

The chaos is instantaneous. People scream. Some crouch, some run, pushing through the crowd. The police officers stumble back slightly, then press forward, their jaws set behind polycarbonate screens. The protestors are squashed together, more objects are thrown. Nikos sees them passing overhead as the space around him contracts. Black hoodies emerge from the crush like deathwatch beetles coming out of the woodwork.

Nikos is afraid—for himself, for the innocent people and children in the crowd. He stumbles back, half-carried by the tide of frightened humanity that pulls him away from the confrontation now developing between the police and the few people who came here to make trouble.

A young woman grabs his wrist. “Please help me!” she gasps. She has a crying child in her arms and is attempting to extricate a writhing toddler from its pushchair. Nikos takes the older child. Buffeted by the fleeing crowd, he tries to see how to collapse the pushchair.

“Leave it!” the woman says. “We have to get the kids away from here.”

Nikos does as she says.

Later, in his apartment, he lounges on the sofa, scrolling through social media. There is photo after photo of today’s protest, and video footage too. Nothing from the peaceful gathering this morning, only of what happened after the first projectile was thrown by the woman with the auburn hair.

It was only a slice of time, only a few streets, but it feels like the world is watching his city burn.

The media doesn’t even mention why the citizens had gathered in the square that morning, they only delight in seeing the carnage that developed. Angry protestors. Riot police. Arrests. Comments will follow, Nikos knows. How the mighty have fallen. Can you believe these people once had an empire?

He should switch off the phone, but he, too, is drawn in by the catastrophe unfolding before his eyes. Every forward step they made has been erased in a single afternoon. The people lose again, as the politicians release empty statements, and his nation descends once more into Chaos.

Thank you for reading!

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