"Woken" by Adam Carlton

From OpenArt

Nathalie walks through the district of the Goutte d'Or: the streets once so genteel, now so derelict. The rain falls in sheets but in her anger and despair she hardly notices. She kicks at the rubble in a once-grand street, where gilded balconies now jut at odd angles against the leaden sky. A can clatters away, and in the distance, a burnt-out car sags like some long-dead creature.

She should be with her classmates at this moment, locked arm-in-arm beneath banners that always demand a better tomorrow. Today’s topic:  a lengthy scream on the evils of plastic. But Nathalie has protest-fatigue; her feet carry her towards Saint Bernard de la Chapelle, the church where Father Léopold, her uncle, keeps his silent vigil. Another relic of a former age.

The street cameras silently note her passing. A drone buzzes overhead, indifferent for now.

---

Into the church, into the thick, nostalgic, dwindling scent of incense. Nathalie takes a deep breath. Dust swirls in the fractured light, the air has tactile weight. In the quiet, the world outside recedes into irrelevance: chaos, noise, pervasive hypocrisy - none of it penetrates these ancient walls.

Her uncle sits alone in a front pew staring at the altar, unresponsive to her approach. Nathalie’s footsteps, now slow and deliberate, echo in the cavernous space.

Finally he turns, his smile a flicker of warmth in the all-encompassing gloom. He points her to a small room off the nave, where rare confessions now tell less of sin, more of desperation.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Nathalie says, her words tumbling forth like gusting leaves, “All the scheduled protests on our timetable, all our carefully-drilled chants… I hate it!”

Léopold leans back, his hands cradling a mug of tea that has long gone cold, saying nothing, just waiting, the way he always does.

“It’s just theatre,” she continues, “They think they’re changing something but they’re not. They’re just… playing at it. They don’t see that they’re the ones being played.”

Léopold’s eyes don't leave her face. There is no judgement in them, only the weight of years, the things he’s seen, all the things he hasn’t been able to alter.

“We’re radical students,” Nathalie says scornfully, “There’s always some cause du jour to protest about; it’s on the news, it's on the TV. Out we go, showing our values, tossing our heads, showing that we care…”

He stirs at that, tilting his head slightly, gaze now attentive.

“How can they not see their strings being pulled? I can see it. Some of my friends can see it. The teachers themselves shame you if you don’t show enough enthusiasm - so why would anyone believe they’re being truly radical, for God’s sake?”

Léopold smiles at that. “And you?” he asks, voice low, as if speaking too loudly would waken something ominous in the room.

“I’m not afraid,” she whispers, “I won’t be another sheep in their flock. I won’t feed their machine.”

Outside, the sound of the rain intensifies, drumming against the church’s ancient stone.

“And what will you do instead?”

Nathalie doesn’t answer immediately. She stares across the nave towards the stained glass windows, constant in their endless watch against a profane world. “I don’t know yet,” she says, “But it won’t be this. It won’t be stage-managed protests.”

Before Léopold can respond, the main door bursts open, the crash reverberating between the massive walls. Armoured CRS troopers march in, their black boots slamming on the worn stone floor. Their leader, his face masked, surveys the scene as if he’d caught the two of them participating in some cultish ritual.

“What do we have here?” he sneers, “Another priest playing with the little kiddies?”

Léopold remains seated, his posture unchanged though there is new tension in his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch as the officer struts closer, carbine held across his chest.

“This is my niece,” Léopold says quietly, his voice unsteady.

The officer’s lip curls. Without a word, he strikes. The butt of his rifle connects with Léopold’s chin with a cracking sound followed by a gasp of pain. Blood splatters the floor; the old man topples from his seat.

Nathalie is transfixed. She barely blinks. Her mind lags, as though she were watching from a great distance. Léopold lies crumpled on the ground, the officer standing over him breathing heavily. He turns to her, his grip on her arm cold, precise and mechanical. “Come on then, girlie. You’ve got a march to join.”

Nathalie is pulled towards the door, her face expressionless, her thoughts somewhere else.

They step out into the rain, Nathalie immobilised by her huge, black-clad captor. She turns her face upward, the drops hit her skin. Her mind whirls on unchecked: the weekly demonstrations, regular as clockwork; the chanting crowds; the slogans of protest: all theatre, all a distraction. Real authority moves silently, unseen, deploying soft and hard power as it wills. The system that beat-up her uncle, that watched her from the skies, would not fall to choreographed slogans-on-demand; that requires something else - something sharp, and quiet, and unyielding.

Nathalie, suddenly and contemptuously freed, blinks the rain from her eyes and walks on. She will no longer be part of their performance. Her path, she now knows, leads into the shadows, those hidden places where the system may truly be subverted. She does not know where this real resistance is, or how it may be contacted. But she will find out.

---

The surveillance state gets all this - and approves. Nathalie has demonstrated insight, intelligence and determination - all qualities the elite cherishes in its perpetual quest for self-renewal. The path is certainly long and few are chosen, yet she has made a good start. Configuration files are updated, cameras and drones fine-tuned. Nathalie has transitioned: she has become a candidate for special oversight.

---

Author's note: this short story is a rewrite from something I wrote a while ago when 'plastics' was indeed la cause de notre temps. That story was heavy-handed and knockabout - a piece of thoroughly leaden satire - and I cringed when I re-read it. The result above is not at all a great piece of literature; I prefer to think of it as workmanlike agitprop: la réalité de nos jours.