Honest Fall

Honesty is the best policy. It is the major defining quality of any decent human being and will ultimately make one a virtuous and honorable person. It is what is drilled into a child’s brain since birth and what one is supposed to remember. All through stories and fairy tales it is the honest that prevail. I think of all this as I look into the pleading, hopeful eyes of a fellow human being and lie straight to his face. I am devoid of emotion and there isn’t a trace of my true feelings on my face, I am stone, I am inhuman, I am an actor.
Now to start off and perhaps clear some things up I am not a bad person. Mull this over for a moment, talk amongst yourselves. Done. Alright then… where was I? Oh yes. Most of the time I am fairly normal. I have a heart, I have been prone to feel compassion (every once in a while), and I am not a compulsive liar. Though, as of late I have been doing it more of it, I try not to make a habit of It., but either way I rarely feel remorse. However, somehow it is the lie that I just told that gnaws at me the most. “All will be well, “…  “It won’t last for long”… “I will be back”; all words all empty promises, all lies.
“Cakes for sale!” “Cakes for sale!”  the plump baker’s girl calls out in front of the store.  “Buy a flower! Flowers coming nice and cheap for a franc or two!” the skin and bones flower girl calls out, while trying to keep the attention away from her wilting wares. Errand boys run around, getting under your feet and paper boys practically throw their goods at you. Paris is alive, bustling and well, busy and gritty. The cobblestones themselves so soiled that a rat would think twice before making its home in them. I myself sit propped up on the crumpling remains of a stone wall, a large basket at my feet. My friend beside me. We are enjoying the crisp spring air. Relishing in the fact that it is no longer freezing, dreading the summer time that will come any day now. Dreading the flies and the heat. My basket is more fill then the others in the square. It is filled with weaving, embroidery, little drawings and beautifully carved jewelry boxes. These are made by my family but they are not for common folk, who, of the common folk has money to waste on such frivolities? No, not when their children are starving. Only the rich can pay for this, but fortunately the rich pay well. Whenever I see a silk waist coat or a prized stallion I jump off the wall and am ready to go. Jean is ready too, with his guitar case open to spare coins, his hands moving like the wind. He isn’t amazing, but he is better than most.  When walking throughout the city you learn to appreciate better than most.
         Jean lies back on the wall, it is the high noon now and the sun is coming on strong. What was that I said about summertime? His coat is lying down. None too neatly, long discarded. We haven’t gotten a customer in a while but we’re waiting, and he’s talking. “Does the crown have any right to even tax us after all they’ve done? We suffer and they sit in the palace stuffing their faces. It isn’t right!” He always talked like that, even when we were children. Even before anybody even spoke the strange word, revolution. He questioned things, everything and anything. Somehow I doubt he’ll ever be satisfied. Not with the government, not with his life, not with himself. Me, I couldn’t care less. As long as I can go on living my life, without too much difficulty, I am fine, I’m perfectly fine.  Still, I can’t humor Jean.
“What is the point of revolution if we have the Estates-Genera. Won’t that settle taxes and laws itself? We will be better than English and America. We are French after all.”
Jean springs upon me like a wild tiger. He is up; up and sitting bolt upright in less than a second “My God Marianne! Do you even hear what you’re saying?! You are talking about surrendering our freedom to the upper class. No, no the National Assembly, that is our future. They will not, they won’t, take that away from us! My God Marianne. How could you possibly be so stupid?”
I know not why but that line doesn’t even make me flinch. I have gotten much angrier over far smaller things before, but this line, the only one in which he actually insulted me, does nothing. It doesn’t even startle me. It only puts a question into my mind that I do not hesitate in asking him. “Why is it that you play for them so readily if you hate them so?”
He dangles his feet off the wall and look downward at the crowds of vermin and answers in a quiet voice “I have to eat don’t I?”
         It caused him pain to say this. Something that would seem perfectly logical to my mind caused him more pain then I even knew at the time. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was succumbing to the roles set for us at birth. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that everything he wanted was just too good to be true and that if he wanted to live he had to work; he had to work for them.
         That was all only the beginning, because soon the summer came, truly and in full force, and with it came tensions.
         “Marianne” my sister whined mercilessly as she trailed me through the street “I’m hungry, I want a candy,”
         “You can’t have a candy, I don’t have any money” I answer without even turning around to look at her face.
         “But I want one!” she practically screeched, a hitch in her voice. I whirled around and glared at her full force. Her hair was glued to her face with sweat and her skirts were much too long for her, trailing in the mud. Her lip stuck out and she truly looked on the brink of tears, “Magdalene” I begin exasperatedly but she cuts me off.
         “And don’t say you don’t have any money. I saw a whole sou in your basket, earlier”.
         “Magdalene! That money is for the family. To pay the landlord and to get some bread. I’ll let you have a bit of the loaf before we get home, will that keep you quiet?”
         “I don’t want bread, I want candy!” her voice carries loudly across the square and causes heads to turn. I am really on edge, about to slap her, when Jean comes out from behind.
”Magdalene, if you keep quiet and stop causing your sister trouble, I’ll buy you a whole chocolate bar, how bout that?” The little worm nods so eagerly I fear her head will dislodge from her shoulders. It sickens me but Jean only smiles wider and kneels down next to her right in the mud “But you have to promise to be completely silent. Not a word, I want you to go to the end of the street to Rue de Plaument. There’s a BIG pie shop right next to my house. Wait there for a bit and then I’ll give you chocolate” Magdalene runs off without another word.
I glance at Jean quizzically “Where did you get the money for chocolate?”
He turns to be the smile gone, wiped clear off his face. Replaced by a mixture of fear, and brutality. It scares me; it takes the words clear out of my mouth. “I don’t have it” he says “But she was causing a scene and on this day the people are not above killing children as an example” He brushes the mud and God knows what else from his britches and doesn’t look at me. I am glad of that for my eyes are practically jumping out of their sockets.
“The people! Killing children! Jean what the hell are you talking about?”
         Jean looks at me like I am a retarded child, as if he’s trying to decide if I’m serious or not. “Not just the people, everybody, anyone” He glances at me expectantly and then sighs, realizing that I really don’t know “They’re storming Bastille calling for the end of the king. The riots are coming closer; they might soon be upon us.”
         My world practically topples, this will end all hope of peace. Why did people have to be so righteous! Why can’t they be content with what they have! I ask this but yet I know why. I see the answer in Jean’s eyes. They are like the eyes of a madman. “Where-whe-where are they?” I stutter, my voice choked.
         Jean looks puzzled “Where are who?”
         I think this over for a minute, because in all honesty I don’t even know who I mean “The rioters, my family, your family, everyone”          
         He smiles “You want to see the prison fall?”
         I think of this, despite it all Bastille was never exactly the place I liked to spend my time in, or around. It scared me and the thoughts of the rotting corpses that were carried from it gave me the chills.  Do I want to go and witness such violence, do I want to in a way support something that goes against everything I believe in, do I want to go and watch the riots, do I want to take part in them? The answer is yes, yes to all of the above.
Funny how I personally wouldn’t even see the worst of it. Bastille would be as far as I went. I would die right there in the midst of pain and suffering. I would die before the king’s head rolled, a sight to behold I’m sure.
I am in the midst of chaos, with Jean at my side, fighting and screaming all around me, and the stale smell of blood in the air. I have to get to the sidelines or else I will get hurt. There are dead guards everywhere and the people chant with pikes in their hands. One of them has something attached to the pike. What is that? I hear Jean gasp and grab me by the arm. -What is that thing? I can’t make it out…- Jean pulls me along and soon I’m safe behind a wall.
Jean is pale as death and his breathing sounds ragged. He leans against me, nearly knocking me to the ground. What is it with him? We must be quite the scene. Two teenagers, one nearing 6 feet and leaning against the one that is nearly a foot shorter than him. Both of them not speaking or moving. After a few minutes he rights himself “Didn’t you see that?”
         “See what?”
         “There was head “he began gulping down air “A head stuck on a pike”
         Sure enough, when I look up I see it. Bloody and ripped. Closer now, so close I can see the blue eyes. “Is that the king?!” I scram staring at Jean wildly.
         He shakes his head “No, that is not Louis.”
         I have to bite my tongue to keep from groaning.  I want it to be the king’s head parading across the streets, I want his blood to hit the ground. My god! I want the king dead! I want the revolution! I see Jean with his head between his knees after seeing a mere taste of what he has wanted for years. Jean cannot even handle the sight, but I relish it. I look too him and kneel down nudging his shoulder
“It will be alright Jean” I say quietly “The man was bad, you said so yourself. But he was an accident, there won’t be any more bloodshed after today”
“Who are we to die alone or be hung in the gallows?! The nobility should die like us! The nobility is responsible!” A man screams in the distance, and it is funny that these are the exact thoughts that I am entertaining when a musket ball pierces my scalp and stains my apron red.
         I see bodies, mine is not among them. Jean’s is. Mine is buried somewhere in the common morgue. I wouldn’t even recognize myself so neither does my family. I am dead, we are all dead, us and the man with the severed head. We are finally equal.