"Freedom, that is what we want the most, total freedom!" An olive skinned man, roughly dressed in muddied jeans and red shirt that may have never seen an iron, stood in front of a group of a dozen or so similarly clad men of varying ages. His unkempt beard bobbed with each Spanish-African-accented syllable. A sub-machine gun was slung lazily from his left shoulder. He raised a grey military cap from his head and waved it wildly. His booted foot rested on the bull-bar of a dark dirty-reddish Jeep, probably stolen.
"Kill the president," an unknown voice of a keen, reckless rascal bellowed out. A stir rippled through the crowd. Soon the band was in an uproar of cheers, for they knew little discipline.
"Move out, men!" Engines revved and wheels spun as the rebels' Jeeps were started. "We will overthrow the coalition within the hour." That was at five o'clock.
It was now six-thirty. Five of the fifteen rebels were dead, and six more injured. Nine coalition soldiers were dead, no one knew how many were injured. A cabinet minister had taken a stab wound in the chest but was stable, and a handful of civilians had shrapnel wounds ranging from slight scratches to critical organs no longer functioning. "Come on, you babies," the rebel leader screamed at his men, "You can do better than that!"
"Surrender, swine," the leader of the coalition forces' voice echoed demandingly through the shattered window of a government office. Juan and his half-organised, half-trained followers had been making trouble since the government had shut down a cocaine plant powered by slaves. They had finally launched an all-out attack on the capital.
"You have no power over us, we do not need you." Juan had no intention of being ruled by anyone, he wanted to make up his own rules along the way.
Cut to a modern family home, a teenager is
struggling to see
eye to eye on anything with his family. "I'm leaving," he blurted simply to his parents.
"Do you have any money?" his mother enquired, still managing to be concerned despite the rift between them.
The youth held up a fifty dollar note. "I'm sick of this place, I'm sick of you, I'm sick of being tied down." He pointed to an empty notebook, laying open on his desk, "Pages and pages, perfectly blank, stretching to infinity. Take it all in. Can you feel it? That is the future."