WHY

I NEED to remember this. I need to read this over and over and over again and ask myself WHY. We were 7 people. 6 guys and one girl who could not keep her mouth shut. But this is not about her. It is about our and especially MY cowardice.

We were wandering around, our little group. It must have already been at least 2:00 AM. The alcohol had run dry, our cigarettes mostly the same. Still, we were joking, we were laughing. We were having a good time. We sat down on a bench in the local park. Sometime later, two other guys stumbled past. They joked about something, we joked about something. They joked about us, we joked about them. Then it started getting ugly. The girl in our group made some snide penis joke. It didn't go over well. One of them called someone on his cell phone, and they disappeared. We should have known what was coming. I definetly knew. But we stayed. It was our right. We didn't back down. Still, a feeling of dread was growing in my stomach. And then I heard them coming back.

I disappeared.

I hastily walked away into the bushes, noone noticing me depart. I crouched there, shaking.

Get UP you bastard. Get UP.

"Who was that? Which asshole said it? Huh?"
"We didn't say anything..."
"Shut up!" SMACK

Don't do this. YOU FUCKING COWARD. Get UP. Be a goddamn MAN.

I finally got up. Still shaking, I snuck back. I had been gone maybe 30 seconds.

There were only 3 of them. *3*. The girl was talking, she was saying she had said it. She had no fear. She knew they wouldn't hurt her. And it was true: They simply didn't believe she had made the remark. They needed someone to beat up, and it couldn't be her. I tried to be stronger. After all, we were 6 young men. We should have had nothing to fear. But most of us were quiet, me included. Finally, they started to move away. But she HAD to make another joke. And so they came back. And then they picked one of us and slapped him hard. Nobody moved a muscle.

DO SOMETHING FUCK YOU FUCK YOU MOVE IT GODDAMN IT DO SOMETHING COME ON

Then they kicked him hard enough to send him flying backward.

DO FUCKING SOMETHING YOU IDIOT YOU COWARD YOU FUCKING GODDAMN IDIOT

"If I see another one of your fucking faces I'm going to beat the crap out of him, you hear me?"

Finally, they left.

We were two times as many people as they were, and we didn't do a fucking thing. NOBODY. Least of all me. I could hardly contain my anger as we finally departed. WHY. Why the goddamn fuck did we not do anything? I am 6'4" for crying out loud. WHY?

Afterwards it was all "Yeah, we could have kicked their asses", "If so-and-so had been there we would have kicked their fucking asses", "If only...". It was so much crap. So much crap.

We were all cowards. We were not men. Trying to remember what the Anarchist's Cookbook said, what How to fight and not get your ass kicked says, it means NOTHING when push comes to shove. Nothing. It all boils down to having the courage or not having it. We did not.

What has become of the human race? Why are we all such weaklings these days? At what point did we all become so WEAK? No wonder the world is coming down around us. There is no honest courage, no real bravery, no desire to stand up and FIGHT BACK. It hurts, it hurts me so much to know I have so little willpower. And to say that you are non-violent, that you are above petty violence is an EXCUSE. We simply do not know how to stand up for ourselves anymore. It is so very, very sad.