#313 The Marchers- Henry Dumas
As always, Dumas delivers a powerful piece, this one a
parable about power, protest, and freedom. As marchers gather, and speakers
speak, a prisoner is roused from servitude, and darkness and despair.
“In the dome the silence was stirred by the sound of legions
of feet marching. The rumble sifted through the years. The prisoner heard…and
waited.”
“Outside, the cheers grew louder. The dome trembled. Specks
of dust leaped up from centuries of rest and wandered like souls in limbo.
Suddenly a passion seized the prisoner.”
“From the ground he came up slowly, as if he were a lost
seed in a sunless cave, a seed that had sprouted into a pale limp stalk trying
to suck a bit of precious sunlight into its impoverished leaves.”
“Today was a great day. Freedom had come to them…at least
for a while…the marching of their feet was the song of their freedom.”
But the story comes with a warning, that all freedom doesn’t
last as long as its only in a march. Shackles aren’t actually broken and
centuries of oppression aren’t wiped away because of one day of exuberance. As
hope fades, the prisoner falls back into darkness.
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