Mixtape

Fireworks At Dawn- Senses Fail

3030

The night was alive with gunpowder lights, illuminating the rain-slicked rooftops and the thin smoke billowing from brick chimney stacks. In the town square of a little English hamlet on the outskirts of London, the townsfolk were celebrating the turn of the decade- Januray 1st, 3030.

Like most small cities, it could not afford even one-fourth the amount of exhibitions as London or other larger suburbs. Every other day of the year besides the birth of Christ (December 25th), the resurrection of Christ (a day in April), the birth of Satan (October 31st), the birth of the All-Powerful and Commanding Leader and King of the Earth, Vercingetorix Benu (June 23rd), and the Great Day of Over-Throwing (September 7th), the city was smothered and drowned in poverty. Families were large and underfed, orphans were sleeping in gutters and being trampled by horses and carriages, and civilians were being dragged out of their houses and beaten in the streets for "unlawful possession of booze and books" or "suspected contempt of His Majesty, Our Leader and his court." It was rare for there to be peace in a small English city; only chaos or celebration.

Today, as fireworks lit the clouded navy blue sky and the townspeople danced and cheered in their burlap cloaks and leather shoes, a Dutch immigrant to England sat on a misty rooftop and watched. He had in his right hand a flask of an undoubtedly illegal substance, and he took a deep swig of it, feeling the alcohol's fiery warmth settle in his stomach in a humbling way.

This Dutchman, known only as Hans the Vagabond to anyone who ever got the chance to speak to him and learn his name, had been on his way to London when he stopped to marvel at the way a poor town celebrated the first of the year. He sat back against the chimney of the flat-topped building he was resting on, sipping from his flask and deep in thought. The blue and red fireworks were reflected deep within his glassy, golden eyes, and his grip tightened and loosened on his flask, then his coat, then his flask again. The gears in his mind were turning.

Hans the Vagabond was not going to London for a visit- he was going for a revolution.

It was all planned out. He would meet there with nine other men and woman in a safe little meeting house far away from the Central Guard towers that littered the city to keep watch over its trapped civilians. A man called Caesar Apep, who had called the meeting into action, had a devilish, catastrophic, world-altering plan of destroying His Majesty, Our Lord's dictatorship from the inside-out; "Overthrow London, and we can off any capital of oppression in the universe," were Caesar Apep's words.

Hans knew first-hand how truly unfavorable the conditions of Europe had become since the 2090's. He'd been born to Dutch factory workers, both his mother and his father, and had lived his early life making four-handed clocks and stitching together leather loafers. It wasn't until he was thirteen and his father, without warning or pretense, scooted him onto a ship and into a new life on the Mediterranean that he was able to find something outside of disease and sorrow.

Hans was sure that Caesar Apep didn't fully realize the reasons why Hans would soon become the key to the revolution. Caesar had surely heard of Hans the Vagabond and his wandering ways, and had chosen this mystery man in hopes that he could fight or strategize.

Hans the Vagabond had so much more to offer the revolution than that.

Hans knew something that no one else could've ever known, or would ever remember. He knew, without a doubt, the truth behind His Majesty, Our Leader. He knew His Majesty's real identity- Alfons Houtman, a once scrawny, weak, defenseless young Dutch boy with no money, no parents, and a dangerous, earth-shattering scheme brewing behind his muddy grey eyes. This man who had taken his first name from the first king of France and his last name from the Egyptian god Ra had once, like him, been a young lad in impoverished South Holland. This man whose face was never seen, only ever hidden behind a horrific metal mask, was just as human as the innocent lives he had trampled on to make his way to the top of the world. And Hans knew everything about him. They had been as close as twins when they were boys, before Hans left and Alfons lost his mind, hacked up the factory owner, and fled the Netherlands, only to turn up years later as the king of the United Republic of France and Germany. Hans could see those days flash by his eyes very vividly; first Alfons slamming open the factory doors, carrying his neighbor's butcher knife and staring straight ahead, walking with malicious purpose, then entering into Mr. Jansen's office, then the screams; second the day Hans looked up at the television in a port bar while on shore in Mauritania and saw the body of Alfons with the head of a glaring crane pronouncing himself as a supreme European leader.

Hans the Vagabond had many choices to make on Janurary 1st, 3030. He could chose to not got to London and go to Wales instead and ignore the upcoming rise and certain fall of an English rebellion. Or, he could join Caesar Apep in the capital and change everything. It occurred to him many times that going to London came with a strong possibility of dying a painful death, and for Hans the Vagabond, death would put a couple wrenches in his plans. Dying meant he'd never see the beaches of California, or the mountains of Tibet. He'd never return to that beautiful woman he met in Iceland, and he could never know if his sister made it out of South Holland intact. Despite these thoughts being of pride, they tempted him into thinking that maybe he would stay the next day in this city then head west when night fell again. That would make his life both easier and longer.

Hans took another swig from his flask. He looked about him, thinking how each human being in the town was either sick, or poor, or malnourished, or all three. He looked back at the fireworks, thinking of how his family and friends were and always will be the same way unless the world in pulled from the grip of Alfons Houtman, and Hans the Vagabond was the only one who knew how to make that happen.

Hans the Vagabond tucked away his flask and got on his feet.