Last Homecoming (WoE #8 Philospher/Ballerina Challenge)

Write at the Merge this week gave us a Degas ballerina and the following quote:

It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
—Ayn Rand

I was not inspired by ballet or dance or art this time, although that isn't surprising. Even as an Irish Ceili dancer, I was never that invested in dance. Ballet bores me. I respect the ballerinas who shape their bodies into instruments of expressive art, but I can't sit through the whole Nutcracker or Swan Lake. And therefore, art that features dancers does little for me.

What caught me this week was the quote itself. While I don't believe that all sacrifices fall under this train of thought, it did make me think of what a government could do to a people made too weak to fight against it. This thought led to our Founding Fathers and the American Revolution. Which led me to Thaddeus. We last saw him at the Battles of Concord and Lexington at the cusp of the Siege of Boston.

I offer the following in response: The Last Homecoming

The entire city was eerily quiet under the King’s Curfew as Thaddeus slipped around the sentry post. Tension gripped the air as if Boston awaited the order to breathe. Using the cover of night, Thaddeus climbed the elder tree and pried open the latch on his bedroom window of his childhood home.

The narrow bedchamber once housed three boys. After tonight, only his younger brother Adam would remain, sleeping the sound sleep of a care-free twelve-year-old boy. Thaddeus fought the urge to wake him to say good-bye. The less his brother knew while the Lobster-backs controlled Boston, the better. As he crept across the floor, his heart hammered in ears. His only thought was to remove evidence he existed at all, not that there was much. A cobbler’s son didn’t have the pistareens to spend on frivolous objects.

A rap at the house door gave him pause and he heard the familiar shuffle of his father’s steps cross from the parlor below him in response. “Mr. John White?”

“Er, yes, I-“

Hinges squealed as the sound of men pushed by his father’s voice. Thaddeus risked the landing outside his bedroom, settling into a shaft of darkness to spy on the proceedings. His heart spiked to his throat at the sight of Regulars – an officer with a small detail - crowding into the entryway. His father, still gripping a candle for light, grumbled objections to the inconsiderate visitors. “The hour is quite late, gentlemen.”

The officer removed his hat and ran a gloved hand through his hair. “I apologize, Mr. White. We have been delayed this e’en with many troubles that I will not bore you with at this time. His Majesty kindly provided more troops for General Gage, unfortunately, we are not yet in a position to house them. City records indicate that you have three bedrooms and a back parlor, yes?”

“Correct, Mr.?”

“Lieutenant Gregg,” he responded. “I have a need for these rooms, or any space you can sacrifice for the sake of the Crown. It should only be for a few days while we fortify Boston’s gates.”

“Of course, Lieutenant. I shall wake my son, there are three beds in his room. And we can use the back parlor for our purposes, if you would like the front rooms.”

“Very generous, my good man.”

“I only ask that your men endeavor to behave like gentlemen during their stay, for my daughter is of an impressionable age.”

Fury erupted within as Thaddeus retreated from the landing. How could his father be so blind, allowing abuses simply because they were asked of him? Would the Regulars compromise his sister's virtue? There was some discussion among the soldiers before Thaddeus heard boots on the staircase. He grabbed his satchel and raced for the open window, sliding from the sill to the tree with the precision of a boyhood’s muscle-memory; muscles that ached with the knowledge that this was the last homecoming of a once-loyal British subject.

Write On Edge: Freedom Challenge

Red Writing Hood gives us 400 words this week.

Freedom.

Mankind has spent its entire existence in pursuit of Freedom. Even now, around the world, some of us are seeking freedom from bills, and are working hard to pay them off. Some want freedom from their parents and are working hard to move out on their own. Some want the freedom to travel so are working hard to get that promotion at their place of work. Or some want the freedom to do absolutely nothing at all, and have worked hard their whole lives so they can retire. Freedom isn't free. For each measure of individual freedom, there is a price, a sacrifice to be made, and it requires a fanatic devotion to maintain once obtained. Freedom is fleeting and delicate, and when we barter our freedoms, we gain nothing and lose everything.

Oops, that was more dismal than I intended it to be. I really should put up the soapbox.

So close to July 4th for the U.S.A. and July 14th for France, I find it difficult to avoid the more obvious route here. So I've decided not to fight it. We last met Thaddeus here. Paul Revere rode at midnight. The British carried orders to imprison Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and to seize minuteman supplies.



I offer the following in response: A Budding Patriot

 

The pitched battle yielded the tactical withdrawal of the British Regulars. A latecomer, Thaddeus gripped his primed rifle, straining to see through the smoky haze. Shot peppered the ground around him. The sound of a horse reached his ears and he turned towards its origin, squeezing the trigger as he aimed for its Redcoat rider. He dropped back to the earth, already dispensing a measure of powder into the warm rifle barrel. Ramrod impacting the load, he was back in position, ready to fire.

“Push ‘em hard!” someone cried.

Gun-smoke obscured his vision and sulfur burned his lungs as he breathed through his next round of fire then repeated his reloading ceremony. Powder. Linen. Ball. Ram. Prime the flashpan. Aim. Fire. Hearing someone call out for shot, Thaddeus reflexively checked his pouch. He had three balls left.

Hearing hooves of horses, he plastered himself to the ground behind his berm. Equine shadows thundered over him, the hock of one missing his head by inches. Thaddeus spit the dirt from his mouth and pushed himself up to reload.

Powder. Linen. Ball.

Redcoat approaching.

Ramrod. Flashpan.

Devil raising bayonet.

Aim. Squeeze.

Redcoat dropping.

Thaddeus ran the few feet to his felled victim. He knelt for a time next to the dying man, unable to move, watching his chest rise and fall in shallow, rapid succession, then shudder to complete stillness. Instinct made Thaddeus divest the redcoat of weapons, shot, and powder. “May angels guide you home,” he whispered, knowing that this death would haunt him as Christopher Seider did.

Awareness resuscitated by a nearby muzzle flash, he reeled to catch his bearings. There were more militiamen beside him, reloading and priming. Thaddeus forgot his kill for the moment, renewed at the sight. The redcoats were vastly outnumbered. Giving chase, the militia was pressing the regulars back towards Boston.

Hope was heavy on the breeze as he realized he wasn’t just there to keep the redcoats from arresting Mr. Adams. His participation was about all of it; Christopher Seider’s death, the massacre, the tea, the taxes, the frustration. No more would he fear customs officers at the harbor. No longer would he yield to a man wearing a red coat. Thaddeus could taste freedom, and he would die before returning to the shackles of oppression. He loaded his rifle, preparing for a new target..

Write On Edge: Crossing the Line Challenge

This week's Red Writing Hood gives us 450 words to write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece about a time someone crossed a line, legally or ethically. The prompt was inspired by laws similar to Florida's Stand Your Ground statute  and the ideas of vigilante justice and citizen's arrests. Frustrated with the justice system, private citizens are individually and collectively testing the waters of taking matters into their own hands. These laws, these groups have met with murmured words of approval and understanding, despite questionable methods and tragic circumstances.

I read this prompt and thought of the times when America was shaped, forged by citizens frustrated with the structure of a government that was failing to meet the demands of her people. We are a rebellious lot, deeply loyal to our convictions and our passion for freedom. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jefferson wrote "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

Sons of Liberty adopted several rebellion flags like this one represented. This one was known to be raised in opposition of the Stamp Act.

I give the following in response: A Little Rebellion

“This meeting can do nothing further to save this country,” Mr. Adams said, crestfallen. His pleas to allow cooler heads to prevail fell on deaf ears.

Thaddeus was swept from Old South in a tide of angry people. Sucking in a welcome blast of December air, he knew the chill could do nothing to curtail the frustrations of his fellow Bostonians. He shivered, not from the stirring icy wind, but from his own bitterness. The Sons of Liberty, most dressed as Mohawks, marched towards Griffin’s Wharf where the Dartmouth, Eleanor, and Beaver lay in wait.

His heart pounding, Thaddeus painted his face and joined their ranks, hatchet in hand. The civil unrest of mobs made him anxious of late. He was just thirteen when Christopher Seider, a German lad two years his junior, was killed by a heartless customs officer. Thaddeus remembered all too well the grizzly scene that followed on King Street when soldiers at the Customs House fired into the gathered crowd, killing three men instantly and inciting a riot. The scent of blood and saltwater lingered at the edge of his nightmares, waking him in a pool of sweat and tangled sheets time and again. This night he banished his fears with the hardened resolve of men twice his age. Governor Hutchinson would have no choice but deliver their message to Parliament. Townshend Acts violated the covenant between the crown and his majesty’s loyal subjects and the time for passive men was disremembered.

They reached the docks in a surprisingly orderly fashion. Thaddeus half-smiled at the familiar sight of the full-rigged ships bobbing in the harbor. The Dartmouth he remembered seeing regularly, as it belonged to a prominent whaling family with offices located nearby. The captain met their boarding party, his face sour and harried. He was caught between the naval blockade keeping the Dartmouth in the harbor and the Bostonians eager for the tea and its levy to disappear.

“Captain Hall, we wish to relieve you of one-hundred-fourteen tea-chests bearing the East India Company hallmark,” stated a demonstrator Thaddeus did not recognize. “Sons, remember, just the tea,” he instructed.

They filed aboard, eager to begin. As sounds of joyous whistles and splintering wood ricocheted about him, Thaddeus hesitated, examining the intricate pattern on the chest at his feet. It seemed impractical aboard the Quaker whaler. A pity to damage this, he thought.

“No time for doubts, Son,” another demonstrator urged him.

The image of Christopher Seider flashed into his mind. Setting his jaw, he smashed the chest’s lock with his hatchet. With the demonstrator’s aid, Thaddeus hoisted the chest righteously over the side and watched the dark tealeaves trickle unfettered to the lapping water below.