Blank Eyes
This piece was written for the May 2009 edition of the Flash Fiction Carnival: Facebook Edition
There was no way out of the suffocating heat around me. Bodies rubbed up against me in every direction, both warm and cold. The chanting seemed to will the warm bodies forward and into the cold line I went.
With my face jammed against the cop’s Perspex helmet, the plastic bit my skin with the cold, but it was almost a welcome relief. On the other side, I struggled to find cold eyes, but they didn’t move. They were barely human eyes at all.
“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” we chanted, and hoping people actually were watching. Hoping people saw as we were hemmed in by riot police, cooking us in our shared body heat.
I chanted louder, so close to his face, screaming at this guy. He didn’t budge. He didn’t even blink. I really wondered for a moment whether this was a man or a robot.
He stood straight, black leather covering him, even to the point of gloves. There was no exposed skin to be seen, except for his face hiding behind the plastic visor. We chanted louder, continuous and repetitive with barely a breathe between our calls to arms. But they didn’t budge one inch.
The cloudiness of the glass and the surface scratches hid anything unique about him. He just looked like any other violent pig to me. But when I looked harder, a warped sense of déjà vu hit.
I felt a rise in me, anger surging up through my stomach and then overwhelming my head. I gritted my teeth, felt tears well in my eyes and chanted even louder and jammed my face against his shield.
“What’s wrong with you?” I screamed.
But he didn’t say a thing. Nothing. Not a fucking murmur. The robot was programmed to stand there, hem us in and not let us out. Our chants, our cries, and our demands didn’t seem to enter his ears. Or did they and did he just choose not to process them. Was that part of his brain turned off? Had he forgotten something, like maybe who I was?
At home, my mother was probably stressing out, waiting for a call from me, locked up somewhere and begging to be let out. “They’re just doing their job,” she had said. And it’s true, they are. But it’s the job I despised.
I used to wonder who would do it. I used to wonder if you’d know them if they turned.
There was a call from behind that line of cold, robot bodies. The cops shuffled, readying. The rise in me bubbled again, ready to burst.
An authoritative hand gripped the one I’d come face to face with. “Do me proud boy,” the chief said, “Remember, they don’t need our sympathy, just our authority.”
“Fuck you,” I said to him. I knew he was going to throw me in the van, “You’ve got nothing to say to me traitor, have you?” His lips didn’t move. He wasn’t the same. I didn’t recognize him, a boy who could barely keep his mouth shut.
They’d ripped off their name tags. They didn’t want to be identified. But this guy was fucked. “I know who you are, Chaz” I said, my old school friend not responding, “So don’t try anything dodgy.”
With their mouths shut, they walked forward in a line. My fist shot out. Skin connected with plastic. He wheeled back without time to react. I pumped my legs forward and stood over him, climbed over him.
We were on the ground in an instant. My fist came down again. The plastic grazed my knuckles but I didn’t care. My fist came down again. I could feel myself bleed but I didn’t care.
Something or someone slammed into my back. The crowd of cops and protesters erupted into a storm. A mass of hands clutched my arms; the leather gloves gripped so tight I wanted to scream.
As they dragged me away, Chaz still laid on the ground, his old Perspex visor turned around almost ninety degrees.
Mum would get her phone call.
Thanks to Joshua Treviño for the image.
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There are 15 Comments to "Blank Eyes"
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I like this, Ben, especially the twist near the end.
Deborah Woehr’s last blog post..Flash Fiction: Secrets From the Other Side
Hey Ben! It’s me kmcelhinny! I really liked this peice, I felt the anger and the pure chaos going on around the character. I heard the chanting… very well done. This part here.
“The cloudiness of the glass and the surface scratches hid anything unique about him. He just looked like any other violent pig to me. But when I looked harder, a warped sense of déjà vu hit.”
Very nice description. I liked how you used your words to relate to the bizarre circumstances.
See you around the watercooler!
Thanks guys!
I like how you build up to showing what these robots really are. You don’t tell too much, but definitely give enough to make me keep wondering, and keep reading.
The only real nitpick for me was the repeat of “me” in the first two sentences. I think you could drop “around me” in the first so the “around me” is stronger in the second.
Great job on the details of the police force.
Melanie’s last blog post..Squeaky Wheel
Tremendous stuff. Did it really happen .. it seems so life like or is it just a story? Whatever, it’s totally awesome.
Thanks Melanie. That line was more repetitive before I edited it, but yeah, I need to look out for stuff like that.
Looking forward to your piece!
I like the “blank eyes” interpretation of the theme, but maybe I missed the point of the story. What is he protesting? The character lacks motivation – what brought him into the middle of the riot? What underlies his anger?
I personally don’t think it matters what he’s protesting about. This kind of experience, being shut down but cops, is familiar to many protests I’ve been on.
It wasn’t a riot, but a protest being attacked by cops.
This creeped me out.
I think that’s a credit to the writing. The only thing that threw me off was the repeat of the term “robot.”
Perhaps automaton or another reference to the loss of personal motivation and the following of a command (or a hive mind) could have been used for the second reference.
Synchronistic Catalyst’s last blog post..Flash fiction carnival – Eyes
Thanks Synchronistic! I’m honoured to creep you out
Without the benefit of some additional context, this felt uncomfortably aggressive to me. As with one piece last month, the profanity got in my way here too.
Creatively speaking, one place felt incongruous to me – after several sentences that described the riot cop as unmoving and nonreactive, this one gave the opposite impression: “He just looked like any other violent pig to me.” From a technical standpoint, “barely a breathe” should be “barely a breath” instead.
Even though it isn’t the kind of writing I prefer to read, the fact that it made me uncomfortable proves it’s powerfully written. Nicely done.
I think it was meant to be aggressive. These situations in real life usually bring this out in your as your surround by cops.
Thanks for your honesty. I kind of didn’t want everyone to like it for its standpoint. It takes a side. So getting critical feedback means it did just that.
I liked this interpretation of the topic, but had a hard time telling where the point was, when the MC recognized his nemesis. And, though I haven’t been part of any demonstrations recently, I sort of question whether a superior officer would choose just that moment to egg on the troops individually in an avuncular way, so that bit didn’t ring true for me. Also, in the sentence “”The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” we chanted, and hoping people actually were watching.” I think “hoping” should be changed to “hoped” perhaps, because it isn’t really a sentence, as it is. However, the rage felt real and it was obvious that the blankness of Chaz’ affect spurred the violence on.
Good story. You captured the turmoil from within such a protest without getting caught up in unnecessary details. I like the way you started out depicting the police as robotic automatons but then brought an unwanted human face to the central cop. Good job.
Thanks guys