December Manifesto

We decide to go on strike.

The silence fills entire apartment buildings 30 stories high. Intersections echo with the Click Click of traffic signals changing STOP to GO, but no one is walking. Even the birds seem nervous; pigeons peck and watch, peck an d watch, but we are gone.

We decide to go on strike. Millions of televisions tell indecipherable stories to thousands of empty bedrooms, hotel lobbies, airport terminals. Escalators hum with perfect useless efficiency. One begins to sense that even th e neon signs are feeling foolish.

The clouds don’t mind, of course, and neither do the stars, who have been beautiful and indifferent since they day they were born – even our own sun keeps on shining over amusement parks and swimming pools, empty valleys of basketball courts and stadiums waiting to be filled…

Because we decided to go on strike there is no one to tell the President’s friends what happened. They smoke restlessly in silence of that gorgeous room, cros sing and uncrossing their legs, heel-to-heel, heel-to-knee, heels apart. When he finally arrives – Where the fuck was the driver? – no one wants to break the silence. They sit staring at no one in particular, while outside on the lawn the pigeons peck and watch, peck and watch, until they too are gone.


--amr--u