[AcademyRP] Commonwealth on clay legs

[Grenesia]

COMMONWEALTH ON CLAY LEGS

Gervazno, May 1988.

It was ten past six in the morning. Stefan Bielak has just woken up, glanced at the clock and realized that he had overslept. The neighborhood’s speaker tower didn’t wake him up with its morning broadcast, again. Somebody must have been sabotaging it in the last few days by cutting the device off from the grid and now it had to be rewired. Other than that, his day started quite normally. By the time he got up and dressed, his wife had already left home, waiting in the line for bread and butter outside the grocery and hoping that the store doesn’t run out of stock by the time she manages to get inside. Not having eaten his breakfast, Stefan left his flat, locked the door and hurried down the staircase. He went outside, took a deep breath of dusty air and headed for the bus stop, walking along many other rows of concrete-paneled apartments. The blue sky, the red-marked speaker towers, and the playgrounds or other neglected green areas were the only distinctions from the shades of gray in smog-drenched Gervazno, an industrial city he had to call home. Until recently, at least. He noticed a line of vibrant anti-government slogans painted overnight on a side of a building, however he wished he had ignored the graffiti – he knew that it would be safer for him not to stare at this mural for too long and not to think too much about it. When he was approaching to the stop, he could hear another propaganda loudspeaker, broadcasting the morning message of president Blazhèy Kamen’ski.

„...and I, both as a son of Grenesia and as a father of the Grenesians, cherish you, dear citizens, both as my fathers and as my sons. You, the proud people of the Nation of Fire, are rebuilding your country on the ashes of past. You enjoy the security provided by your militia, incorruptable with their decisions and swift with their response against those who break the law. I am building a new better world for you, the lawful workers, and you ought to appreciate my protection. Do not reject my volunteer commitment to leading the Commonwealth to its golden era. Report the gossipers, report the traitors, report the anarchists. Root out the evil in your mist, and let my flame of your glorious nation burn bright for eternity.”

The bus door opened, it was crowded as usual. He squeezed himself in, cramped between dozens of fellow passengers, all commuting in grave silence if not for the motor of the vehicle. Few cars passed the bus delivering the workers to their steelworks, factories, and other facilites. Despite the fact that a car was a luxury only a member of the Worker’s party could afford, the factories in Gervazno produced large amounts of what are supposed to be truck parts, officially for export to collaborating countries.

Stefan’s shift was served kaszanka for dinner, it it is two hours after the midday audio broadcast. He was consuming his meal alone, deep in thought. Out of the blue, a dangerous thought came to his mind. For the first time ever he wanted to take matters into his own hands, talk to people, get weapons, Molotov coktails, hoodies and bandanas and make a cou- ‘no no no, NO!’, he tried to chase this thought away, to silence this brave act of independent thinking about something as big as this. Not knowing what to do, he left his work and headed home.

Next day he woke up and felt as if he was recovering from a life-long stasis, feeling like until then he was a brainless machine, fueled by nothing but fear of consequences. Before his grandparents mysteriously disappeared when he was a child, they had been always complaining about the times that had come and dared to say that life was better before the communists rose to power. Now he finally realized what they meant. They wanted a world without all the nagging propaganda, with their stomachs full, happy family life and colorful neighborhood. A world without the centrally planned economy that fails to provide basic goods to ever empty stores. Day by day his daydreaming about days to come totally occupied his mind. The initially unwelcome thought of starting a rebellion was still dangling on the back of his mind, luring him to give it a shot. He knew there were some like-minded people ready to help. The insane idea of opposing the government totally absorbed him, and the more he was thinking about it, the more sense it seemed to make. A couple of days later Stefan contacted a local drug dealer so he could get to know more about black market and smuggling illegal goods. Before the end of September he managed to assemble a sizable underground community. The rumors of a forming network of uprising inspired many fellow workers and intellectuals alike from other towns and cities. Soon after, a well organized body of the revolution was forming both within the walls of churches and among the columns of pagan temples. The civilians in Karlitch were armed and ready to fight, waiting for Outpost Gervazno to give a sign.

Eventually, the opposition reached its critical mass on March 17th 1990 they got what they were waiting for. The much needed change in leadership was imminient…

Edited June 14, 2020 by Grenesia (see edit history)