Fortress of a Thousand Days
Today I have been up here
five hundred days, it is beyond wish fulfillment. When I began the
protest, I imagined it would last a single day, street protests being
frowned upon by the State Authorities in this part of the world. When I
first climbed up my tree, the peach blossom was bursting in the balmy
spring sunshine. Sunshine so watery but so welcome following deluged
vats of winter rain and flood.
Once up here in my tree, I
surveyed the park with equanimity. No one else had climbed as high as
me, and it was only because I had always loved scaling buildings as a
jump artist that I could do it. I suppose the ant like people far below
were jealous of my fortress, as they gradually realized ground protest
was futile. Whereas I, like a latter day Tarzan with my good health and
ladle full of optimism, ruled supreme in the canopy.
It is
September now and the autumn winds are getting up; the park is emptying
of children and mothers, and most of the landscape has been denuded of
trees.
The Authorities will probably get their way and build the
shopping mall, but until my own special tress is felled, I will sit
tight. I may yet reign for a thousand days.
The copyright of this post belongs to Valerie Anne Rule
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