章 22: Lighting a fire
Back on the blue star, Scarlet was addressing a crowd of over one hundred thousand people that had been gathered rather quickly at a moment's notice. These were most of the residents of the Blue star. Because it was 99% uninhabited, most of the occupants of this planet lived close to the garbage dump. They did this because there was safety in numbers.
When the cold season came and the mutated beasts arrived, you were safer being with others than on your own.
Most of these residents gathered because for the first time ever, the governor of the Blue star wanted to address them. To them, the governor was a useless figure because she contributed noting to their welfare and yet rumors were going around that she intended to close down the garbage dump.
None of them had gone to work today because the tiny factory was closed and a lot of them were confused, angry and desperate.
"I know that I have never officially met or addressed any of you and I would like to apologize for that. Now I do not want us to waste time so I am going to be direct." Scarlet was using a megaphone to speak to the crowd. "From now on, we will not be accepting garbage from the other stars. The Blue star is not their personal dumping ground. "
A few grumbling voices went around.
"We will starve." A loud booming voice came through the crowd and someone pushed their way through to the front. It was a strapping young man who had an angry look on his face. With him was an older man whose hand he was holding. "That garbage dump has been there long before your family moved here. We feed off the little earnings from what we scavenge. Maybe your noble family can afford to feed but the rest of us normal people are different."
His words riled the crowd up and they chanted "No closing the dumping ground," unanimously.
"Is this a demonstration?" Scarlet asked Adler who was standing close to her.
Behind the make shift podium where the rest of the family was standing Justin's bracelet vibrated. The little boy looked at wrist and realized that he was getting a call from someone who rarely contacted him. Even then he smiled and answered the video call.
"Son." Esong said awkwardly.
"Father." Justin responded equally awkward as well.
"Are you well?" Esong asked.
"Mmm." Justin nodded.
"Next time somebody abuses you in any way you can report to me. I will deal with it if your mother cannot handle it."
"Mother is sick." Justin answered.
Esong went quiet, not knowing what to say next. He and Scarlet had no positive communication in fact he had no communication with her. Usually she called, emailed and texted but he never responded. If she was sick he had no idea what ailed her. Quite frankly he also had doubts about this so called illness which he had never heard about so he could not respond appropriately to his son at this moment. Luckily for him, Justin switched the video from himself to Scarlet who was addressing the crowd. Unwillingly, Esong watched her address.
"Aren't you all tired of living in abject poverty?" Scarlet asked the crowd and the loud protesting voices lowered.
They were tired of living in poverty but what could they do about their situation? The royal family did not care about the Blue star and most of the occupants were descendants of criminals who could not ever leave this forsaken planet.
"Aren't you tired of feeding your children on those poisonous shakes which have no value at all? Aren't you tired of living like beasts? Aren't you tired of being mocked by the other star planets in this empire?"
"Yes." The crowd answered.
"Then follow my lead and I promise you that I will lead you all to a life that people in the capital will envy." Scarlet roared.
She resembled a full blown politician on a campaign rally promising heaven and earth to the people.
Dez who had returned to speak to Esong dropped the papers in his hands. Is Scarlet crazy? He wondered. The capital was the place of dreams; it was the place every citizen of every star longed to move to. How could she possibly make a promise like that?
Scarlet on the other hand that was not aware that her husband was watching all of this continued on with her promises. "I have seen books that depicted the ancient world and it was beautiful. They may not have lived in sky scrapers of one thousand floors or driven flying cars and mechas but they lived prosperously.
We don't need buildings that have one thousand floors to be happy; we can live in buildings of one hundred floors. We don't need their shakes which are highly nutritious we can get all of our nutrition from the ground, with real food.
If we farm the land we will become wealthy, all of our children will go to school. We will have hospitals, amusement parks, beaches and everything in the world we could ever dream of. They will want to move here by the time we are done.
I will buy all those expensive shields for us to protect our cities from the attacks of mutated beasts. We will never have to sleep with one eye open in fear of our lives.
The blue star is our home, it is a land of milk and honey that was blessed by the Gods and by not utilizing the resources we have been given we shame the Gods.
I am asking you all to believe in me right now and do as I say and you will see miracles." She spoke so fervently and articulately that her words lit a fire among many in the crowd especially the youth.
They hated their circumstances, they abhorred the poverty they were forced to live in and they had dreams and hopes which were so close to dying. However, Scarlet's words and promises had dug those hopes out of whatever part of their body they had buried them under and brought them to the surface.
So many in the crowd screamed and shouted energetically. The roaring was infectious that her family also joined in loudly. It reminded her of soccer fans on earth rejoicing after the victory of their team. She asked them all to calm down however because she still had more to say.
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