After Michael, James, and Will joined Clare's movement, the group met once a week. The meetings were mostly meant to draw the attention of the outer world, so that more people could be mobilized.
Clare gave everyone in her following a purpose. She determined what they were good at, and accordingly distributed jobs that they would need to take over in what she called a better world. Only for me she didn´t come up with anything.
I'm not sure if she even took notice of me in the first couple of weeks. Marvelling at her words, I spent my time listening to her speeches, and each of her lines would seize me, like a hell-bent giant's hand.
"Remember the last pandemic? Or the one before?" She'd ask, the voice bursting of passion. "This isn't the first time it is happening, and it won't be the last. Haven't we developed? Shouldn't we have learned from our mistakes? From interfering with nature, from reproducing too much, and from clinging to life, as if it were meant to outlast us? We shouldn't be here once again. There shouldn't be so many of us here in general. We are more than this planet can take. We should have adapted and changed our ways centuries ago. I will not lie to you, we have brought this upon ourselves, and only we can stop it. By improving what we are doing, and approving of the idea that the forces of nature shouldn't be interfered with. Let them die! The old, the terminally ill, let them go! By constantly trying to save what is no longer viable, we are angering nature. We are disturbing the balance and, thereby, we are endangering lives that could survive if we stopped interfering."
Let them die…
When I first heard her demand it, I didn't yet know that these three words were going to hang over my future as if they were the sword in a guillotine. They would stay there for the eternal rest of my life. Even though I was yet unaware of what was to come, I fully and undeniably agreed with her that day, and cheered her on with hands that were clapping so hard that they could have broken bones.
Was my enthusiasm due to the erupting applause that seized the crowd, like a lava wave that was to leave burnt earth wherever it touched down? Due to the soft humming of a lonesome bee , the last one that xisted perhaps - settling down on me, as if to remind me that it too wanted to live? Was it due to the lies that were constantly being told on TV? Or could it have been my strong sense of solidarity for my new community that encouraged it?
To be honest, it was neither . I approved of her idea whole-heartedly; and my enthusiasm was more than a fleeting mood or a fallacy. I still agree with her nowadays. Maybe I do presently even more than I did back then, and unlike when I heard her speak those words first, now I mean myself by them, as well. Let them die.
I'm not quite sure if Clare too considered her own death, when she demanded it almost a century ago. I cannot know, because my perception was warped by eternity. Everything I think to recall might not be a memory at all, but rather a random picture that my brain deems appropriate to fill a gap with.
By the end of her speech, she endeavoured to suggest that she was aware that what she demanded would endanger her own life. In the breeze of the thunderous applause, the blooming birch tree branches above her lost bright blossoms which were gathering on her curls, when she reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out a razor blade. Blinding rays of sun reflected on it, and cut through the crowd with bright flashes, when she put it on her wrist. Inch for inch, her flesh gave in to the pressure her hand put upon it, and with each inch, the groans in the rows grew louder.
"Let me promise you something," she shouted. "And seal let me seal my promise with my blood."
It cut. Deeper and deeper. You almost started wondering if she had done it before. If she was used to harming herself. Maybe other than through cuts, she was unable to feel herself. Since her son had died, perhaps, or ever since he was born and suddenly, you felt queasy and started thinking he might still be alive, if it weren't for her.
"I promise, no, I swear," she boasted, "that I will not cling to life when my time has come. I will not drag it on for no reason, because I know that by doing so I would steal it from another being."
We were hypnotised. By her words, by her voice, and by the light reflections on the razor blade that kept on carving her promise to us into her skin. Then, suddenly, a hard nodge in my side woke me up, as if from a dream. It was Sarah. Concern was glowing in her green eyes, like a bright swarm of fireflies looking to partner.
"Completely crazy," she whispered into my ear, as if asking for affirmation, while her warm breath was tickling my skin. "I don´t even mean the things she says, but only that she cannot constantly slam the government's radicalised views and ways of dealing with the crisis, if she uses radical child-catcher-tricks like this herself. She's a hypocrite, I bet the blade won't even cut."
Her words echoed in my ears, when the glowing surface of the razor blade suddenly seemed to agree. From where we were standing, it looked like it dug deeper and deeper, without shedding blood. It could barely injure her tissue, but despite it, her shaking hand, the fingers on which had turned white through her own tension, kept on increasing the pressure.
Her motions grew frantic. Confusion clouded her eyes, as if it were a haze of mist in the the morning sky. I looked around me, the crowd was whispering, and a plague of discontent infected their glances. The mood boiled up and threatened to explode, as if it were a pressure cooking pot that someone had forgotten to turn off.
From time to time, the people around me heckled. As if encouraged by it, Clare only jerked the razor blade across her arm harder. When it scraped across her skin, it sounded painful. Then it hissed through the air, and suddenly it kept silent. I looked up. Full force, she had rammed it into her own neck.
Bewilderment spread. It manifested itself in a choir of voices. For seconds that felt like years, it was quiet. And I don't know how, but the first voice that dared to come was my own.
"Call the ambulance!"
When I said it, the first bystanders had already rushed towards Clare. Amongst them were Will, and James, whereas Michael remained frozen to the spot. Then my feet moved over the black asphalt. Only hesitantly they pushed me past people, as if they hadn't yet decided whether they wanted to storm over or not.
I didn´t force them to move any further. My eyes couldn't find a reason to approach Clare, because to me it didn´t look like she needed help. She didn't collapse, didn't scream, and didn't stumble. She was standing there just like before, with the same gaze and the same expression on her face. As my feet stopped moving. I started wondering whether she would even need the ambulance that someone beside me was on the phone to.
I discovered James and Will right next to her. Will's fingers were on the razor blade in her neck. When I saw their glances, heard their mumbles, and recognized their disturbance, I suddenly thanked my own feet for stopping. Will was slowly pulling the blade out of her throat, and James kept on standing by, ready to press against the wound, so she wouldn't bleed out. I will never forget the seconds therafter.
With the blade in his hand, and the eyes still on Clare, Will stumbled backwards. Every breath of his sounded like his last, and right next to him, James froze to the spot, as they both were facing first what was to be imminent to all of us.
Once they started to understand what was happening, in a breathy, brittle sounding voice, Will quietly asserted, "This cannot be human!"
His words seemed afraid to come out into the world, that was how softly they were spoken. On their way towards me, they tripped over people's heads, and almost went to the ground, where they would have gotten trampled, before I could have heard them. Perhaps it would have been for the best.
I wasn't ready. Not ready to hear them, even less was ready to imagine what they meant, and least of all was I ready to live with what his words were implying. Reassuringly, it wasn't much different for anyone else.
How could anyone ever be ready for the extinction of death?
The sky was still unnaturally blue. The streets were still overcrowded, and the faces of people around me suddenly shaded by growing panic. The rows started buzzing. Voices were whispering and the words decomposed to lo-pitched vibrations, which caused a humming like a swarm of bees. Only from time to time, a meaning stood out to me.
"Fraud!" a woman behind me shouted.
"Despicable to scare anyone like this," someone else attacked.
The next sound I heard came from right next to me, out of Sarah's mouth.
"Why would any of us follow an imposter, who uses contemptible tricks like this? We should be looking for honesty, integrity and humility in a good leader." Then she turned around, pointing at me. "For qualities like his."
I wasn't a leader. I was not even old and wise enough to guide myself and had never intended to lead anyone else. I didn't feel fully grown up, was barely 25, and not ready for the things that had started happening.
My glances fled the task that Sarah's words had forced on me, flew through the anxious crowd, and broke down on top of Clare. She kept on trying to defend herself against the allegations, perplexed and scared of what was happening to her. I felt sorry for her and wanted to tell her I was the last person who would want to wrest control from her. I wanted to explain that I didn't want power over anything or anyone, and that I would never take advantage of the blip of weakness that had come over her. But I didn't get to that.
She couldn't live with the clamour, faced with full-throated accusations and reproaches that attacked and stung her, like a swarm of hornets.
"Cut me open," she demanded in a trembling voice, her cheeks red from the attacks, and despair was disfiguring her face.
All at once, she pounced on James like a fury. She almost threw him to the ground, when she snatched the razor blade from his half-closed hand. With a groan, he jumped back. Contorted with pain, he looked at the palm of his hand, where he expected a cut. Going by the expression on his face, he had clearly felt it, but it wasn't there.
Perplexed, he kept on staring at his skin, as if by looking it up and down he could figure out why he was feeling something hurting him that hadn't left a trace.
Meanwhile, Clare offered the razer blade to the crowd. The arm stretched out, she had it shining in her wide open hand, the eyes prompting . Perhaps it was because of the aggression that had built up in people's hearts for more than a decade now. Maybe because of the unusual heat, or the sudden gust of wind that shot through the rows from southwest. Up to today, I'm not quite sure what caused it. However, I am sure that it happened, and when it did, it was like a natural disaster, so forceful and unexpected that no one could prevent it.
The situation escalated. A moment prior, we had been standing next to each other in silence, as if we had been frozen to the spot, when accompanied by screams, the first stones, bottles and punches were thrown. It was a bit like in a dream. All of a sudden, I was caught up in a situation and couldn´t fully remember how it had started.
I pulled my arms over my head and tried to push my way through the crowd, looking for Michael, James, and Will. I didn't want to leave any of them amidst rampant madness. The sun did me a favour and huddled in the sky just above Will´s hair. In the nervous turmoil of the crowd, I saw it shining. My glance interwoven with it, I took blows and swings, as Sarah was right behind me, and following her there was Sandra. Neither of us stopped anymore. We didn't look at anyone on our way to Clare.
Focused on her, I pressed past a scared looking stranger and when my steady pressure forced him to give way to me, I reached her. She was sitting on the ground, her face buried in her arms, and the knees drawn to her body, while she wrapped her hands protectively around her legs. The people around her were kicking her. Until she was squirming with pain, heavy shoes hit her hard, and no matter how much I wanted to flee, I couldn't move past her.
Sarah and Sandra tried to push me on. They kept pressing against my back, but I didn't move. Eventually took another step towards Clare and a deafening roar sounded out. A bottle hurled through the air and hit my left temple. Cans flew towards my face and I was hit by a heavy boot, when I bent down to help Clare up.
She didn't assist me. Neither did she give me her hand and nor did she use her feet to walk with me, when I had pulled her up. Weak as she was, she nearly dragged me to the ground with her. Only when another can hit her forehead, her paralysis broke.
We made it out. Just about. When we had shaken off the aggravated crowd, every single bone in my tired body was aching. Every inch of my skin was burning like fire. I felt sick to my stomach, and my vision kept on going black, but I was fighting it.
We retreated into the thicket of the adjacent forest. I remember how relieved I felt as soon as the shadows of the trees touched my battered skin. With shallow breathing and racing hearts, we sank into fragrant moss. It felt so soothing that my agitation slipped away from me. I lost it somewhere between the leaves and actually everything should have been fine, but it was not.
Something was wrong. In the beginning, it was only a feeling, you could barely grasp it. Until I felt the glances of the others on me, as heavy as concrete. Through their eyes it suddenly became visible to me. When I looked at Clare, her gaze carried it too, too: unsurmountable fear. It separated us like a scarf of silk that was stretched in between us. It was the shallow concern about something that no one could quite yet put in words, and once we would be able to express it, we wouldn´t want to hear it anymore.
I sat up, my mouth open, and my fingers clinging to the moss underneath my hands.
"How?" I mumbled, gulping, and looked at Clare intensely. "They kicked and hit you, but you are unharmed. How is that even possible?"
It was quiet for minutes, nothing moved. Only the soft sunlight as it was prancing on the ground. When it touched my skin, I stared at it with disbelief. Even though it was still burning, I didn't have a single scratch, and whenever I would talk about this very moment in the future, I would insist that in this second, I started to understand.
In retrospect, this might be what you would always tell yourself. That you saw it coming. That you noticed it earlier than anyone else. However, what would it even matter? What would it make you look like, if you didn't succeed in preventing it from happening, if you were the person to see it before everyone else?
Even if I suspected it at that moment under the prancing sun, it was long too late for an intervention. To be completely honest, I had no idea what exactly was taking place, but I might have felt that something had changed. My suspicions were only but a queasy feeling, until the monday morning when I saw 250 million suicides. That was a few days later. Only then, with the trembling coffee in my hand, did I feel my queasy feeling mature into a frightening thought.
What if we have fallen out of balance?