Rivera Sun's Blog: From the Desk of Rivera Sun, page 19

Texas Free Rangers – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

At two o’clock in the morning, Tansy woke Tucker to tell him that a group claiming to be the Texas Free Rangers was taking credit for the pipeline explosion.

“The Texas Free Rangers?” he repeated. “You’re sure that’s what they said?”

Tansy confirmed and Tucker lunged for his phone, dialing a number from memory.

Argus Reasonover was half drunk and dodging fists when his cell phone rang. He ducked under his adversary’s swing and shot out the bar door into the darkness.

“Tucker! How the hell are you – goddammit all to Satan’s fiery oven! No, not you Tuck, I jes got – hold on.”

Without hanging up, Gus ran pell-mell down the deserted street, sending a stray alley cat yowling up a drainpipe as the neighbor’s dog snarled madly at the end of a short rope. He shouldered his way into the only all-night establishment in that end of town and dove into the plush office of Madam Roxanne with a wink.

“Not again, Gus,” she groaned.

“Aw hell, jes’ lock the front door a moment, darling. They’ll be sweet as calves by morning. They always cool down in the face of cold sobriety and splitting hangovers,” he pointed out, kissing her roundly as she rose.

He hooked his hat on the back corner of the chair and slouched into the embroidered upholstery of the seat with a sigh of relief.

“Tuck? Y’all still there?”

“What’s going on out there, Gus?” Tucker asked in concern.

“Nothing I can’t handle. Some of the Free Rangers got a little testy this ev’ning ‘cuz I was winning the pants off them at poker. Then I won their guns and they got mad. A Texan would walk butt-naked down Main Street at high noon so long as he’s got his holster on and his gun in hand,” Gus sighed, “but take the gun away and he gets a tad insecure.”

“So, you weren’t blowing up pipelines tonight?” Tucker asked in confusion and hopeful relief.

“Pipelines? What’n the hell are you talking about?”

“Check the news, Gus,” Tucker urged and heard the television click on.

Argus Reasonover deemed himself an “undercover agent non-provocateur”. Among the widespread fans of the Dandelion Insurrection were several notable groups who wholly supported the aims of the movement, but weren’t keen on nonviolence. Among these, the Texas Free Rangers loomed larger than life: humorous, notorious, thoroughly disreputable, and ultimately loveable. Tucker considered them to be both great allies and worrisome liabilities. Years ago, they had shown up at his Kansas print shop to distribute the banned essays of the Man From the North. Tucker had called his old Texan friend Gus to find out the skinny on the Texas Free Rangers.

“Tucker, they’re about as likely to commit to nonviolence as the United States Marine Corps,” Gus had informed him. “Their idea of peaceful protest is riding their horses down to Austin and firing blanks into the air to piss off the liberals.”

“That’s hardly peaceful,” Tucker noted dryly.

“Well, nobody got hurt,” Gus explained.

“I’m surprised the police didn’t arrest them all.”

“Can’t. We’re an open carry state. They did get ticketed for letting their horses eat the state capital grass.”

Tucker groaned.

“They tell the police they’re coming and that they’re bringing blanks,” Gus added. “For chrissake, the Governor’s related to half of them. They’re the descendants of old cowboy families that got edged out of business when the bigwigs monopolized the cattle industry, closed off the range, and used big government to ram their railroad down everybody’s backyard so they could profit and the little guys could starve.”

“So, they’re the Jesse James’s of today?”

Gus laughed.

“They’d like to think so, but they ain’t into robbery, murder, or revenge. They’ve got higher – and harder – goals.”

“Such as what? The second amendment?”

“Tucker, this is Texas. Our guns are safer than our drinking water. The Texas Free Rangers are after the end of crony capitalism and the restoration of the free range as a commons.”

Tucker choked.

“And they’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that?” Tucker guessed.

“Well, they’ve been around nearly ten years and nobody’s died yet,” Gus reasoned. “Though they did cut the barbed wire and run cattle through an oil tycoon’s hundred thousand acre backyard.”

Tucker frowned, remembering.

“They did a lot more than snip wire, if I remember correctly.”

“Sure, they pulled out ten miles of fencing before they were stopped. Just like the ole Levellers and Diggers in England.”

“Unlike their predecessors, however,” Tucker argued, “that land didn’t belong to their ancestors.”

“We-yall, that’s a matter of some contention. There’s some part-natives in the group and they’re working on building up a Cowboy-Indian Alliance.”

“How’s that going?” Tucker asked in a dubious tone.

“Oh, ’bout as well as you’d expect,” Gus snorted. “Every time they gain some common ground, some insensitive loud mouth pisses on it.”

“Gus,” Tucker sighed, “I just don’t think we can work with them.”

“Aw, come on, Tuck, they can commit on an action-by-action basis, leaving guns at home at the Dandelion Insurrection’s say-so. Just so long as they don’t have to hammer them into ploughshares and become vegetarians. I’m sure they can go nonviolent for the duration of a protest or a blockade or whatever. Why, just a couple weeks back, they went into a standoff with the Bureau of Land Management openly unarmed.”

“They did?”

“Someone tole ’em they were a bunch of lily-livered chicken peckers compared to the Civil Rights Movement. So, they did it on a dare. Ended up gaining some grazing rights, too, as a matter of fact.”

“Who was the someone?”

Tucker could hear Gus squirming on the other end of the line.

“I ain’t an official member of the Texas Free Rangers, but I sure’s hell support the general ideas. We get to drinking and arguing about once a week, and I generally talk ’em out of their more stupid ideas – like taking the Governor hostage. I tole ’em, it don’t matter if you’re the Governor’s goddamn conjoined twin . . . you’re gonna get shot or jailed for that harebrained idea.”

“Gus . . . ”

“Right, sorry. I got sidetracked. Here’s what I think y’all ought to do: tell the Free Rangers to avow tactical nonviolence for any Dandelion Insurrection actions they’re gonna participate in or organize.”

“No sabotage,” Tucker mentioned.

“No property damage and no waving guns or firing blanks, no fist fights or violence or threats to nobody,” Gus recited.

“But would they agree?” Tucker asked.

“Laying down the terms of a fight isn’t nothing new,” Gus pointed out with a shrug. “Usually, it’s along the lines of ‘Joe’s back lot, fists, no guns, just you and me at sundown’, but if someone put it to ’em in the right way, they’d see the logic of the Dandelion Insurrection’s terms.”

“But who’d proposition them?” Tucker wondered. “I suppose the Man From the North could write to them.”

“Naw, they wouldn’t listen to him. Better leave it to me. I can shoot a tin can off a fence at a hundred yards and knock ’em out with a single blow.”

“Gus,” Tucker sighed, preparing a lecture.

“They all owe me for money, drinks, or saving their lives. I’ll hold ’em to the terms. God knows I’ve talked ’em out of plenty of foolishness before.”

And so Gus Reasonover became an undercover agent non-provocateur for the Dandelion Insurrection, holding the Texas Free Rangers to their promises whenever they organized with the movement. Thus far, Gus had succeeded. And, as the replay of the explosion shot across the television screen, he sighed and stuck his boots up on Madame Roxanne’s desk.

“Wasn’t us, Tucker. I swear.”

“They were riding horses, Gus.”

“Bad horses, and riding like a bunch of weak-kneed shrinking violets who ain’t never been on an old nag outside of summer camp. The Texas Free Rangers would shoot anybody who rode that bad.”

“They publicly declared that it was them who blew up the pipeline.”

“Yeah? I declare it was a bunch of yellow-livered imposters without the gumption to make a reputation for themselves.”

“Gus, you’re all on video recording firing off guns – ”

“- wasting good ammo and risking lead coming down on their heads – ”

” – and whooping like spaghetti westerns – ”

” – which we consider insulting to the dignity of our profession. We got our own authentic style, you know.”

“Can you prove that?” Tucker sighed wearily.

“Tucker, the Texas Free Rangers are the most videotaped, media-covered group of crazies in Texas. There’s plenty of documentation. You just send Tansy Beaulisle down here and we’ll fight ’em in court and expose who these saboteurs really are.”

“You’re going to have to convince Tansy before you ever get to the judge and jury,” Tucker warned him as Tansy started breathing down his neck demanding to speak to that smart-mouthed, smooth-talking, scandalous son-of-a-drunk-donkey Gus Reasonover.

“Is that Southpaw standing there? Put her on.”

A pause. Then an explosion of colorful, only partially decipherable mix of greetings, condemnations, curses, and accusations slammed across the connection. Gus winced and rubbed his ear.

“Ain’t us, Tansy.”

“You’re gonna hafta provide more’n your sweet talk and long standing reputation for trouble to get outta this one, Argus,” Tansy Beaulisle drawled.

“Now look, you she-devil, why’n the hell would the Free Rangers ride around in circles like a pack of jackasses just waiting to get caught, huh? We’re crazy, not stupid.”

Tansy’s snort challenged the claim, but she let him go on.

“Furthermore, why weren’t those idiots caught? They’re on horseback, riding sacks of bone and hide that move about as fast as the glue they’re slated to become. The company’s got drones, for chrissake. Why weren’t they tracked and caught?”

Tansy lifted her eyebrows thoughtfully. He had a point.

“Third of all, there’s blue lights coming out from the pipe just ‘afore the big bang. That’s Dynatight – it’s got some long-winded chemical name, but basically, it’s a powerful, restricted explosive. Not only would the Texas Free Rangers have a hard time getting ahold of that kind of a controlled substance, it’s also a helluva lot cheaper to just make explosives out of stuff you can get at the hardware store.”

Gus leaned forward and started taking off his boots as Roxanne nuzzled his neck.

“So, there’s your case, Ms. Beaulisle. Hook, line, and sinker. We didn’t do it and we probably know who did.”

“We do?” Tansy blinked.

“Sure. Even the company would use something cheap to blow up a pipeline. Nope, Dynatight smacks of just one thing: bloated, overfunded government. So, get your sleuths working on it and call me back in the morning. I’ve got some pressing business to attend to.”

With that, Gus Reasonover hung up, tossed his phone in his hat, and turned to the urgent matter of Roxanne.

Little Dandelions – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

Not here. Not us. Not our school. The words of Idah Robbins echoed in Charlie’s thoughts. The fifth grade teacher’s voice rang with fierce determination and a deep love of her students, school, and community. A public school is more than a set of buildings, she had said, it is a vital part of the community, a pillar of functional democracy. Charlie had quoted her in his recent essay urging resistance to the plunder monkeys.

“We teach all students,” Idah had stated. “Every child in this nation is welcome here. We do not discriminate based on aptitude or wealth. No private school can honestly claim the same. If we are ever to have a truly democratic nation, the door of education must be held open equally to all children.”

Charlie had called Idah Robbins on a phone number listed in Inez’ database of organizers and, after a week of crossed messages, finally caught her just moments after she finished a tense meeting with their local species of plunder monkeys, a private school corporation called Aldler’s Champion Schools. The teacher’s voice roared with indignation.

“They marched in here flaunting arrogance and authority – and we gave them quite a shock of resistance, let me tell you!”

Idah Robbins recounted the story to Charlie, crackling the phone line with her passionate retelling. Aldler’s Champion Schools’ Acquisitions and Transitions Team had arrived at Los Jardineros with a small army of lawyers and administrators in tow. Phyllis Devanne, head of the team, was a tall and narrow woman with a craven face marked by a prominent jaw and sunken cheeks. Her powder did not quite mask the papery sallowness of her skin. Her off-blonde hair bore the texture of too many years of dyes, rough and stiff despite the professional styling.

“This school has been seized by eminent domain and was sold to Howard Aldler’s Champion Schools Corporation,” Devanne announced in her nasal drone, ignoring all words of respectful welcome.

“It was an illegal seizure and we refuse to pass over the school,” Idah replied, politely, but firmly. The principal of the school rubbed her forehead as Aldler’s people burst out with protests. She gestured them into her office. The room shrank to the tightness of a sardine can stuffed with the drab gray suits of the Acquisitions and Transitions Team. Phyllis Devanne dropped a stack of paperwork on the desk with a thump and eyed the cluttered shelves with a possessive gleam.

“The seizure is quite legal,” one of the lawyers stated. “Your municipality applied for and was approved to receive funds from the Poverty and Debt Relief Act. Now, as per Amendment Six, it owes a debt to the Federal Government. This school property was seized as partial satisfaction of the debt.”

“The seizure is illegal because we have not consented,” Idah snapped back. “You have no signatures from our school board, the only power holders who can authorize this transaction.”

“We have a waiver of that formality,” Devanne smirked, “and a license from the Illinois Department of Education.”

The principal tapped her fingers together.

“Quite frankly,” she said, “we don’t care what the paperwork says or where the shifting sands of legal documents drift. We intend to keep this school in public ownership as an asset of the community.”

“I recommend,” Idah added as she eyeballed them over the top of her glasses, “that you return to company headquarters and warn them to back off from the purchase of this school. We are a poor investment. This neighborhood will never consent to private rule.”

“Now, Ms. Robbins, I do believe there’s been a lot of miscommunication,” said a representative of Aldler’s Champion Schools in a placating tone. “Aldler’s has a lot to offer this community: resources, technology improvements, a proven track record in turning schools around from utter dysfunction to the discipline of a well-oiled machine. We plan to improve the playground and cafeteria, and to upgrade the computers.”

“My, my, my,” Idah drawled with all the irony of a well-studied history teacher, “haven’t you come bearing fancy beads and flintlocks.” Her tone altered abruptly into the commanding crack she used on the goofballs in the back row.

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it . . . and it looks like you all have some homework to do. We aren’t interested in your oily machine. I happen to know,” she added, eyeing him disdainfully, “quite a bit about Aldler’s Champion Schools. Your methods are widely known among the National Association of Teachers. We know what happens when you buy up a ‘failing school’.”

“There have been instances,” Devanne began.

“I may teach history to children,” Idah snapped, “but I am quite capable of understanding statistics. Eighty-five percent of your schools use private security to maintain discipline and funnel children into the school-to-prison pipeline. Your CEO owns sizable stock options in the security and prison industries, in fact.

“And while you do bring in new technology systems, you fail to upgrade them, choosing to fund your hired guns instead,” Idah continued in a disgusted tone. “Your teacher turnover rates are appalling and the average experience level of your instructors is less than one year. Once Aldler’s owns a school, a series of fees are implemented for uniforms, books, lunches, extra-curricular activities, unidentified expenses, penalties for misbehaviors, supplies for certain subjects such as art or science.

“And very soon,” Idah concluded hotly, “the low-income families simply cannot afford a thousand dollars per year per child for school. Ironically, the very complaints lodged against the public schools end up applying to your schools.”

“Something tells us this is not the route to go,” the principal concluded, rising and stretching out her hand. “Ms. Robbins, please escort our guests out. Thank you and good day.”

From the way Idah told the story over the phone to Charlie, he could just picture Devanne’s expression as her team squatted in their seats like sullen toads and refused to leave.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Devanne had declared.

“You will never take over this school,” Idah had retorted hotly.

One of the lawyers leaned over and whispered to Devanne. She nodded and flashed a tight-lipped nasty smile.

“We wish to tour the school.”

“No.”

She blinked.

“Excuse me?” she protested.

“The teachers and students will escort you to the front door, Ms. Devanne, and then they will return to their classes.”

“Students?” she asked, confused.

Idah pointed to the window in the door of the office. The hallway was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with students. The taller heads of the teachers rose above them. Whispers, giggles, and shushing could be heard through the door.

“I believe they intend to open a path for you to exit from here to the main door,” Idah explained, “but should you unwisely choose to try to enter the school any further, I think the kindergarteners might, ah, get in the way.”

The history teacher suppressed her smile and gave a subtle thumbs-up to her fifth graders. Just last week she had shown them video footage of the Singing Revolution in Estonia surrounding the Soviet Army as it attempted to reoccupy the parliament building and disband the independent Congress of Estonia. Unarmed, peaceful, and fearless, the Estonians had forced the Soviets to retreat. Now her fifth graders were putting history into practice. Top marks for those students, she cheered silently.

Checkmated, Devanne and the lawyers rose. Idah opened the door. An eerie, watchful silence fell. The students nudged each other and stepped backwards. A path opened wide enough for the visitors to exit. The children stood silently – though Idah noticed the teachers tapping the more rambunctious on the shoulders just as they opened their mouths. Several hands were intercepted in midair. A small flying object was confiscated.

When the latch on the front door closed with its familiar click-clunk, the hall erupted into cheers.

The principal rubbed off the board next to the office, clearing the usual notices such as number of days of good behavior, birthday announcements, and upcoming holidays. She wrote Plunder Monkeys on one side and Little Dandelions on the other. The she struck a bold, solid line under the school’s side.

“Score one for us!” she laughed.

“If we win, can we have an ice cream party?” a third grader cried out.

“Yes,” she replied.

If they won, she’d cash in her savings account and buy ice cream for the whole school.

Debt Prison Strike – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

Chapter Nine

Debt Prison Strike

Hot and humid as a hairy armpit on a southeast afternoon, the debt prison laundry stank of detergents and hissing cotton steam. The incarcerated workers hauled sacks and trolleys of soiled linens from hospitals and hotels, growing more surly and mulish by the minute.

If that break time doesn’t come soon, Etta James grumbled silently, I’m going to snap.

The back of her green uniform sucked the sweat off the skin of her spine. Trickles ran down her sides and itched as they dried. She watched the clock. Break time came and went without a glance from the manager. A machine malfunction had delayed the day’s workload. The prisoners would be kept sweating to make up lost time.

“Is he going to keep us hopping ’til we fall dead today?” Etta muttered to her neighbor.

The other prisoner shook her head blankly, deafened by the thunder of the washers. Etta returned to her own business – unloading a cart into the empty machine by the armload, trying not to think about strangers’ semen or infectious diseases rolled up in hospital bed sheets wet with piss. Five years she’d been in here, sweating in the summer, chilled to the bones in the winter, making less money than she would doing the same job on the outside. Debt court sent her here when she fell too far behind – never mind why. Every woman had a why: kid got sick, landlord spiked the rent, lost a job just when bills came due. Debt collectors got the police to haul them in. The judge mandated time paying back what they owed by working in one of the debt prison industries.

Etta longed for the clammy cold of the meatpacking plant she’d been sent to once – though she went queasy at the sight of dangling flesh and hunks of meat. Still, it was better than some outfits. She’d heard tales. Chemical factories. Faulty equipment. Injuries. Accidents. Death.

Etta glanced at the clock again, but the heat played tricks on her eyes. She swore the hands had moved backward. She wiped her brow and fanned her neck. The manager glared at her from the observation window of his air-conditioned office. She scowled back as a flush climbed up her veins.

Hot flash. Etta swore a second time. She’d heard rumors that people outside were trying to abolish the debt prisons. Better hurry the hell up, Etta thought, or I’ll combust. There’d been talk of a debt prison strike – all hot air and bluster, not like the one organized when the Dandelion Insurrection hit DC to oust the old president. That was smart. Nobody working, not anywhere in the whole country. Guards just kept ’em in the cells as everyone followed the news.

If they don’t call a break, Etta thought furiously, I’m gonna call a strike. We shouldn’t be working for these crooks. Not while people outside are struggling for justice. We’re just putting money in rich people’s pockets so they can buy politicians and keep us locked up.

One more minute, she vowed, tugging the sweaty uniform off her stomach and puffing it to circulate some air across her flaming chest. A woman can only take so much. Enough is enough. Etta’s lips stretched across her teeth in a grimace of a smile. That’s what that woman had said, the one who led the march to DC, Zadie Byrd Gray’s momma who died: Revolutions happen when one woman says, enough!

Count to ten, Etta warned her rising temper. Don’t do anything rash. Her mind raced through all the things they’d do to her – solitary, docked pay, extra work, no meals, beatings – as her temperature shot skyward in a volcano of heat that knocked the strength out of her knees. She sank to the ground, dizzy.

“What are you doing?” her coworker hollered.

“Taking a break,” she answered, holding her head.

But the woman misheard her mumbled reply.

Starting a strike.

The other woman read the flush of frustration and frayed nerves in Etta’s red face. She turned to the next woman as she, too, slid down to sit on the floor.

“Strike!” she bellowed.

And the Debt Prison Strike began.

Igniting across the half-laid fuses of an actual plan to strike, it spread from one facility to another, setting off chaos and solidarity in its inopportune eruption. By the week’s end, hundreds of thousands of debt prisoners had quit working – and flames of alarm spread out of prisons and into industries. Hotels nationwide demanded their fresh laundry and learned – with a shock – why it was not available. Corporate managers tried to hush up the story, but bellhops’ and room maids’ tongues waggled. Whispers collided like ripples in a rainy pond, crossing and convoluting. Meat shipments were delayed, slaughterhouses ground to a slow trickle of production, and grocery stores posted out-of-stock signs. The stock market lurched, plummeted, had cardiac arrest, staggered back to its feet, and flopped over again.

The Dandelion Insurrection shoved the shoulder of its efforts behind the momentum of the strike and called for everyone to return the prisoners’ show of solidarity for the Relief Bill by taking action against the injustice of debt.

Whether we’re in prison or not, debt cages us all, Charlie wrote.

He called on everyone to strike debt and hit the financial sector where it counts.

Delay your payments, Charlie urged. For a week, a month, just hold off a little. Make them feel the pinch like a stalling morphine drip. By the time they send the third notice, the finance industry will be screaming in horror. We have their money and they can’t have it back unless they stop blocking change.

Charlie Rider was slapped by the media as a reckless gambler hurtling the nation toward economic crisis. The seething ranks of the rich rolled out thunderous accusations against the folly of the Man From the North, but the populace stood immune. Charlie was always attacked by the wealthy. The outcry against him merely validated his cause. Payments stalled and stopped. From credit cards to mortgages to student loans to medical payments, everyone held a piece of the debt industry.

The rich own us, Charlie wrote, only until the moment when we realize that by not paying our debts, we own them. We hold their capital hostage in our unpaid debts. They need us to pay this back. But do we need them? We took on these debts to afford the cost of living, and yet, our lives under the burden of massive debt are still unlivable. We must leverage our shared strength for systemic change.

Inez worked tirelessly to ignite the courage of the poor into determination for action.

“It is better to refuse to pay until this system is overhauled. Better to be sent to debt prison where you can join the work strike inside. Better to risk everything to gain something than to continue to die slowly on the nothing we have now.”

In DC, the phones rang nonstop. Pleas, demands, appeals, orders, suggestions, and rants poured in. Police chiefs called Homeland Security for back up. Bankers demanded bailouts from the Treasury Department. Business leaders insisted that the Interim Government do something to quell the unrest. The people asked for help surviving the economic wreckage of the previous regime. Millions of people, in every city, at every turn, harried the Interim Government while the fuel of the economic machine spluttered and choked.

On Wall Street, a meeting of financial behemoths was convened. Business tycoons and the ultra-wealthy gathered in a penthouse conference room brushing the clouds. Their eyes flashed in irritation. They griped over the endless annoyances caused by the Dandelion Insurrection. They swapped notes on political allegiances. They waited impatiently. Friend had been summoned. At ten o’clock sharp, he appeared.

“This is unacceptable,” they growled. “Get this situation under control.”

Friend listened quietly, waiting for his moment.

“Foreclose on them all and board up their houses,” said a man who owned three mansions.

“They’re renters, not homeowners,” a real estate tycoon answered irritably. His management companies had been unsuccessfully trying to collect rents or evict people across the country. “It’s impossible to break a rent strike when no one’s looking for an apartment – they’re all resisting!”

“Can’t evict all of them, anyway,” an heiress pointed out with a look of distaste. “Where would they go?”

A disgruntled shifting swept the table. Homeless encampments had swelled from the recent evictions. A nationwide cleanup effort had ousted the unhoused from urban back alleys and abandoned lots, dumping them into the outskirts of the cities and onto the back edges of the wealthy’s estates.

“Arrest them all, I say,” said the man next to her. “Lock them up.”

“Not while they’re all striking and refusing to work!” exclaimed the owner of the private prison industry that had taken over the government corrections program. His heart rate elevated dangerously as he testily took a gulp of imported bottled water. His margins were vanishing faster than the last remaining rhinoceros. Suppliers had cut contracts. Accounts had been cancelled. Meanwhile, he was feeding and housing hundreds of thousands of idling ingrates. He glanced at John C. Friend, but saw no hint of relief in the man’s noncommittal eyes. He needed a bailout of government funds, or a strikebreaker. Not more headaches in the form of inmates. “I’m not absorbing the cost of housing and feeding and controlling millions of people who won’t work.”

Furious bickering broke out between billionaires over who would foot the bill and absorb the cost of the political unrest. They glared at each other, refusing to shell out a penny, lobbing insults and accusations in a vicious Ping-Pong match of blame laying and haggling.

Friend cleared his throat.

“It seems, gentlemen and ladies, that those irascible dandelions have got you by the neck. You’ll simply have to give them what they want.”

“Rent control?! Debt forgiveness? Abolition of debt prison?” scoffed an heiress. “I’m not paying for that.”

“No one said you would,” Friend answered soothingly.

The bickerers fell silent. Eyes swung toward the unassuming politician. Ears pricked up.

“So, who’s paying?” the head of student financing at a major bank growled, getting straight to the point.

Friend’s smile would make the Devil cringe.

“They are.”

Gray Atonement – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

“Come on with me and let’s walk down to the end of the block,” Tansy urged grimly. “There’s something you outta see.”

The quiet residential neighborhood spilled out onto a commercial corridor with a corner market at the intersection. A thoroughfare full of shopping plazas stretched in one direction; boutiques and restaurants lined the other. Up and down the street, crews of city workers were hanging gray banners from the streetlights. One tall building after another unfurled huge rolls of fabric from the rooftop to the ground. The post office and bank had decked their front entryways with gray fabric.

“Are those gray-toned American flags?” Charlie asked with a frown.

“Uh-huh,” Tansy confirmed. “Remember how Friend said the Interim Government wanted to make a public gesture of atonement?”

A quick whip of wind punched the gray-toned stars and stripes. The crews scrambled to catch the unsecured fabric as it billowed. Bits of street grit flung up into their eyes. A shiver darted through Tansy. Charlie and Zadie gaped. The overcast sky snatched the sun into hiding. Color vanished. Drab grays remained. Charlie’s heart sank like a stone. Wordlessly, Tansy steered them to the corner market’s racks of daily newspapers and tabloids.

Interim Government Unveils Gray Atonement

Friend Issues Public Apology for Losses

Charlie flipped the paper over, ignoring the glare from the cashier. The lead story reported that a gray flag of contrition and regret was being hoisted across the capital to symbolize the Interim Government’s commitment to the people and repudiation of the terrible actions of the previous administration.

“As if he wasn’t part of that regime,” Charlie muttered under his breath. “All of them had a hand in the policies of the past.”

“Yeah, well, they’re covering their butts,” Tansy pointed out.

“Friend has called for a period of public mourning nationwide,” Zadie read over Charlie’s shoulder. “Government buildings will display the gray flag, businesses are encouraged to hang gray banners on their buildings, and people are invited to wear gray – dark or light – to join in this symbol of national unity.”

“In Hitler’s time, the flags were red,” Charlie commented acerbically.

Zadie frowned at him.

“I think it’s a moving gesture,” she countered, her eyes moist. “There have been losses.”

“Of course there have,” Charlie argued, “but this? This is ridiculous.”

“Why?” she challenged.

“Because . . . because,” he struggled for the words, “it’s sheer propaganda and empty gestures.”

“Not to those of us who lost someone,” she snapped back.

“Then how about yellow for dandelions? For life, for the things we believe in,” he bickered. “Not the color of ashes and death.”

“You’re such a control freak,” Zadie hissed, lowering her voice. “You just can’t stand that you’re not in charge anymore, that people are making decisions without approval of the Man From the North.”

Charlie stared at her in disbelief. All he’d ever used his Man From the North alias for was to tell the stories of resistance and write what everyone thought, but no one dared to say. The firebrand essays stirred up courage and held out hope. He’d ignited the smoldering pile of frustration into a blaze of revolution . . . but he was no more in charge of the movement than he was in control of an earthquake. He followed the lead of the thousand sparks of resistance, amplifying the rising chorus of dissent. Zadie’s accusation hurt. He turned away in irritation.

Zadie ignored him and asked the cashier where she had gotten the gray flag hung in the window.

The woman shrugged.

“Some government worker came around handing them out. Supervisor thought it’d be best to hang it up. It’s official.”

She shot Zadie a significant look. The past ten years had taught people to be cautious about questioning the government. Not even the burst of the Dandelion Insurrection could counter all the instinctive head ducking and hunching of shoulders. Charlie watched the exchange sadly. Tyranny and fear left deep scars on the psyche of a nation. Healing would take time.

“You can buy one of the new flags,” the cashier suggested pointedly. “We got some for homes and individuals. ‘Course, we’ll be outsold by the Boy Scouts and cheer teams. Interim Government’s gonna let them sell ’em as fundraisers as a way to give back to the people.”

“And mass market the new propaganda,” Charlie muttered under his breath.

Zadie overheard and elbowed his ribs. Tansy grabbed them by the shoulders, thanked the cashier, and steered the pair out the door before a lovers’ quarrel erupted.

Charlie itched to write a ferocious denouncement of the campaign, but the fire in Zadie’s eyes stopped him cold. He scuffed the concrete moodily on the way back to the house feeling boxed into an uneasy corner of silence and implied consent. Zadie’s accusation stung . . . he wasn’t a control freak, why couldn’t she see through this despicable ploy?

March Into the Heart of Darkness, Blazing With Love – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

The wind poured through the car window and danced across her scalp. Zadie’s black curls whipped and tangled as she drummed her hands on the steering wheel, singing along with the blaring radio. Barreling up the freeway toward New York, she felt the oppressive weight of the nation’s capital lifting by the mile.

That city was cursed, she decided, built on swamplands and rotten with corruption from the founding days of the country. If she never saw the white buildings of federal power again it would be too soon. She threaded her fingers through the wind’s caress. If only she could live like this – in motion, hung in the decision-less liminal space between destinations, her mind empty of hard-edged thoughts.

Inez snapped off the radio.

“I want to talk to you.”

Zadie flinched at the steely hint in the small woman’s tone. Inez had spent the last two hours of the drive staring pensively out the window. Zadie had tried to shake her out of her mood, but ultimately decided to ignore the gathering storm in the passenger seat.

“I’d rather not,” Zadie replied, switching hands on the wheel and reaching for the radio dial. “Can’t we just drive along and enjoy life for once?”

“You don’t even know what I want to talk about,” Inez retorted in a grumpy tone. Her dark eyes flashed with sudden irritation.

Zadie snorted knowingly.

“Let me guess: politics, the movement, or death,” she sighed. “That’s all we ever talk about these days.”

She turned on the radio.

Inez shut it off.

“Fine. Let’s talk about life, liberty, and love,” she said to Zadie. “Remember those? You used to believe in them.”

Zadie let out a dry laugh.

“We wanted life and found death waiting. We dreamed of liberty, but where is our freedom, Inez? We’re tied to this movement whether we like it or not. We can’t just haul off and leave. And love?” Zadie groaned. “Everyone on Capitol Hill is laughing at our naive faith in love. Makes me want to crawl into a corner and cry.”

Inez grabbed the steering wheel.

“Pull over,” she ordered, pointing to the looming exit and yanking the wheel.

“Are you trying to get us killed?” Zadie screeched.

“There,” Inez said shortly, indicating a place to stop. “Pull up on the side of the road. It doesn’t matter where.”

The car lurched as one side bumped over the loose gravel. A stand of highway trees rustled beside them. Vehicles shook the car as they thundered past, headed for gas stations and take-out burger joints. The vacancy of sound hung between them for a moment, comforting yet lonely. Then Inez took a deep breath and began to speak.

“You are not the only person holding in her silent tears,” she reminded Zadie. “Guadalupe Dolores was connected to me like my own limbs and that drone snapped her out of my life. I am choking full of sorrow, yet hollow all at once. She is – was – my baby sister. I was there at her wedding, the births of her children, and now her funeral. I wanted to fall in love someday and live through her merciless teasing. I wanted her to give me annoying advice. I wanted to nag her to lose weight when we got as old and fat as Mama. I wanted to cry on her shoulder as we lit candles for our old bruja of a mother.”

Tears welled in her eyes as she stared out the windshield.

“I want to curl up in a ball, but we have responsibilities that are bigger than us, larger than our sorrow and grief. They can be a balm to our hearts. Purpose goes a long way when the journey seems unbearable.”

“What if I don’t believe in that purpose anymore?” Zadie asked in a very quiet voice. Her lips trembled as she spoke her fear. “What if I don’t believe in our slogans and catch phrases? What if that’s not enough?”

“It was never enough for some of us,” Inez replied, tempering her impulse to laugh at Zadie’s plaintive tone. “Do you think mi madre is doing this for one of Charlie’s convenient slogans?”

Zadie had to smile at the thought.

“No,” Inez continued emphatically. “The old bruja is doing it for something deeper. Oh, I know if you asked her she’d say she’s doing it for the money – el pinche government is making it hard to make a living on the black market.”

Zadie laughed at Inez’ perfect imitation of Pilar Maria’s scowl.

“But, you have not seen the look on my mother’s face as she tucks Lupe’s children into bed. You did not see her when she broke through the blockades of the city to start the people’s evacuations. You did not grow up with her; you do not know the comfort of her arms in your darkest hour of despair.”

Inez turned in her seat to catch Zadie’s eyes.

“Mi madre is driven by love. A love so fierce and intense it frightens her. She jokes and spits and hides it under that toughness, but don’t be fooled. She says it’s all survival in this dog-eat-dog world, but she would throw herself in front of bullets for me – she would have thrown herself in front of Lupe if she could. That’s not just survival; that’s love. And Mama feels it for her neighbors in the city. She feels it for the youths making trouble in the alley that she harasses to break up their fights. She feels it for the homeless she pretends to curse while slipping money and warm socks to them when she thinks no one is looking. Mama was taught to believe that love makes us vulnerable, and so she hides it.”

Inez’ eyes turned bright.

“But your mother? Your mother had unwavering faith that our love makes us strong and that our vulnerability gives us grace under pressure.” Inez had trained thousands of people along with Ellen Byrd. They had marched side-by-side for miles. “My mama is tough,” she said, “but your mother was fearless.”

“Yes, but your mother is alive, and mine is not,” Zadie said bluntly.

Inez sighed.

Watch out for that bitterness, Zadie Byrd Gray, she thought quietly, or you’ll grow up like my mama, not yours.

“What’s the point of fighting this struggle . . . if not for love?” Inez argued. “Love for the children, for the earth, for the people. You lose your love, Zadie Byrd Gray, and they’ve won. You’ve got nothing. But if you hold fast to love, you can walk into their offices with your head held high. You’ll look at that Capitol Building and the White House and see that they’re just wood and white paint and pointless greed. You’ll laugh at that whole corrupt city because they are missing the point of life. And you’ll be able to march – like your mother, fearless, humble, dignified, and strong – straight into the heart of darkness blazing with love.”

Inez paused thoughtfully.

“Don’t lose your faith in love, Zadie. It’s stalking you . . . and if you turn your back, love will pounce. If you run away, love will chase you. If you shut it out, love will break down all of your defenses.”

“You sound like Charlie,” Zadie commented softly.

Inez snorted.

“Well, listen to him. Don’t bite his head off.”

“I don’t!”

“You do.”

“You’re hardly one to give out relationship advice,” Zadie said pointedly to Inez.

“Haven’t I blown enough chances to know when you’re screwing something up?” Inez shot back.

Zadie hid a smile. She leaned across the awkward constraints of seatbelts and cup holders to hug her in forgiveness.

“Ai, chica,” Inez murmured to her. “It’s not easy, la vida. Let’s not make it harder on each other, okay?”

“Yeah,” Zadie agreed.

“And let’s find something to eat. You’re all sticks and bones.”

“Says the ninety-pound heavyweight,” Zadie replied, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not the one who stands as tall as your mother,” Inez commented in a tone that softened gently at the end. “She’s in you, Zadie, never far from your heart. You have her eyes, height, build . . . and her heart. Remember to love, and that beautiful heart of hers beats inside you, too.”

She placed her hand over Zadie’s heart. Tears came to the young woman’s eyes. She nodded and clasped Inez’ small, weathered hand. Inez breathed deeply. Now they could continue northward. They were ready for the challenges ahead.

Who Are We Without Our Lies? – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

The snow thickened, cast into frantic swirls like schools of fish trying to dart free of ocean nets. Through the flurries, a figure in a long dark coat paced the whitened sidewalks of the National Mall, her shoulders hunched up to her ears. Her arms clenched tight against her sides and her hands shoved deep down into her coat pockets. The wind flipped her dark curls wildly, but, lost in thought, the woman merely tossed them out of her eyes. She stared up at the snow with a clouded gaze.

Zadie fumed as she strode through the snowstorm, trying to churn her anxious thoughts into a flame of warmth. Charlie was still talking to that patronizing moron of a senator. She’d stalked out in disgust, muttering to Charlie that she’d meet him back at Tansy’s. She had to get some air before a scream of frustration burst out of her throat like dragon fire. These politicians sat in cozy little congressional offices, making deals with each other while families struggled to keep the heat on, the roof overhead, food on the table, loved ones out of prison, debts and bills held at bay, and the thousand tasks of a movement slogging forward despite the obstruction and delays of chubby little men in suits and well-heeled heartless women.

Who are we without the lies we tell ourselves? Zadie thought bitterly. Our values of equality and justice were myths. Our pride, false. Our ideals, hollow and unrealized. Every great accomplishment we crowed over turned out to be an illusion built on a foundation of bones. Every victory was soaked in an unspeakable bloodbath. Our pomposity erected monuments to our self-deception, celebrating the dead instead of caring for the living.

The problem with being in the capital, Zadie realized, was that it allowed politicians to forget the faces of the people. At the far end of the Mall, veiled in snow, Lincoln’s large and iconic gaze towered over the upturned agony of the humans below. Marble columns and business suits clouded the eyes from the grime and misery of the rundown, forgotten, and neglected corners of the nation. Sterile statistics stood in for the wailing grief of mothers who had lost their children. Politicians never had to see the desperation of people denied homes or healthcare. Lobbyists did not evict families with their bare hands; they left the tossing out of pillows and photo albums to others. Zadie longed to haul the Congress members by the scruff of their suits down into the gutters of the nation. Her fists clenched in her coat pockets. She yearned to throw the whole lot of those closed-hearted, stubborn mules into the heart of the misery their policies created.

She had lost patience with the pretty niceties of national delusions. The reality stung like a festering sore. She wanted to roll up her sleeves and scrub out the gangrene. She was willing to tear up patriotism along with the flag and use it as tourniquets to save her fellow citizens. What good was all our posturing and lies? Better to tell the heart-breaking truth, to let us gag at the sight of ourselves, to mourn our brokenness, to drop our jaws in horrified shock at the people we have become.

A cluster of snowflakes slipped down her collar and she flinched. Go home, she told herself as she turned her feet in the direction of the subway station. Draw a hot bath. Make tea. Remember all the people working for change. Remember the saving graces and good hearts.

She muttered these instructions like a mantra, biting down on her bitterness, desperately trying to cut through her mood before it immobilized her. Despair was a treacherous slope, muddy and slick, pocketed with hidden cliffs. Zadie trudged through the storm, trying to remember spring, cherry blossoms, bright blue skies, and the exact color of dandelions against the green grass.

Dinosaurs of Power – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

They were old enemies, these dinosaurs of power, railing on their deathbeds, refusing to surrender or transform their businesses. They were as old as the enclosures of the commons, the colonization of the New World, and the enslavement and murder of millions. The sun was setting on that era. The people, the earth, democracy, and love were rising with the dawn.

But the old guard were fighters, sharp-toothed dominators, rigidly addicted to power and control. They gripped their old ways, white-knuckled, veins of fury pulsing in their brows. In their death throes, they were willing to massacre others for survival. Already, they guzzled the lifeblood of resources, laundering the moneys of genocides through the socially accepted forms of bloated subsidies to dying industries, paid for by budget cuts to social programs and the continued assault on commonwealth. They wanted the resources of the continent, to suck the oil and exude the noxious gases into the global commons of the air. They wanted the water to sell and pollute. They wanted all the little people to get out of their way.

Well, Zadie thought stubbornly, we won’t.

In fact, they would get directly in the way.

Zadie’s blood sung with life’s determination. In her rose the strength of the boxing hare out-darting the coyote pack, the baby caribou’s burst of speed evading the chasing wolf, and the endurance of migrating albatrosses winging silently across the seas. The fertile ground of existence that gave rise to countless species throughout the Earth also formed the throbbing hearts of humanity. Again and again, the people had risen up for life, in tiny towns and massive cities, in remote landscapes and familiar suburbs. They blocked export terminals, oil trains, construction equipment, drilling rigs. They had disrupted the churning machinery of permits and licenses that ground humanity toward extinction. They shoved the financial equation over, tipping the scales of profitability to slow the addictive reliance on fossil fuels.

And if water were next, they would rise to protect that as well.

Chessboard of the Nation – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is a short excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

Alex Kelley sat in meditation, absorbed in thought, studying the chessboard of the nation. She laid out a web of understanding, piece by piece, watching the interlocking systems, tracking patterns, threads, and connections. The wall of Tansy’s living room had become a solid sheet of sticky notes, scribbles on napkins, and sketches of strategy.

She could sense their opponents amassing for a renewed assault. They were mad as wet cats about the resistance to the plunder monkeys. The elections drew closer by the day, and the people acted as if they were skipping through the daisy fields of democracy while the armies of the wealthy prepared for slaughter on the battlefield. Thousands of years of human history spun like a crushing wheel of time. Poor people struggled for dignity and justice; rich people fought for more, more, more. The ghosts of nobles and serfs, kings and peasants, princesses and peons, masters and slaves lined up in the living bodies of the present. The coming elections were a showdown of epic dimensions and Alex worried that the people were about to lose, yet again.

Know your enemy and know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War. So, Alex meditated on John C. Friend, and the elites . . . because there was something in the equation she was missing. Something she was not seeing. Something that affected the patterns that moved them all.

We Are The Dandelions – An Excerpt From The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

We must hear from everyone, he wrote, every person who has ever taken action with the Dandelion Insurrection. The Man From the North called forward the voices of the Dandelion Insurrection, lifting the conversation on tactics out of the bullhorns of the few and into the hearts of the many. For too long, the loudest voices had dominated the discussions on tactics. Many people had been shoved into silence; now was the time to speak out. He stepped down off his platform, quieted the roar in his throat, and beckoned to the timid, the shy, the tired, the weak. The choice was not a decision for one voice alone. In a leaderful movement, everyone had to step forward, each person had to choose to embody the world they longed to create.

From all directions and corners of the country, they came. The Man From the North was joined by the Woman in the Southwest, the Kid on the Coast, the Guy in the Bible Belt, the Schoolteacher by the Lake. The answer to Charlie’s passionate cry flew across the landscape of controversy with a golden clarity of heart. From the Mechanic in the Rust Belt, the Pastor Up Country, the Emancipator Down South, the Free Ranger in Texas, the Fisherman in Maine, letters and essays flooded the Alternet. These were the voices silenced by the smash of windows and the vitriol of hate. These were the people who couldn’t – wouldn’t – throw bricks. These were the mothers and fathers who could not bring their children into a street fight. These were the original dandelions that had chosen nonviolence in dangerous times.

We are the true roots of resistance, they declared, and the scraggly leaves, golden flowers, and windborne seeds.

They remembered the days when reading an essay was treason. They remembered the courage it took to speak truth out loud at the dinner table. They remembered the times when to be kind, be connected, and be unafraid was dangerous and revolutionary act. They remembered how the Dandelion Insurrection emerged from the smallest stories of resistance: mothers who told the truth; children who shared their lunches; men who stood together in times of distress; people who turned back the tide of fear in their hearts; communities who burst forth with love.

We are the Dandelions, the insurrection against hate, the flowers bursting through concrete and the grip of control. We stand enduring, indomitable, and eternal. We are the body of the people, immortal. We’ll out last the dangers. We’ll rise to the challenges. We’ll live to see the dawn of our changes arrive with the sun.

Love Demands the Impossible – An Excerpt of The Roots of Resistance

This is an excerpt from The Roots of Resistance, the sequel to The Dandelion Insurrection. It is available from Nov 10th until Dec 17th through our Community Publishing Campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-roots-of-resistance/x/4376219#/

Charlie’s mouth fell open, speechless. His anger dissipated like steam off a cooling pot. Of course he loved her . . . how could she doubt that? He loved her the way heroes of ancient stories loved: he would do the impossible for her. He would rearrange the stars for her; he would traverse the underworld and challenge death for her; he would make the sun and moon dance across the sky for her. And, in a way, he had. As a mere mortal, a man who not-so-very-long ago had been nothing more than a boy working at a small town newspaper, he had already accomplished miracles.

But that was the catch; his love demanded more than that. It wasn’t enough for her to be held secure and safe behind his strength. Heroes of today had harder tasks than rescuing damsels in distress or defending princesses in towers. The days of strong-arm heroes, of Odysseus and Hercules, were done. Zadie was no Penelope to stay at home, waiting for him to return victorious. No, she was an adventurer, a creator, a heroine in her own right. She deserved a whole world of freedom, safety, respect, and dignity. And such a world was best forged through nonviolent action – the entire weight of history, studies, and statistics demonstrated that. It was built from the kind of courage that breaks the cycles of violence and domination even as it ends systems of oppression and injustice.

Charlie stared at Zadie as an encyclopedia of words pounded through him, trying to find a way to explain why he couldn’t throw a punch – not because he didn’t love her, but because he did. He could have fought off that cop – he’d lobbed plenty of punches in her defense back in high school – but the world in the wake of that fight wouldn’t be any safer. The cop would come back harder and meaner, and while he could stand up for her over and over, what about everyone else? It wasn’t enough to keep her protected if it meant her friends – Inez, Tansy, Tucker, Idah, Alex, Kinap – weren’t also equally safe, able to protest injustice, stand up for their rights, and exercise their freedoms.

Love demanded this of him. Love demanded this of everyone. To care, not just about one person, but about the whole world. To work for justice, not just for those we know, but for everyone we don’t. To keep not just our loved ones safe, but also keep the beloveds of strangers safe. To treat others with as much dignity and respect as we ourselves wish to be treated.

This was an idea that many people believed would never come to pass. It was the world of dreamers and idealists, an impossible vision, but this was the world Zadie deserved, the only kind of world worthy of her. And so, though the journey from here to there would make the greatest heroes blanch, he was willing to strive in that direction. That’s how much he loved her.

Charlie gazed at Zadie as the long moment stretched until it brushed up against the eternal and the infinite. He held her eyes as the forms of body and time fell away. Love opens the gateway of a single person onto the limitless, if only we will dare to cross the threshold. For the love of one person, we can find the strength to love the whole world. Charlie dared to love Zadie without limits, without the blindfold of delusions. His love forced him to see the truth: there was no line where she stopped and the rest of the world began. It was all tied together, weaving through her breath into the trees, across the atmosphere, around the earth, touching every single human being, growing in the green and leafy plants, leaping in the animals, falling in the rain, running in the rivers, crashing in the ocean waves, rising into clouds, swirling across continents back into she and he as they stood with locked eyes searching for the words to say, I love you.