Rats, A Florist and A Revolution

Darting from the shadows on the street to the dim alley way, Taliah paused to scan the way she had come. The instructions were clear: make sure you are not followed.

She stood flattened against the brick wall for what felt like ages, not daring to breath.

When no boogie men jumped out at her, she relaxed a little and started casting around for the next sign post. In a weird parody of The Matrix, the instructions on the invitation had directed her to ‘followed the white rat’.

There were little painted rats all over the city. Some relaxing on sun lounges, others carrying umbrellas, even a couple depicted with a paint brush or roller in their little paws. One little rat appeared to be a real estate agent, showing a little rat hole to another rat. There were some painted in black, some in brown while others were a kind of blue tinged colour.

And then there were the white ones.

The instructions didn’t tell her how to follow them. Just that she had to follow them to the meeting place. Unsure of where to start, she had taken photos of the white rats she saw in the days leading up to the meeting and compared them. It took a few hours to work out that it was as simple as following their directions. They were all either pointing, gesturing or simply looking in the direction.

Now, as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see what she had first taken to be rubbish against the wall was a cluster of stencilled rats. They appeared to be in the throws of a dance party. And in the middle of the revellers: a white rat, gazing up into the alley.

Following the party rat’s line of sight, she found another of his comrades she would never have noticed if she hadn’t been following the trail. Painted halfway up the wall well above her line of sight, drifted a little rodent attached to the string of a balloon trying to swim towards a fire escape on the side of the building.

Taliah smiled at this one. She had to admit, in a city full of rats, this was a clever way to hide the trail in plain sight. Keeping to the shadows and constantly on a look out, she made her way to the stairs. Feeling exposed on the top landing she dashed into the dark interior of the brick building.

While she waited for her eyes to adjust, she stood listening to the sounds around her. A dripping sound echoing up from somewhere. A scurrying sound she suspected was a real rat. A soft whirring. And the murmur of voices.

Following the voices bought her to a door with soft light shining from underneath. Before she could knock, the door swung open, scaring the daylights out of her.

The man on the other took a stride forward, sending Taliah stumbling backwards.

‘Name!’ He baked the question at her.

Cringing at the volume of his voice in the quiet of the corridor, she stammered over words to answer him. ‘I, um, I’m here, I have an invite, I’m Ta-‘

A woman appeared behind him, laying her hand on the burly man’s shoulder.

‘Sphinx, you are scaring our guest. And she may forget and give us the wrong name,’ she looked pointedly at him, ‘if she feels intimidated.’

The man stared Taliah down for a moment, then nodded and stepped back, giving the newcomer the space he had occupied.

‘Alright my dear, I apologise. I’m sure you understand our... security measures. Now, what was your name?’ Her tone implied the name her parents gave her was not what she was interested in.

‘Oh, yes. I’m, um, Botany.’ She finished, feeling really awkward. She had found the invitation to meet like-minded people who wanted to effect change in their discordant city intriguing, something she couldn’t refuse. But now she was here, was starting to wonder if she had a grave mistake.

‘Wonderful!! We were waiting on you so we could get started! He promised you would come! My name is Diva, by the way.’ Diva turned, gesturing Taliah to follow.

‘Alright, Revolutionaries! Our guest of honour is here so we can get down to business! This is Botany. Please make her feel welcome.’ Diva lead her to the front of the assembled group of around 15 men and women. The room must have been an office once, with glass windows looking out over a disused factory. A perfect place for a clandestine meeting. If any one approached from any direction other than the stairs she had come in on, they would be seen. A problem solved by a bank of screens showing the streets outside and even the roofs of the neighbouring buildings. They would have seen her coming before she even knew where she was going. The system looked sophisticated. And expensive.

Diva drew Taliah's attention back to herself. ‘A quick recap, for Botany’s sake. We all have a stake in this city. We have all lost much in the civil unrest and the riots. Property, stock, income. All things our small businesses can’t afford. Protesters march, meet the police barricades, they clash and it quickly turns to rioting. And another of us looses our livelihood. Buns lost his only delivery van in the Wednesday Riots. ET's store front was smashed and thousands of dollars in stock looted.’ Diva fell silent for a moment. ‘An entire row of shops was set alight, burning Page’s book store to the ground.’

Taliah realised the people assembled before her were just like her. Small business owners who suffered because of the unrest. She had been lucky so far. Her florist’s shop had had windows cracked and a small fire had destroyed some of her display stands. But she had been able to clean up and make do with substitutes. Some of these people weren’t so lucky.

Diva straightened and continued. ‘Each of you has a group of 50 or more Revolutionaries to lead. The next protest, and there for the next riot, is planned for Thursday evening. We will put ourselves in between the protesters and the police and we will make our statement. With our numbers, they will HAVE to pay attention to us!’ A cheer went up from the group, silenced as quickly as it began. Taliah could see why. What they were planning was dangerous. To get between two groups that were essentially warring? Pure madness borne of desperation.

‘But, how can I help? The letter, from that guy, the invitation from...’ she snapped her fingers trying to recall how he had signed off on the invitation to the meeting.

‘Thylacine. A creature that is supposed to be extinct, but people of it's native lands swear it is just well hidden.’ Diva sounded almost reverent.

‘.... Thylacine was very vague. He said I have skills you need. But I’m just a business woman. I... I can’t put myself in the middle of a group of protesters and the police! If I get arrested, there is no one to open my business. I’m a florist. I am my business, the flowers won’t arrange themselves.’

The smile on Diva’s face was mirrored on the faces of a number of the Revolutionaries present.

‘Exactly.’ She said.

---

The Revolutionaries were down there somewhere. But Taliah had only seen a small number of them and there were hundreds of them. Out there, somewhere. She prayed silently for the people down on the street to be ok. Diva had made arrangements to meet her on this roof top. She had asked Diva why she would want to be here for this if she couldn’t be down with the others. ‘Because, even if I can’t be down on the street with them, we are a team. We are in this together. I want to be here to show them support. They are taking a big risk. For all of us.’

It hadn’t been a hard decision to join her on the roof top after that.

‘Botany.’ Diva nodded as she came to stand beside her.

They stood side by side in silence while they waited.

The sounds of the protesters began to echo down the street from one side and the police started gathering at the other. It was getting real now.

‘Do you think it will work?’ Taliah asked, afraid of the answer.

‘God, I hope so.’ Diva looked at her. ‘Either way, I want to say thank you.’

Taliah raised her eyebrow. ‘Why? All I did was put bunches of flowers together. Thylacine paid for all of them AND the materials to wrap them!’

‘And without your labour, your willingness to make a change and trust others, we wouldn’t be able to do this today.’ Diva looked back to the street where the groups were coming dangerously close. The chanting through the megaphone, repeated by the crowd, drowned out further conversation.

The tension grew as the police formed ranks, holding riot shields and batons at the ready. The protesters stopped, blocking the street from their end, chanting their grievances. The noise was getting louder and louder. Random cries interspersed the chants now. Butterflies filled Taliah’s stomach and her chest felt tight.

It was now or never.

On que, the Revolutionaries filed out into the void between the protesters and the police. In the middle, carts and wheelbarrows covered with cloths. On either side, men and women dressed in black, wearing caps and bandanas tied over the lower half of their faces.

The chanting stuttered and died out. The police tightened ranks and shifted nervously. All eyes were on the Revolutionaries. The sheets came off the carts. Inside were hundreds upon hundreds of flower bouquets that Taliah had spent days assembling for this occation.

Diva reach over and grasped her hand tight.

The black clad band in the middle grabbed a bouquet each and turned to face out, towards the protesters. As one, they leaned back took a stride and launched the bouquets one after the other into the air, sending a cascade of flowers down on the now-silent protesters.

A peaceful demonstration, for hope. For Peace.

Inspired by Banksy and the Flower Thrower. And of course, his Rats.

Confused as to why there is a fictional story about the art of Banksy in an Art community? Thank Vocal for their very creative Challenge, Painted Prose. I touch on the themes Banksy is so passionate about: Anti war (the Flower Thrower), a dislike for commercialism, the importance of supporting the 'little people' (his Rats), banding together and making a (peaceful) statement. And I could have done this through a realistic discussion of his work.

But that just isn't my style.

My hope is that this story helps to elicit the emotions in my audience that Banksy aimed to evoke with his Flower Thrower.

Banksy is represented as the mysterious orchestrator of the Revolutionaries in this tale. Did you know that despite making a very decent income from the sale of his art and prints, which appears to profiteer from the commercialism he robustly criticises, a portion of his earnings go to privately funding a vessel that rescues refugees from the Mediterranean Ocean?