just us

you didn't do anything when your neighbors attended the protests, and you had deadlines to meet. you didn't do anything — nothing wrong, nothing right — nothing at all. you stayed home, and you wrote the story in full. you didn't pause or take a break to answer the susurrous streets; the march route passed your south-facing study. you peeked toward the distorted chanting through your closed and locked window. you watched a few others from your building pour onto hard concrete and fall into line. but you returned diligently to work. "a story doesn't write itself," you told yourself. "you know that." but work didn't come as easily as it had before. you know, before you heard the fading cries of your would-be comrades. no, your mind wandered steadily, led by the last words you could make out:

"i can't breathe."

they repeated this as they passed, rhythmically chanting the final cries of george floyd, eric garner, edward bronstein, and so many others. they were all you could see in your mind — those words — even after the people were far enough along that traffic could carry on. even when all you could hear was the roar of engines and annoyed honks of commuters now running late, your mind still lingered on these words.

you were trying to remember a time when you couldn't breathe. you could think of a handful, but only one was an instance that you didn't have control over.

your experience in pools led you to several scenarios where you were short of breath, pushing yourself to your limits underwater, but your mind drifted further back than that.

it was a summer like most others, spent alchemizing fun from near-poverty conditions: found pallets and cardboard boxes restructured into a fort, pvc barrels pierced and secured with sturdy rope for hanging and swinging from, skateboarding ramps made from the remaining pallets and sheet metal stolen from the fairgrounds down the street. your father gifted you a skateboard from the local goodwill. your brother got a basketball hoop from your neighbors, whose only son was leaving for college. he wanted you both to get into new hobbies, but he didn't realize your brother would want the skateboard as much as you did, too.

a fight erupted. you remember it well. your brother tried to take the skateboard from your hands, so you hit him with the board, knocking him to the ground, and ran to the fort as fast as you could. you hid in a cardboard box that had not been broken down yet. you hugged your skateboard close to your chest and waited for signs that the coast was clear. you waited for what felt like several minutes, and heard nothing, but just when you were about to poke your head out for a little peek, the flaps of the box started closing, and you heard the sound of packing tape being pulled and placed down.

your brother had left you alone just long enough to get supplies to lock you in your sanctuary. that wasn't the end, though. if that had been the end, perhaps you wouldn't remember this event that clearly, but you do because of what he did next.

your brother sat on the box, which crumpled under his fourteen-year-old weight, bringing the brunt of it down onto your ten-year-old body.

you lay there, pinned, for only moments before feeling the growing panic of mounting weight on your chest. your brother started to adjust himself, standing slightly before slamming back down on top of you. you called out with what little air you had left,

"get up, i can't breathe."

but your brother didn't move.

the next parts are fuzzy for you. you don't know why your brother got up. maybe he got up because you started to pass out and stopped fighting him. maybe he only got up because your father had come outside at that moment to check on you two. either way, you remember opening your eyes as your father pulled you up from the ground and carried you inside.

an accident. child's play. your great comparison to people being crushed and killed under the weight of grown men. you don't actually understand. you can't fathom. even when you try to empathize, you can't bring it into perspective.

an especially loud, intrusive car horn brings you back to the study and the computer in front of you. at the end of it all,

you maintain:

what can you do about any of this except write?

author's note:

this story is inspired by an author i heard speak back in 2020. she discussed having deadlines that prevented her from being in the streets with her family during the uprisings of that time. i related to the sentiment, but imagined the implications of sharing and engaging with that stance as a white person. we each have a role in decolonization and revolution, and i am often considering the ways in which positionality and social power shift those roles and responsibilities. write, yes, and...