PROTEST

A woman dances through the street.

She is naked.

She moves with the grace of a butterfly.

On her body she has painted the word Justice.

All around her is chaos: shouting, rubber bullets flying, tear gas canisters filling the air with noxious smoke, the sound of cracking bones and wails of pain. It is an urban war zone.

Still...she dances.

Each step is deliberate, yet fluid.

A circle of protection seems to move with her.

Bullets whizz past but don’t hit her.

She is not oblivious to the chaos. She is a soloist. The chaos is her accompaniment. It propels her.

Glass tinkles to the ground with a sound reminiscent of a wind chime on the breeze, absurd in its juxtaposition.

The violence reaches fever pitch. Soldiers on both sides are rabid in their conviction.

She stops. She turns. She walks into the eye of the storm.

She stands, defenceless.

She makes eye contact with one, then another, then another. Daring them to hold hers longer than is comfortable. Enlisting their humanity. Emboldened by conviction of her own.

She turns in a slow-motion circle like a ballerina in a music box, granting equal vision to anyone willing to look. She wonders which parts of her they see. That is not for her to determine.

The shouting and the shooting cease, and for a time there is the sound of peace.

She raises her right fist into the air.

She does not speak. But she will not be silenced.