The Brighter Tomorrow

In the weeks that preceded the most important speech of my career, the last call for change I would utter, I, Jeremiah Williamson, had worked tirelessly to gain traction in the polls and to appeal to the disenfranchised and mismanaged and maligned.

I sat on a plastic chair in an ad-hoc backstage area of a local town hall that normally played host to local theatre productions and classical music concerts, along with the odd panto and children's play. Damien Rice, the famed Irish singer-songwriter, once sold out the auditorium with his beautiful and gut-wrenching ballads.

It wasn't a spectacular venue but, as I had repeatedly told many members of my team and of the general public, there was a static charge in the atmosphere and the winds of change were blowing. It was up to them to rally behind me as I would lead this town to a better tomorrow.

I looked over the notes I had made for my speech, clutching at the edges of the sharp card as it caught the delicate skin of my fingers.

I wasn't so much nervous as adrenalised.

"Okay, Jeremiah. Last call for you to take to the stage."

I looked up over the thick, jet-black rims of my glasses at my assistant, Maureen. She always brightened any room she was in, as I had told her many times during our close working relationship that had become so much more. Tonight, she was breathtaking, and her soft hands found mine and meshed with them. This silent act of loyalty and devotion assured me of her support and belief in my cause.

From graduate campaign manager to fiancée and future second-in-command, she had come a long way. Though I had noticed something in her behind her dazzling green eyes when I first gazed into them.

Her long blonde hair and almost ditzy nature were disarming. Many had fallen prey to thinking she was just a young woman looking to open her legs to get ahead in local politics.

I knew different. Even from that first meeting. I had sworn I never believed my beloved, late mother when she was certain everyone had a soulmate. And in truth, I still didn't, but Maureen was damn close.

Our hands locked together, I stood and kissed her softly. My lips pressed firmly against hers as I drank some of her in, for luck or Dutch courage? Her eyes closed regardless of the reason for the kiss, and she drifted there in the small backstage area before I released her mouth and hands and turned to walk to the curtain stage left.

"I love you, Jeremiah Williamson. Go change this awful world," she whispered, still light on her feet from the kiss.

I stopped, looked over my shoulder, grinned, and winked.

"Yes, ma'am."

As I stepped out onto the stage, applause erupted throughout the auditorium as approximately 400 people in attendance shared their appreciation and respect for the one they were willing to put all their trust in, just like Maureen.

"Thank you, my friends. My contemporaries. I can't quite express in words what I feel when I look out at the sea of people gathered here tonight. It makes me emotional. Since I started my campaign just 12 months ago, I have been constantly surprised and impressed with how people have reacted and voiced their own pleas for change. This country has been sick for a long time. Broken. Like the world. And it would be easy for any of you to just sit at home with a fish supper and shrug your shoulders and let others make decisions for your country. Let others make decisions about what is right and wrong for you.

Ever since I was a little boy, I hoped and believed, like all children, that the world I was born into was not completely bad. There must be some people out there who I could trust, who we could trust.

What I learned repeatedly, my friends, my faithful, is that there was just the hopeful dream of a child who didn't know any better. I have seen throughout my life that power, money, greed and complacency have led us to where we are now.

I have said from the beginning that I believe we can make the changes we want to see a reality and we don't have to wait a lifetime or two to do it.

I've spoken a lot about the tough and unpleasant truths others before me... before us have tried to hide. And this campaign has been as much a final call for 'no more' to those lies as it has been for me to lead us into a brighter future.

Many of my naysayers and critics called my values, my manifesto, 'infantile' or the words of a 'dreamer with a community college diploma'.

Where are they just now?"

Murmurs erupted from the crowd; some laughed sarcastically.

"I'll tell you where.

Sitting on their fat arses while their mistress sucks them off and they eat the blood of the innocent.

So to that I say no more.

Before I outline what happens next, I want to tell you a story. About my dear, long-since-passed mother."

I stopped and looked up to the heavens, making the sign of the cross against my unbuttoned blue suit jacket.

"God rest her soul.

She worked her fingers to the bone. So that others could benefit.

When they started coming here, she held open her arms to welcome them, and what did they do?

They took all she offered and more.

That warm and beautiful woman was reduced to a dried husk of a human by the time they had taken advantage of her kindness, taking every last drop of the milk of human kindness from between her legs.

They fucked her dry.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends and contemporaries. You may not like my chosen words, but the time has come to be realistic. To face the ugly in the face and tell it no more."

The doors in the auditorium locked as some patrons started to whisper.

"Don't worry, my friends. All in good time. The doors are a safety precaution for you all. There are many people who hoped I wouldn't make this speech. Many offered me money and positions of influence in the very seats of power I stand against to prevent it from happening. They threatened my beautiful and brilliant assistant, Maureen, who will soon be my wife as we welcome our offspring into the new world we wish for all of you to inhabit.

Right now, as we remain calmly locked away within this building, change is coming ahead of the election.

Border patrol is being implemented across the country, not just at the docks of this beautiful city. Parliament is being forcibly shut down. Not with bombs as Guy Fawkes tried. But with ordinary people like you and me, saying 'no more'. Immigrants are being shipped off home.

Change is coming, my friends. Change is here.

I can see many of you looking a little nervous, maybe frightened. Perhaps you want to leave.

Soon the doors will unlock and you will be allowed to leave.

But at what cost?

That remains to be seen.

Maureen and her team have assured me that we have the details of everyone in the building.

It's a necessary measure, my friends.

For that brighter tomorrow."

A kerfuffle broke the silence throughout the hall as a young woman tried to open the door, only to be restrained and brought to the stage by two armed men.

Whispers and gasps led to tears and screams as her frightened image filled the screen behind my unchanged smiling face.

Maureen walked out and joined me.

"Now, now. Don't be hasty. I did say you'd all have an opportunity to leave if you wanted. In good time. Sarah-Jane obviously saw her needs as more important than yours."

"It's worse, my dear," Maureen chimed in.

"My team discovered a recording device in her bra, and we have been monitoring her throughout your speech. She's been feeding the information back to Parliament. The police, it seems, have been involved under the Terrorism Act."

Maureen directed the men to bring Sarah-Jane onto the stage.

She walked towards her and stroked her face.

"Such a pretty thing. Shame, shame, shame."

"I know, dear. But I think the people here and those beyond this threshold need to understand what is actually going to happen."

One of the men passed a knife to Maureen, who licked and stroked the blade, then opened Sarah-Jane's top to reveal the wires carefully hidden on the cups of her bra.

"Shame, shame, shame."

Then the lights faded to black, and when they came back on, all the guards had guns trained on the audience and Sarah-Jane had a knife plunged into her chest.

Screams and unrest erupted as I hushed them all with a quiet and calm threat.

"Whether you want to be here or not is immaterial now. Unless you want to be the second or third blood of our revolution.

"The police are about to contact us, expecting to make some kind of negotiation. But the truth is, there will be no further negotiating."

Maureen walked towards me and hugged me tightly, almost obscenely, before we walked backstage.

The crowd stood in silence as they watched the motionless gunmen.

Backstage, I held Maureen close.

"This is it, babe. What we've been working towards. The new era."

I lifted her a little off the ground and planted a more sensual, teasing kiss on her lips as I growled and she murmured before I put her down and took the knife from her hand.

"Now be a good girl and choose a sacrifice."

Maureen nodded and walked on stage to the sound of "Everyone's A Winner" by Hot Chocolate.