They linked arms as they advanced towards the police lines.
Ambrose felt the adrenaline making his heart thump and his eyes widen. He drew his elbows in, drawing closer to those on either side of him.
‘It’s not so bad for you,’ he said to Kayda Matsushita on his right, ‘you’re a fictional character – you don’t have so much to lose.’
‘Dude,’ she replied coolly, ‘you’re only semi-non-fictional yourself. I’m not entirely sure you’ve been to Dakota at all.’
But Ambrose knew why he was here, arm-in-arm on the slopes of Puketepapa tanga a Hape: because he had been to Dakota and he had failed to do anything there but be scared. Failed though he had seen God Himself there. He had, in his own estimation at least, failed to ‘stand with Standing Rock’. Here he would stand to the end with the indigenous opponents of unfettered greed and consumption and destruction.
It was difficult to walk like this on such rough ground. The grass was long, and random volcanic rocks made maintaining the line a challenge.
To his left, Dr Cooper looked an unlikely radical, arm-in-arm on the other side with his ‘spouse equivalent’, but not as implausible as various Japanese monks and a lone Ethiopian who, though he might know more about revolution and violence than the rest of them, looked impossibly tall and thin amongst the mostly Maori crowd that moved as steadily as possible towards the police.
‘Pigs in the dark,’ Ambrose thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.
The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Ambrose, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.
Ambrose felt the adrenaline making his heart thump and his eyes widen. He drew his elbows in, drawing closer to those on either side of him.
‘It’s not so bad for you,’ he said to Kayda Matsushita on his right, ‘you’re a fictional character – you don’t have so much to lose.’
‘Dude,’ she replied coolly, ‘you’re only semi-non-fictional yourself. I’m not entirely sure you’ve been to Dakota at all.’
But Ambrose knew why he was here, arm-in-arm on the slopes of Puketepapa tanga a Hape: because he had been to Dakota and he had failed to do anything there but be scared. Failed though he had seen God Himself there. He had, in his own estimation at least, failed to ‘stand with Standing Rock’. Here he would stand to the end with the indigenous opponents of unfettered greed and consumption and destruction.
It was difficult to walk like this on such rough ground. The grass was long, and random volcanic rocks made maintaining the line a challenge.
To his left, Dr Cooper looked an unlikely radical, arm-in-arm on the other side with his ‘spouse equivalent’, but not as implausible as various Japanese monks and a lone Ethiopian who, though he might know more about revolution and violence than the rest of them, looked impossibly tall and thin amongst the mostly Maori crowd that moved as steadily as possible towards the police.
‘Pigs in the dark,’ Ambrose thought. The last dim light of the day just defined the silhouette of Otuataua Maunga to the west but the harsh white flood lights of the police position illuminated the advancing crowd starkly.
The lights, the line of them linking arms – we must look, thought Ambrose, to the police like actors taking a last bow before the final curtain falls.
Barnaby McBryde
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