A/N: I have a tendency to ramble, even within such short chapters such as this - please, please, leave feedback!
The 20th of May was an unusually cold day. Late spring, especially in recent times, was warm, if not hot; a prelude to summer. In some years, it rained; but even then, the air remained warm, or at the very least noticeably warmer than in the winter, albeit moist, in contrast to the terrible dryness of the summer.
Yet it was cold, terribly cold, the coldness of December and January, the sky overcast, although, oddly enough, there was no rain, nor snow, nor any form of precipitation in general to speak of. The inhabitants of the city, walking frantically about on the streets, running in and out of buses, standing alone waiting - in general, going about with their usual activities with the same frenetic energy as always - simply donned their jackets, although some, those species which were comfortable in this transplanted winter of sorts, chose not to - perhaps it would be, unusually enough, or maybe not, too warm for them.
Did this concern anyone? No. Those of the city were too busy, too hurried, to care about the weather; their concern was only on their work, the shopping, the bills, all those hallmarks of modern life. What time did they have to worry about things other than this; for that matter, what reason did they have to do so? None at all.
This was not an error; the weather itself would not have any impact on them or their city, at least not directly. Even indirectly would be doubtful, unless one chooses to believe those ramblings of the deluded regarding the effect of cold weather on rodents. Their work, and the various other important tasks ahead of them, were without a doubt of greater consequence than it.
But there was something important that, in their focus on these things, that they missed. It is something difficult to explain; difficult to described; and yet now everyone knows it, everyone has felt it, or at least claims to have felt it.
It can be put only simply, vaguely, in an almost superstitious way.
There was disturbed in the air that day, although few cared to acknowledge it then. Now, of course, they do, but then? No. What caused it, no one knows; but there was something foreboding. Perhaps it was an effect of the weather; perhaps it was a premonition of what was to come.
Of course, what was to come? No one knew then; no one cared then. Everyone knows now, of course; and yet, it still seems shocking, almost absurd to say, to write.
There was a revolution in, of all places, Little Rodentia.
To fully understand why, one must look at the conditions which existed in the district before the revolution.
The ZPD's concern was solely with intimidation - looking big, and scaring people with said size and stature. It could not be bothered to employ anyone competent to patrol the district of Little Rodentia, which thus led to the total non-existence of the rule of law. That is not to say that there was not order - various gangs, in the absence of a police force, ruled the area, collectively. They had their own council, which, to keep up appearances, organized regular sham elections to itself; they had a system of "taxation," which ensured that they held a monopoly on business, and they had a "police force" of their own, whose work was primarily to terrorize the citizens of the district as to extort ever more from them.
These gangs did initially fight with each other, to put it crudely, but not for very long. Without fear of any form of reprisal from any state authority, they found it more efficient simply to divide territory and sectors of business among each other, and then to co-exist, for the most part, peacefully.
So thus did the rodents of Little Rodentia live. Everything was terribly expensive; wages were low; living conditions were squalid; and one always lived in fear of re-location as a result of some illicit construction project, torture for the most ridiculous of reasons, or, in many cases, death, sometimes completely arbitrary.
No one cared; who would care about rodents? They were little, out of the way. No one ever saw them; and regardless, everyone had their own issues.
Regardless these conditions were not, nor would ever be, tenable, as is exceedingly obvious. So, for years upon years, knowing that they were on their own, the citizens of Little Rodentia planned and planned, devising ways upon ways to get rid of gang rule. But they never had the bravery to attempt them.
It was a sudden radicalization that had pushed them over. With the blazing confidence that youth generally possessed, the year beforehand, after the end of their education, a number of fresh university graduates, who had, just four, or in some cases six, years ago been so glad to have been able to escape the hell that was Little Rodentia, returned, with the intention of revolution. They all were leftists of varying kinds, socialists, communists, a few, but not many, social democrats, and had been before university; their life there had simply intensified their confidence that they would be the ones to liberate their beloved district.
That was the beginning that would lead to the 20th of May and what would follow.
Secretly, they sought to bring others into their worldview. Being trusted members of the community, and in many cases good or at least emphatic speakers, and the situation being in general hopeless, many turned to their cause. What else could they do? Suffer? Even if what was proposed was not the best, it would at the very least be better than what they had now.
Confidence grew, and slowly, the residents of Little Rodentia became ever more bold.
And so, on that terribly cold day in May, as Zootopia, too worried and embedded in the hurriedness of modern life, looked elsewhere, carrying red flags and illicitly obtained weapons, the Autonomous Commune of Little Rodentia was proclaimed, on the principles of economic equality and democracy. Gang members sought to retake power; faced with such now passionate resistance, now without inhibition at least partially because of the returned, as they would come to be known, they failed, perhaps for the better, perhaps for the worse.
Very few, at least initially, cared. The general apathy that the denizens of Zootopia went about their days in held; on top of that, with the continued political crisis as a result of the Bellwether "scandal", those few who cared had themselves other things to pay attention to.
The cold perhaps had an effect on this. Coldness causes people to withdraw into themselves. Encased by a jacket, trying to get oneself away from the outside, is it really possible to pay attention to others, or, heaven forbid, to form new connections? No, not really.
Only in the evening would anyone at all notice, and even then, it was seemingly only as an afterthought. Bellwether was finally, after so long, on trial; that was the focus of the networks and of all the newspapers. When the events that had occurred in Little Rodentia were mentioned, they were described only as a "reshuffle in government" in a single sentence, an understatement that would eventually come to haunt the city.
This piqued, at best, mild interest, the sort of interest one would have at looking at something mildly gaudy on the street, the type that one has when one exclaims "Oh!" before quickly moving on to more important things.
Such was the effect that what was probably one of the most drastic events in modern Zootopian history had, at least initially. The 20th of May, for the time being, would be seen as a day like any other, distinguished only as a result of weather, and even then, what was weather apart from something that one boredly discussed when one had nothing else to discuss?
Things would change, however, change very soon.
