A Minor Speed Bump
The trip had almost become a routine. We would drive, pass through a checkpoint be it violent or otherwise, then we would camp in the nearest town by nightfall. And through this travel, I had become almost a part of this team. Somehow they drug almost the human nature back out of me.
However, like everything in my life; things never went as planned. I waited, crouched down with my weapon in front of me as we approached the final checkpoint. Things seemed to flow as smoothly as they had been previously.
The officer walked up to the driver and engaged conversation. But this time it was different. There was hostility in his tone. He knew we were coming.
"What do we have here?" he smirked, "prisoners you say? ALRIGHT BOYS ROUND 'EM UP!"
Suddenly the back doors flung open and guns were already aimed on us. Damn. Well I can't say this wasn't surprising. This was FEMA, they had control of this country, they weren't entirely incompetent. Within seconds, we were drug out of our vehicle and relieved of our weapons.
With a pistol held to my head, I was drug down and wrestled into submission. My hands were bound behind me. I was a prisoner again. Enslaved by the world I lived in. The officer looked fiercely unto us with a vile look as if to cast us into hell. Is it even impossible for a human to have that much hate in one stare?
One guard came up to me, I could tell his intentions before he performed them. His mouth gave off a light smirk as he thrust his foot into my face. My ears rang and my face was jarred into the ground behind me, however; I hardly felt the pain. I could feel the warm trickle of blood from the corner of my lip.
This fucking little bitch, hitting me? Hell no. I've been through too much shit to take an insignificant coward attempting to put me in my place. He sensed my anger and his faced gleamed with putrid enjoyment; just like Jennings used to do. When I get out of here….
My neck was grasped from behind. The hand clamped upon my skin like a cobra. With a sudden swipe, my mask and helmet were ripped from my face. The scared and beaten remains of my face were revealed to the officers. Their expressions became grimaces. Their eyes were filled with disgust.
So here I am. Stuck in a FEMA checkpoint stripped of my weapon and my identity. I could see the buildings just beyond the bundles of barbed wire and blocks of cement. They barely peaked into my view but there I knew lie the city I had worked so hard to reach. I would not be stopped so close. I would not be denied.
Maybe that same God, who laughed at my pain and brought me more pain than one man should ever bare, gave me something I had never received from anyone; maybe he answered my prayer. I heard a sudden commotion at the front gate.
I turned to see FEMA officials running into a wall of smoke. Yells and chants roared like a raging sea. What the fuck was happening? The smoke retreated from the scene before my eyes and what I saw shocked me to my very core.
Just outside the checkpoint was a crowd of people far out-matching the ten officers. Their faces were strong with defiance. In their hands were rocks, sticks, crude Molotov cocktails, and pistols. They were outmatched in weapons but not so in number and power.
Their riot soon over powered the officers and within an hour, we were freed. I retrieved my weapon and returned my face to its shame of my mask. I saw the faces of men and women whom had managed to remain uncaptured and unbroken, showing they weren't afraid. They risked their lives and freedoms for what they believed in. These were the real Americans. For the first time since my capture, I thanked God.
The shear violence and murder I had just witnessed brought me into my zone. My veins pumped with adrenaline and my heart ached for what I had endured over a month to achieve. A new feeling had entered my mind, had it been there all along? I felt hopeful.