'Over Activist' by George Terry
Posted by sregan | Filed under prose
The first and most fundamental tenet of anarcho-socialism is the rejection and eventual overthrow of corporate control over the proletariat, a view to which Marcus ascribed with unwavering loyalty. That said, it was early, and Marcus hadn't had the time to make himself a coffee before he left for work. Without a coffee to bring him out of his post-slumber stupor his mind felt clouded, almost grubby.
Not at all the peak of clarity he needed to conduct his scheduled interview with the head of a housing development programme that encroached on a local woodland. He needed this. It was his first article for the Activist Network's local magazine, a job that he hoped would realise his journalistic aspirations and perhaps one day grant him a potential career exposing the wrongs of the world as he saw it.
There was nothing for it. Despite every fibre of his being telling him he was betraying not only his own moral code, but that of his comrades down at the Activist Network headquarters, he would have to circumvent his qualms. He would have to enter the hangout of the weak and the misguided: Starbucks.
He peered in through the front windows, watching them toying with their BlackBerrys, pulling back their suits to remove their iPhones from chest holsters. Something in the pit of his stomach turned sour, churning over and over. Even so, his repulsion was calmed as the doors swung open and the thick aroma of roasted coffee beans met him in the street outside.
"Next!" the girl at the counter called out as he approached. His usual forceful stride had been broken and now he slinked up to the counter - feeling sickened as much by his own compliance as by his surroundings.
"Coffee, please."
"Coming right up!" It was an automated response. Whilst the counter girl whirled around behind the scenes making his coffee, he stared at the empty suits. And then, amongst them all, there she was. The woman he'd watched speaking at the last Activist Network meeting in town. She was on just before he'd delivered a short piece on the perils of corporate monopolisation. And yet, here he was, at the counter in Starbuck's. Would she appreciate the irony?
He doubted it.
This act of hypocrisy could jeopardise his rising through the ranks of the Activist Network. He'd become a laughing stock! If only the counter-girl would return with his coffee, he could escape with his reputation intact.
"One pound ten please."
"Thank God," he thought, dropping a handful of change onto the counter and turning to leave - before walking almost full tilt into the girl from the Activist Network.
"Hello."
"Oh, hello." His mind raced - what could be done? "Have - have we met?" It was pitiful, but completely necessary. "I'm sure plenty of politically significant figures in society have had their low points," he thought. This could be one of his. The first of many to be struck out of the memoirs he would write after his high-flying career as a journalist, or a political correspondent.
"Yeah, we've met, I spoke before you last week at the activist meet."
"Really?"
"Yeah, you were talking about..." She drifted off as her eyes met with the steaming coffee in his hand.
"Shit," he thought. He saw his career flash before his eyes. He saw political columns he would write for The Guardian being erased, appearances on Talk Time that would never come to pass.
"No. It doesn't end here," he thought. "It doesn't end in Starbucks with this deadly stranger ruining everything for me." He turned to the till where the counter girl stood, still smiling, always smiling.
"You know what I think of your filthy, exploitative coffee? This is what I think!" He took a mouthful of the scalding hot coffee, held it in his mouth just long enough for his now burnt tongue to relish the perfectly roasted beans, and spat it all over the counter before emptying the rest of it over the floor at his feet.
"Wow, you're really serious about all that corporate stuff, hey?" she said, shortly after he'd been escorted outside.
"I'm just doing what I can, where I can."
"Yeah, yeah that's so cool." She was clearly impressed. "Anyway, I've got to head off. I'll see you around."
"That went well," he thought, but despite the minor success he still needed that coffee. "I'll just go to Costa. It's only down the road."
- George Terry
