street roots
14
Feb. 14. 2014
Athens 2021 A.D.
BY WILLIAM HOLMES IV
n stark contrast to the ancient city
th at once flourished with ideas and.
commerce, today there is only the
exchange of small arms fire and
artillery shells within the city center,
as the soldiers check their weapons.
Reloading clips, stocking grenades,
adjusting helmets and armor becomes
ambient noise; a sort of requiem for
the tight chests, clenched teeth and
apprehension. In the basement of an
unkempt house of old bricks, a single
bulb above a large dinner table sheds
light on a map and a meager squad of
eight, including myself. The moldy
space has offered us sanctuary from
the relentless shelling and was at first
cramped when we were a healthy ;
squad of 15 a fortnight ago.
The barrage continues bu|. unlike
the others, this one is close, very
close. The floor jolts, the table rattles
and items fall off as the light swings
from the cord. The men glance at their
wrists incessantly because it’s nearly
time to leave. Those who aren’t
standing do so and with the crack and
clank of old Russian-made rifles,
rounds are sent to their chambers.
Like the attire, the radios are dark.
One final check. “It’s time,’’ we’re told.
It’s midnight.
Downtown isonly strategically
important, an area where everyone is
working security and the people are
filthy from fighting in the humidity.
The shells continue to fall around them
as they climb the stairs and evacuate
the house. Outside many of the
buildings have toppled and sloshed in
the streets as we dart into an alley and
make our move toward the objective.
An anthropomorphic symphony of our
boots on the cobble stone, the cadence
of our breath and the dull thud of
explosions accompany us as we run
past doorways and debris along a
sewage canal infested with rats.
A dozen or so green flares are
2
Celebrating vendors
around the world
The second annual International
Vendor Week, hosted by the
International Network of
Newspapers, took place Feb.
3:9. A variety of the 122 street |
papers across the globe
participated in events that
ranged from social media to
celebrity “sell offs” to bring
awareness to the hard work that
the world’s 14,000 street paper
vendors put in every single day.
Street Roots vendors used
Skype to connect with their
counterparts at Megaphone in
Vancouver, BC, with coffee,
donuts and a trivia game about
the global street paper
movement and traded sales tips.
Look back at the IVW activity at
stQrify.com/INSP/international-
street-paper-vendor-week-2014
suddenly shot up throughout the area
exposing us as a vulnerable squad and
part of a force attempting to occupy
another Mediterranean stronghold.
The iridescent light shimmers,
illuminating the course of the alley as
it becomes narrower. We slow down,
this is a bottleneck, and the man on
point signals us to halt as he proceeds
cautiously with eyes scanning. He
takes a step forward; there is a sharp
click. We all hear i t A heartbeat later,
the device ignites. A whirlwind of fire
engulfs him, and thereis a wall of
flames blocking the path as though
looking in a furnace with his form
crumbling inside. Seven. We are
horrified by the spectacle and stuftned
by the intense heat.
This ambush was well thought out.
Rifles open up behind us with shouts
in a foreign language filling the breaks
in between. A heavy caliber bullet goes
through the helmet of them an next to
me as the rest of our six hearts beat
frantically with adrenaline and fear.
Through the chaos of trying to find a <
target in order to return fire, our
stomachs twist to knots when we hear
what sounds like bricks being dropped
from the rooftops, but we know they
are grenades. The shadows blink out of
existence and the earth churns and.
turns over on itself disintegrating back
to nothing with each burst. The senses
grapple with reality, trying to tear away
from a cubist’s perspective. “Cover!
Fall back!” commands are echoed.
I wake up with an unsuppressed
scream. The veins in my neck are
constricted and f feel my pulse trying
to escape through my temples. I look
to my side and see an empty bottle of
liquor staring back at me, and that’s
when I remember she left. She left
months ago, months after I returned. I
was going to apologize for waking her
up, again.
Cast
by Eric Bradley
I sit broken, burned and sore
feeling helpless and ashamed, suffered ache into my core.
I, the only one who’s blamed, wonder what the morrow has in store,
hoping the weather to be tamed.
Don’t know how I hurt so bad |3
Can’t be freed from yesterday
I try to block what makes me sad,
with nothing fair to say
I know in life, I have been had, ;
endless suffer I must, pay. =
Wishing I’d always had a chance,
tobe alive without a stain. .
To learn a mystic dance,
and never feel the pain.
To put me in a trance, •~
and nearly go insane.
So I sit here and I write,
about the sorrow in my past,
never able to stand and fight,
because my strength has left me fast.
So I reach towards the light,
Distant and in last
To be forever in a Cast.
Take Heed
by Daniel Byerly
A certain farmer went to sow his seed
And as he went some fell along the way.
It then got trampled down and became feed
For birds devoured it up that very day.
Some seed then fell on rock where there it grew,
Tt withered quickly from lack of rain.
Some fell in thorns and grew though it died too, <
It soon was choked to death and brought no grain.
"Bui then scuSe’rsee3T3TS^) good rich ground, ‘
It grew and brought a crop a hundredfold.
If one will listen, life will here be found,
This mystery revealed from times of old.
Take heed the Way you hear along life’s way
For very unexpected comes that day.