30881 - The black flags

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

They all thought they knew what barbarity meant until they saw the first black flags in the city. Of course they had seen them on their television but they weren’t paying the necessary attention. They all thought that these facts occur far away and they weren’t, in essence of any relevance to their life. They were right…They were relevant to their death. In the beginning they had the impression that it about a dream or a bad joke. But the dream died with the first car that came with a waving black flag. It wasn’t a joke…The barbarians had arrived in our city, there where they lived long ago and free. From that moment on everything changed. The black flags where no longer the exception. More and more were being pinned on the roofs and moved around in the streets. As if this wasn’t enough, all of those who in the past disparaged them were packing their things and were leaving the city, abandoning everything. There wasn’t a trace of resistance. And all which they were saying before had disappeared. It’s as if time had stopped, as if the past had been erased. In the street there were only people that were leaving. No one believed that they could resist the terrorists. Everybody wanted to save their skin and nothing else. The only thing that stopped them in the streets was an execution. They could hear the screams of people which were asking for mercy and then the axe of the executioner who executed the barbaric punishment. The city was dying in front of their helpless eyes.