chapter 4: the south

The sunset behind the brick-covered roofs let us forget for some minutes the lost freedom. The curfew imposed 48 hours ago seemed to be the newest highlight the so-called Northern Alpine Interim Government had established to defend the well-situated areas from possible rioters and looters out of the poorer neighborhood. Crap. As if they couldn't defend themselves. After the collapse of the Euro and the revolutionary takeovers in France, Poland and The Benelux the upperclass technocrats bristled themselves with weapons which are now in the hands of dollar-paid militias to shoot immediately at everyone who looks like a stranger. The dollar is now the only currency to pay all your needs with: bread, water, the candles we're lightning at that moment .. but how you're gonna get some dollars when all the banks are shut down? How you're gonna get some food for your starving children or the urgently needed medics for your grandmother whose state of health is going downwards from day to day? How you're gonna survive when the officials you would have never in your life voted for declared you as criminal elements forcing counterrevolutionary ideas? In those moments I regret not having fled in the northeastern parts of my country where now the Post-Capitalistic Liberation Council took over. Those guys had a fresher experience with people's uprising, their parents fought unarmed, only with the power of their voices and their physical presence .. the old lady in the apartment upstairs moans again, like every evening when the pain she's suffering is anew becoming unbearable. My girlfriend stands up and walks to the door to have a look at her, fortunately she's got the keys and some analgesic in her pockets. Through the curtains I can see some armed police officers under the weak shiny lights of the street lantern. Power cuts belong nowadays to normality in problem districts like our's - gosh, I even used that unworthy term this regime labeled our quarter! The officers are checking every corner and every balcony with their flashlights, it's better for me to step back from the window, they don't need a reason to come along here, you never know if they are policemen with a codex or simple thugs in uniform. Two days ago a friend of mine had a tragic rendezvous with a handful of mercenaries, the last thing I've seen before I ran like hell for my life was his bloodshed jeans while he laid down on the street quivering. I fear that was the last time I've seen him alive .. I'd never expected in my darkest dreams that it had come so far. The old governments bearing the responsibility for the piling of such enormous debts disappeared from one day to the other, nobody exactly knows where they're hiding now, possibly somewhere outside the former Union, together with those financial experts who've driven us into the ruin we're facing now. Instead of chasing them the new rulers are chasing now us, the people who are definitely not to blame for the financial crash. I remember well laughing out loud when my former colleague, a passionate analyst, raised his concerns over the disturbing progression on the markets and stock exchanges according to all the downgrades which concerned in the meantime the apparently more prosperous nations like mine. And now? Certainly he's sitting somewhere in the suburbs of London or elsewhere in the United Kingdom having dinner together with other refugees who'd left early enough the sinking ship. But now it's too late. The British Prime Minister has closed the borders, and the EuroStar's no longer shuttling. Denmark has sent army brigades to prevent the Scandinavian countries against a possible tide of economic fugitives. Hah! As if we would be some kind of economic fugitives! We're hunted for all but economic reasons, we're hunted for being criminals, we're hunted for being terrorists, we're displaying a threat for the new totalitarian leaders who fear nothing more than dissidents and truth lovers like us. In this brave new world they're building up now is no place anymore for the freedom of speech or the freedom of expression. Sounds hard but they have to get rid of us if we won't cooperate and agree to the emergency acts they declared due to the security of all the people in Northern Alpine Coalition. All the people except us. All the people except the poor, the sick, the older ones .. Shots are to be heard, I cannot say from where exactly, but it might be up in the north, they're chasing suspects, no, sorry, that is official language, disgusting, they're demonstrating their power by intimidating starving civilians. I do not have the heart to take a look through the window, a searchlight could spot me and then I'm tracked and definitely lost, I know that, because I do not live here regularly, it's my girlfriend's place. She comes back from the old lady, I look at her, demanding, she nods with a sad expression on her face, we need no words to know what's going on with the other. Torn between hope and resignation I take her in my arms. We're holding each other for a long time, it feels quite like eternity, and I deeply wish the times back when we were strolling through the park under the clear sky at night or lying on the meadow counting the stars. Past. Only memories left. The only chance is to leave this place, immediately, but how? We have no car, even if we would have one, the fuel prices are so increasingly high, and we need dollars instead we don't have. The few busses and trains are permanently controlled by armed forces and I don't want to spend the rest of my life in one of the prisons here. How I loved this city before all went down, nobody can imagine that. But the signs of change were to be seen for everybody equipped with a rational mind. The worst decision Brussels ever made was to hold on tight to the currency and to constrain Spain and Greece to the redistribution of loss. It was no miracle that both administrations decided after a referendum the new democratic movement forced organizing huge demonstrations and nationwide strikes to leave the Eurozone and to return to an inflation-adjusted currency. The pessimists in Paris and Berlin were scoffing that it takes not even a year the renegades would return remorseful begging for a resumption. Far from it! While both nations began to blossom into a new cultural and economic attraction and the investors stood in a long line the Euro crashed first slowly, then, after the exit of Portugal, Ireland - joining the British Pound - and finally Italy, at a furious rate downwards accelerated through the growing number of ventures and bets against the formerly strong currency which became as soft as melted vanilla ice. And the guarantors? All they did was reassuring the populace and sugarcoating the statistics. Bullshitters! Left us here alone with an outlook saying: goodbye prosperity, hello struggle for survival. Farewell democracy, let's welcome restrictive authorities. My girlfriend grabs my hand, we're looking each other deep in the eyes. I notice the shimmer of reliance on her face. Taking a deep breath I try to smile. We talked about it earlier the day. It won't be easy and we need therefore the help of a facilitator and we don't know how to pay him but heading direction south would be the only real chance we would have. After the democratization of the Maghreb and the Arabian world the whole Mediterranean area was booming and growing continuously. If we're gonna make it the few hundred kilometers to Venice or Genova and get a ship which brings us to Morocco or the Lebanon we could start anew, in a world we have not to fear of our lives, in a place we could again count the stars under a clear sky at night ..