by aemelia

characters: 3 policemen, guards sent by the intelligence department, a small crowd, media-men (corrupt ones or ones aligned with whatever regime is in question, one anarchist, Lenin, Trotsky, Makhno, kropotkin, someone wearing a red scarf and chinese esque clothing.

Act 1: “the OG, remastered”

Narrator: Here you see an innocent lamb being sacrificed to bear the blame of Piazza Fontana, you know, the classic :3

(distant explosion sound while a cute innocent anarchist wearing a black cross, evidently just walking away from a recently dispersed protest for worker democracy and carrying a black flag and a draft of a poem while distracted by feeding pigeons)

(Three policemen suddenly walk up to her while she isn’t watching)

Policeman 2&3: (silently handcuff the anarchist)

the anarchist: Hey! Why am I a-being arrested? I am merely peacefully protesting!

Policeman 1: ma’am, come along, you are being arrested for scheming to explode Piazza Fontana.

(scene change to inside police)(the anarchist is restrained to a cold, small metal chair while the policemen are seated on cozy leather sofas)

Policeman 1: Ma’am, you and you black cross people are arrested for being within a suspicious proximity, a 10-kilometer radius, near Piazza Fontana during its explosion. (leans in) Due to your organization’s previous uncooperative behavior, we suspect a scheme among you to commit terrorism.

The anarchist: But we only help people unfairly jailed!

Policeman 1: we know. But everyone else doesn’t think so.

policeman 2: the passerby, the silent ones dominating society, has one image of you people: the image of a small minority of anarchists bombing things.

policeman 3: even though these bombings might have hurt only like. one or two people in total, it is stuck in the public imagination forever.

policeman 1: so, you see, you anarchists have only a single story in people’s impression: a story of violence and blind breaking down of order. (imposingly puts a revolver on the table) Do you see, mademoiselle? You and your friends may be innocent, but the higher ups ordered us to have you carry the heavy cruxification as punishment of the blame as well as make a good profitable story, and (gestures to the guards sent by a higher department) we do not think you can walk out here unscathed. (points to gun, frees one(1) of the anarchist’s hands from captivity)). well then, ma’am.

three policemen (simultaneously):We are sure you can choose the better ending, smart lad.(unlocks the anarchist completely and leaves the heavily guarded room )

(lights close, a muffled gunshot noise comes out; when the light is on, the anarchist is seen splayed on the ground aside the  high building, and media-men who are handed cash by guards are scribbling a tale of “mysterious suicide”)

The anarchist(in acute agony, obviously trying to not scream): Surely…. if only… there can be another opportunity for us poor sacrificial lambs… A! dear comrades… please leave me a way out…(closes eyes)

Her friend: A! comrade! where are you….(curtain falls)

Narrator: And Fate, in a fit of playfulness, decided to grant the anarchist 9 lives, just like the feline has, by means of reincarnation.

Act 2:

Narrator: The anarchist opens her eyes and sees that she is in Petrograd 1917, in a crowd surrounding an armored train.

(distant noises of Lenin making a speech ab the Petrograd soviet)

Anarchist: (eyes sparkling) OMG its the Bolsheviks! Finally, somewhere with comrades and with hope for a vibrant new future for all of us! I sure do hope I can, too, play a role in this exiting revolution! I’m in!(goes to get registered in the Bolshevik Party as well as the Left SR party)(writing poetry, cheeks flushed from seeing the radicalism)

Narrator: oh… poor innocent anarchist. She would be proved so wrong.

(change of scene to the still smoldering ashes of the winter palace during summer)

Narrator: its the year 1918 and the Left SRs are starting to be arrested.

Anarchist: (notices Left SR comrade is gone) “has anyone seen maria Spiridonova?”

A blue hatted cheka: “she’s been summoned for tea.”

anarchist: wh-what?!

(scene change to office)

anarchist: (approaches lenin) Ulyanov! What are y’all doing to the poor Left Social-Revolutionaries?!”

Ulyanov(sigh): we kind of have to briefly hold them in custody because if we don’t, it would really hurt the revolution and our peace treaty with germany. We could really use a bit of peace to rebuild and feed the peasantry they love and our beloved proletariat, you see. Please understand; if counterrevolutionaries saw our split, they would try to use that to hurt the cause. I know you people love peace, no? You wouldn’t like the war to continue, no?”

anarchist(clearly a bit scared by that outcome):of course not! we want peace NOW!

Illyich: Pray give us some patience, then, dear idealistic comrade. I assure you, soon we will let your friends out.

Narrator: The anarchist was relieved to see her friends come out intact and spiritually alright. (background kropotkin chills with the anarchist in question and her newly freed Left SR friends)

anarchist: (scribble scribble) (sets up station where she gives free soup and zines to peasants and workers) Oh wow, this is not bad! Maybe it was worth it after all!

(change of scene to a winter, when the Smolny institute is bedeckered with red flags and yet workers and even trading peasants look hungry)

Narrator: However. It’s the 1920s, and the civil war is still waging on. No one has any grain anymore and the Bolsheviks desperately need grain. To this end, they are willing to sacrifice the peasants that are crucial to Russia.

Anarchist(carrying goods she got for kropotkin and others, bought fairly from friendly peasants, giving whole food to nearby hungry-looking workers and occasional peasants): (notices team of red cavalry ppl) Comrades! what are you up to?

Red cavalry officer: (stops the procession for 5 seconds) Comrade, we are on our way to requisition grain from the countryside.

Anarchist: (spreads her arm and stands before them) But you promised not to!

Red cavalry officer: Commisar Trotsky has given us orders. The city is starving. Now, comrade, please excuse us, or we might have to move you out of our path because this is an emergency order.

Trotsky:(emerges uniformed, alongside blue-hatted cheka men) Comrade, I hear you have doubts about our plans. Please understand: our workers are in deep danger and requre food; if we do not requisiton, the revolution will starve to death. (sigh) Comrade, we know you are kindly intentioned, but i must warn you that the Party has noted your repeated behavior and hopes it doesn’t continue.(unfurls a stamped order) I am afraid i am in the duty to arrest you for resisting orders.

Anarchist: wh-what?!

Trotsky: (takes out a single handcuff and clicks it shut after threading the circle through a buttonhole on her coat instead of around her wrist to show respect) Please follow me.

(change of scene to a wood-paneled room with a stove in the Lubyanka)

trotsky: Lenin hopes to visit you during your stay here.(seats anarchist down, clicks other end of hadcuff on a chair and leaves door open)

(after a while lenin shows up with a slightly anesthetic-smelling mushroom soup in his hand, pats anarchist on back, and takes a seat on the same side of the table of the anarchist, while trotsky stands nearby)

Lenin: (places the warm bowl of soup in hands of the anarchist) Comrade utopian, please understand: we have come to a difficult moment. Nowadays, dissent is becoming a bit too much, and the White Army hides amongst us, so we must feed our troops. In this time, what you have just done is, unfortunately, classifiable as treason, even if you didn’t mean to. Our dear comrade kropotkin has, unfortunately, passed away just now. That means we are going to let you out for a moment to attend his funeral. But, after we finish burying him, I am afraid you and your friends may need to return to this place and await your ends. How you are judged, as a traitor punished before everyone’s view(indicates revolver in the hands of the cheka guards protecting him) or as a tragically disease-stricken hero who passed away because we were unable to help with your disease(gesture at soup), is your choice, davarischi. Make the right choice and you will be thanked for your contributions and sacrifices. We know you are no traitor.

Lenin and trotsky(ensemble): So, dear wise idealist, choose your end. (leaves)(lights close

(muffled noises of a thud as the anarchist, sobbing, drinks the mushroom soup(it has an overdose of morphine and given her as a ‘peaceful’ option to end her life)

(lights reopen with the anarchist lying dead with eyes slightly agape (unclosed eyes signify despair), being noted by a blue-hatted Cheka man(the Party defining history within its influence) drawing an image of the anarchist as a hero in a propaganda piece, and a suited person with a gilded notebook where he draws the anarchist in a piece of anti-Left propaganda as an insurrectionary who was jailed by her own cause(but he’s doing it to defame her cause))(the Cheka man’s propaganda piece is a little ruined by two drops of tears)

(curtains close)

Narrator: and thus ends the second life of our poor anarchist. She was only among the first few batches among those of her ilk who fell at the hands of their comrades, like the noble sons of the revolution in Kronsdat.

Act 5

Narrator: Sorry, i know i said there will be nine lives of our poor anarchist. There are only 3 additional reincarnatons other than the “OG” life for now, because we at the nonexistent anarchist department wanted to troll y’all a bit on April Fool’s day.

Anyways.

(curtain rise to reveal black-and-white Hong Kong street pic as background

(enter the same anarchist walking on the streets)

narrator: Now we are in 1920s Hong Kong, where a movement for the laborers is raging

(backround student chanting)

anarchist:(rubs eyes)Where am i…. (walk up and looks at the revolutionaries, some in redscarfs, some carrying black flags, at their assembly for labor rights with sparkling eyes) OMG its them! the may forth people! I know we have comrades of all stripes here; surely this vibrant air would save the people!(joins crowd while writing down what she is seeing)

Narrator:(sigh) At least this time there’s a difference.

(lights close; distant gunshots and screams as guards open fire on the revolutionaries)(light open to reveal the anarchist being buried and the Party-men(specifically one person in a red scarf and a suit) is trying to use her death in debates between Marxists and Anarchists as a case for a Party structure she dislikes, and patronizingly lecturing the three black-flag bearing comrades of hers who survived while accepting help from these anarchists)

(then, when the background is decorated with red flags, handcuff them with labels and leave them with poisoned milk(a rare resource considered “fashionable” and maybe a bit revolutionary due to Soviet influence, btw) as a “presentable” option of death)

(lights go dark and reopen with the stage divided into two parts by different colors of light divided by the anarchists’s four corpses in betweeen the two lights. in one half of stage illuminated by a red glow, the Party is re-making these “accidentally deceased” one’s tales into “sacrifices for the Revolution”; meanwhile in another, the flashy golden cameras are snapping pictures of the deceased to sell, to demonize)

(curtains fall as if to bury the corpses)

Narrator:(half bitterly sarcastic) At least she died early enough this time to not see this betrayal. If only her friends were so… *fortunate*.

Act 7

(curtain rises to reveal a Ukraine steppe and a single fluttering black flag)

Narrator:(tired voice) we are back again, comrades. Same anarchist, same steppe

Anarchist: (rubs eyes) where am i…

omg it’s the makhnovschina! Surely this time i will be surrounded by my beloved anarchist comrades and be left alone and respected by these both lovable and terrifying bolsheviks!(joins crowd of black banner bearing folk, the black army, riding horses for leisure, and I’m preparation for a joint battle, shares soup with them over campfire, even handing spare bowls to nearby encampments red army men)

anarchist: (scribbles on a poem pad) Man… finally, some chill where i can write my stuff :3

Narrator: Unfortunately, our anarchist is once again wrong.

(cue a trumpet call and the opposite side’s imperial banner taken down)

Trrotsky:(approaches anarchist camp sternly with another cauldron of soup) (places cauldron in front of the dinner table of the black army)

hey anarchist comrades. We brought a surprise

Anarchist: Yay!

(some soup sipping later)

Anarchist: Why… why am i so tired…(eyes close alongside others who drank the soup)

Trotsky:(fishes out a signed order) (sighs)Comrades, we received orders from Moscow to apprehend all of you. We are afraid we must… let you go.

(red army cavalry men surrounds the tiny group of black army ppl, including our anarchist teen girl(who are involuntarily getting drowsy from the soup), blindsfold them, and aims right behind their left ear)(the anarchist murmurishly hums an anarchist folk song; one soldier misses his target (another anarchist, not her) the first round)

(light shuts down and reopens to reveal them being buried by said cavalry with a black flag drenched half red presumably by blood while a polished media-man writes it down indifferently for sales)

Narrator(with bitterness): And thus ended our anarchist’s third reincarnation.