11-06-2019, 06:35 PM
Vegan Milkshake
Outside the Xiomeran Embassy, Buttercity, Lauchenoiria
6th November 2019 - late afternoon
The protesters were back. Every week since the 28th August they had been there. It would start at around 3pm, a mix of the students and the more enthusiastic activist types, trickling in with their banners and placards. It would continue to grow, with many more arriving, and only a few leaving, to reach its peak at about 5pm, at which time someone would address the crowd, normally a Xiomeran immigrant, sometimes a Lauchenoirian climate scientist, and the crowd would be gone by 6:30, dispersed back to their homes.
Today was going to be different. The crowd had started to gather early. By the time it hit 3pm, it was as busy as the previous week’s had been at its peak. There was an energy in the crowd, an anger, or a renewed call to action. There were many more Lauchenoirians this time, as well as the usual number of Xiomerans, and the handful of other ethnicities. This time, not every banner related to climate change - it was clear that the anti-Xiomeran activists from this morning’s trial had decided to join today’s demonstration.
It was around 3:30pm when it happened. A group of protesters broke off from the main crowd, slipping past the police who had been standing at the cordon, chatting to each other and not really paying close attention. The group worked fast. They used handcuffs, tubes and glue to attach themselves to each other, and to the building, blocking the entrance - and exit - to the embassy. The police had moved to stop them, but they were too late. Only a minute had passed between their split from the crowd and the stage where the embassy was completely blockaded.
The police stood nearby, bewildered and uncertain what to do. There was no way to move the protesters without specialist equipment. The officer in command mentally swore and got out his radio. In the background, the larger group of protesters were cheering and making noise, someone was playing music and the crowd seemed to have increased greatly in the last 60 seconds, although that may have been the imagination of the panicked police.
By the time the specialist equipment had arrived, it was 5pm, the normal height of the protest. The police had made no effort to break it up. It was far larger than they had anticipated, and they weren’t equipped to handle it. It was three times the size of the previous week’s demonstration, and it was all they could do to form a cordon between the main crowd and the embassy - including, of course, the protesters sitting in their line, handcuffed and singing along to the music their comrades were blasting into the street.
The speeches this week were far less focused on climate change than in previous weeks. And there were many, many more. Speaker after speaker called on the new Empress Yauhmi to reform Xiomera, to halt the Manauia Island development, to institute real democracy. None of the speakers acted like they thought she would have any intention of doing so. They all condemned her, accused her and her late husband of being tyrannical dictators, totalitarian brutes bringing nothing but oppression to their people.
As they spoke, the police continued to cut their locked- and glued-on comrades out one-by-one, only to reattach their own handcuffs when arresting them, and taking them to the waiting police vans. Every time an arrest was made, the speeches were paused so the crowd could cheer for the activist getting arrested, thanking them for their courage in standing up to Xiomera. By the time everyone had been arrested, it was almost 9pm.
After everyone had been arrested, and the speakers had all finished, the crowd dispersed for the most part quickly, heading in droves to either the bus stops or the nearest subway station and crowding the platform. The first train heading in the more popular direction became so crowded that a number of people opted to wait for the second, but after it had departed, the area was calm once more.
What the overworked and exhausted police officers didn’t notice was the group of around 10 climate protesters who had lingered in a late-night cafe down the road, eating vegan pasta dishes, and waiting. They kept their eyes on the embassy, where all the staff had been trapped until late by the blockade.
It was another hour, and some desserts, later by the time they saw the telltale movement in the windows that Ambassador Chēmā was about to exit the building. The activists nodded to each other, and bundled up their stuff, exiting the building, takeaway vegan milkshakes in their hands. It was, after all, still a warm night in the ever-summery Lauchenoiria.
They timed it perfectly, making sure they were walking past the embassy just as the Ambassador came down the steps, flanked by four ASI personnel. One of the activists suddenly veered aside, the lid off her milkshake, and threw it over the ambassador, the sticky substance covering her face and clothing. Behind the activist who had thrown the milkshake stood another, live streaming the affair on his phone. The others let out a jeer and took photographs.
*
(Following section written by Xiomera)
Chēmā, the Xiomeran Ambassador to Lauchenoiria, was tired. Tired of noise, tired of disruptions, tired of being in a country where the government didn't bother to enforce laws and the people acted like hooligans.
The protests which had been happening outside the Xiomeran Embassy had become a drain on the morale, and the patience, of the Xiomerans stationed there. Once a week, a bunch of Lauchenoirians prattling loudly about things that were not their concern, in a far away country they didn't even live in, would show up like clockwork. Their incessant moralizing and shouting and waving of protest signs, week after week after blasted week for over two months, had gotten so annoying that the Xiomeran Embassy secretly had noise-dampening materials installed inside the facilities to make the situation more bearable.
The few Xiomerans, and the even fewer foreigners, who tried to come to the embassy to conduct business were also quite tired - tired of being delayed, and harassed, by the protesters. When the visitors were done shouting at the protesters about it, they came inside and shouted at the embassy staff about it. Asking why something hadn't been done, demanding that the embassy do more to alleviate the problem. The protests of the embassy staff that it was up to the Lauchenoirian authorities to address matters outside the embassy walls fell on deaf ears. The staff at the front desk of the embassy had morbidly begun taken bets on which staff member would snap first and do something in anger after hearing yet another rendition of "what are my damned taxes paying for if you incompetent fools can't even keep an embassy functioning" from some overly pampered and pompous Xiomeran citizen traveling abroad.
The ambassador was tired of her staff suffering, tired of suffering herself. Most of all, she was starting to develop a profound dislike for the country she was supposed to be an ambassador to. They don't even listen to us or take us seriously. Why are we even bothering? Chēmā had thought more than once. She had even sent a recommendation to her superiors in the Secretariat of International Affairs to close the embassy, or at least downgrade it to a consulate, and spend the Secretariat's money in countries more receptive to Xiomera. Secretary Huitzilhuani had rejected the suggestion, and implied in her reply that Chēmā was not trying hard enough to resolve the issues she was complaining about.
This day's protest had lasted much longer than previous ones, and had a much larger crowd. The Xiomeran security personnel stationed at the embassy had found that concerning, and had quietly increased their security posture. Luckily, none of the protesters did anything too stupid. But when the protesters had locked themselves to the gate of the embassy perimeter, the Xiomerans inside the embassy watched in complete amazement. That amazement turned to frustration, and derision, when the Lauchenoirian police stood around without a clue, and then took almost five hours to finally remove the people attached to the gate. Gods and goddesses, what an utterly incompetent country, Chēmā thought in exhaustion as she watched the last of the protesters finally disperse.
An hour or so later, the ambassador prepared to leave the embassy, along with her security personnel. She was supposed to attend a late gathering with a group of Xiomerans and Lauchenoirians who had been trying, without notable success, to launch joint business ventures in the south of the country. The ambassador's car pulled up to the main entrance of the embassy, which had been so unceremoniously blocked by a bunch of buffoons in handcuffs earlier. She was determined to make a point by using that entrance now. As she walked down the steps, flanked by her security personnel, she was thinking about what speech she was going to give at the gathering. She never saw it coming.
Suddenly, a cold splash hit her in the face. As she looked up in shock, she saw a Lauchenoirian woman, an empty cup in her hand. Others stood behind her, laughing and with their phones pointed at the ambassador. As Chēmā looked down, she saw the milkshake, in a noxious neon green color, splattered all over her. She wiped some from her face, to clear her eyes and further assess the situation. She stared down, in shock for a moment. The entire front of her dress was covered in neon green. Her one-of-a-kind, very expensive dress by the elite Xiomeran designer A'pilne. The one she had bought at the equally exclusive shop Xocoē, the last time she had been in Tlālacuetztla. A dress she certainly couldn't replace in Lauchenoiria, because the entire blasted country probably didn't have anything as high-quality or superb as an A'pilne creation.
When the staff of the embassy had been taking bets on who would finally snap first, under the pressure of the protesters, none of them had thought to bet on the ambassador herself.
Slowly, Chēmā raised her head in as regal a stance as someone covered in a vegan milkshake possibly could. In perfectly accented and flawless Spanish, she let the protesters know exactly what she thought of them. "You people have been outside our embassy all day, calling us brutes. Yet this is how you treat visitors to your country, people who are here to try to be friendly to your country? You are the ones who are barbarians, mannerless ruffians," Chēmā snapped in a tone as cold as the milkshake now slowly working its way under her collar.
Chēmā turned to one of the ASI agents next to her, giving a command in Huenyan. The ASI agent responded quickly, pulling a small tube of pepper spray out of his suit pocket. Without a word, he blasted the milkshake-wielding protester full in the face.
The protester hit with the pepper spray began coughing and gasping for breath, wiping futilely at her now swollen eyes. Her fellow protesters, suddenly realizing they were facing four very angry - and armed - Xiomeran agents, quickly grabbed their comrade and ran off down the street.
Chēmā stood and glared after them, her fury translated into a soundless defiance. "Shall we inform the gathering that you will be delayed to change clothes, madam ambassador?" the lead ASI agent asked.
"No. I will go like this. Let this entire ridiculous country see how their people act - and how Xiomerans respond to such abuse. If they think this will break me, they could not be more wrong. The people at this gathering want to know why Xiomera and Lauchenoiria are having such difficulties - well then, let us show them exactly why," Chēmā said.
As the official limousine made its way down the streets of Buttercity, Chēmā stared fiercely out the window. I will probably get fired for this - maybe worse, depending on how the new Empress reacts. But I do not care. At least then, I can finally go home.
Outside the Xiomeran Embassy, Buttercity, Lauchenoiria
6th November 2019 - late afternoon
The protesters were back. Every week since the 28th August they had been there. It would start at around 3pm, a mix of the students and the more enthusiastic activist types, trickling in with their banners and placards. It would continue to grow, with many more arriving, and only a few leaving, to reach its peak at about 5pm, at which time someone would address the crowd, normally a Xiomeran immigrant, sometimes a Lauchenoirian climate scientist, and the crowd would be gone by 6:30, dispersed back to their homes.
Today was going to be different. The crowd had started to gather early. By the time it hit 3pm, it was as busy as the previous week’s had been at its peak. There was an energy in the crowd, an anger, or a renewed call to action. There were many more Lauchenoirians this time, as well as the usual number of Xiomerans, and the handful of other ethnicities. This time, not every banner related to climate change - it was clear that the anti-Xiomeran activists from this morning’s trial had decided to join today’s demonstration.
It was around 3:30pm when it happened. A group of protesters broke off from the main crowd, slipping past the police who had been standing at the cordon, chatting to each other and not really paying close attention. The group worked fast. They used handcuffs, tubes and glue to attach themselves to each other, and to the building, blocking the entrance - and exit - to the embassy. The police had moved to stop them, but they were too late. Only a minute had passed between their split from the crowd and the stage where the embassy was completely blockaded.
The police stood nearby, bewildered and uncertain what to do. There was no way to move the protesters without specialist equipment. The officer in command mentally swore and got out his radio. In the background, the larger group of protesters were cheering and making noise, someone was playing music and the crowd seemed to have increased greatly in the last 60 seconds, although that may have been the imagination of the panicked police.
By the time the specialist equipment had arrived, it was 5pm, the normal height of the protest. The police had made no effort to break it up. It was far larger than they had anticipated, and they weren’t equipped to handle it. It was three times the size of the previous week’s demonstration, and it was all they could do to form a cordon between the main crowd and the embassy - including, of course, the protesters sitting in their line, handcuffed and singing along to the music their comrades were blasting into the street.
The speeches this week were far less focused on climate change than in previous weeks. And there were many, many more. Speaker after speaker called on the new Empress Yauhmi to reform Xiomera, to halt the Manauia Island development, to institute real democracy. None of the speakers acted like they thought she would have any intention of doing so. They all condemned her, accused her and her late husband of being tyrannical dictators, totalitarian brutes bringing nothing but oppression to their people.
As they spoke, the police continued to cut their locked- and glued-on comrades out one-by-one, only to reattach their own handcuffs when arresting them, and taking them to the waiting police vans. Every time an arrest was made, the speeches were paused so the crowd could cheer for the activist getting arrested, thanking them for their courage in standing up to Xiomera. By the time everyone had been arrested, it was almost 9pm.
After everyone had been arrested, and the speakers had all finished, the crowd dispersed for the most part quickly, heading in droves to either the bus stops or the nearest subway station and crowding the platform. The first train heading in the more popular direction became so crowded that a number of people opted to wait for the second, but after it had departed, the area was calm once more.
What the overworked and exhausted police officers didn’t notice was the group of around 10 climate protesters who had lingered in a late-night cafe down the road, eating vegan pasta dishes, and waiting. They kept their eyes on the embassy, where all the staff had been trapped until late by the blockade.
It was another hour, and some desserts, later by the time they saw the telltale movement in the windows that Ambassador Chēmā was about to exit the building. The activists nodded to each other, and bundled up their stuff, exiting the building, takeaway vegan milkshakes in their hands. It was, after all, still a warm night in the ever-summery Lauchenoiria.
They timed it perfectly, making sure they were walking past the embassy just as the Ambassador came down the steps, flanked by four ASI personnel. One of the activists suddenly veered aside, the lid off her milkshake, and threw it over the ambassador, the sticky substance covering her face and clothing. Behind the activist who had thrown the milkshake stood another, live streaming the affair on his phone. The others let out a jeer and took photographs.
*
(Following section written by Xiomera)
Chēmā, the Xiomeran Ambassador to Lauchenoiria, was tired. Tired of noise, tired of disruptions, tired of being in a country where the government didn't bother to enforce laws and the people acted like hooligans.
The protests which had been happening outside the Xiomeran Embassy had become a drain on the morale, and the patience, of the Xiomerans stationed there. Once a week, a bunch of Lauchenoirians prattling loudly about things that were not their concern, in a far away country they didn't even live in, would show up like clockwork. Their incessant moralizing and shouting and waving of protest signs, week after week after blasted week for over two months, had gotten so annoying that the Xiomeran Embassy secretly had noise-dampening materials installed inside the facilities to make the situation more bearable.
The few Xiomerans, and the even fewer foreigners, who tried to come to the embassy to conduct business were also quite tired - tired of being delayed, and harassed, by the protesters. When the visitors were done shouting at the protesters about it, they came inside and shouted at the embassy staff about it. Asking why something hadn't been done, demanding that the embassy do more to alleviate the problem. The protests of the embassy staff that it was up to the Lauchenoirian authorities to address matters outside the embassy walls fell on deaf ears. The staff at the front desk of the embassy had morbidly begun taken bets on which staff member would snap first and do something in anger after hearing yet another rendition of "what are my damned taxes paying for if you incompetent fools can't even keep an embassy functioning" from some overly pampered and pompous Xiomeran citizen traveling abroad.
The ambassador was tired of her staff suffering, tired of suffering herself. Most of all, she was starting to develop a profound dislike for the country she was supposed to be an ambassador to. They don't even listen to us or take us seriously. Why are we even bothering? Chēmā had thought more than once. She had even sent a recommendation to her superiors in the Secretariat of International Affairs to close the embassy, or at least downgrade it to a consulate, and spend the Secretariat's money in countries more receptive to Xiomera. Secretary Huitzilhuani had rejected the suggestion, and implied in her reply that Chēmā was not trying hard enough to resolve the issues she was complaining about.
This day's protest had lasted much longer than previous ones, and had a much larger crowd. The Xiomeran security personnel stationed at the embassy had found that concerning, and had quietly increased their security posture. Luckily, none of the protesters did anything too stupid. But when the protesters had locked themselves to the gate of the embassy perimeter, the Xiomerans inside the embassy watched in complete amazement. That amazement turned to frustration, and derision, when the Lauchenoirian police stood around without a clue, and then took almost five hours to finally remove the people attached to the gate. Gods and goddesses, what an utterly incompetent country, Chēmā thought in exhaustion as she watched the last of the protesters finally disperse.
An hour or so later, the ambassador prepared to leave the embassy, along with her security personnel. She was supposed to attend a late gathering with a group of Xiomerans and Lauchenoirians who had been trying, without notable success, to launch joint business ventures in the south of the country. The ambassador's car pulled up to the main entrance of the embassy, which had been so unceremoniously blocked by a bunch of buffoons in handcuffs earlier. She was determined to make a point by using that entrance now. As she walked down the steps, flanked by her security personnel, she was thinking about what speech she was going to give at the gathering. She never saw it coming.
Suddenly, a cold splash hit her in the face. As she looked up in shock, she saw a Lauchenoirian woman, an empty cup in her hand. Others stood behind her, laughing and with their phones pointed at the ambassador. As Chēmā looked down, she saw the milkshake, in a noxious neon green color, splattered all over her. She wiped some from her face, to clear her eyes and further assess the situation. She stared down, in shock for a moment. The entire front of her dress was covered in neon green. Her one-of-a-kind, very expensive dress by the elite Xiomeran designer A'pilne. The one she had bought at the equally exclusive shop Xocoē, the last time she had been in Tlālacuetztla. A dress she certainly couldn't replace in Lauchenoiria, because the entire blasted country probably didn't have anything as high-quality or superb as an A'pilne creation.
When the staff of the embassy had been taking bets on who would finally snap first, under the pressure of the protesters, none of them had thought to bet on the ambassador herself.
Slowly, Chēmā raised her head in as regal a stance as someone covered in a vegan milkshake possibly could. In perfectly accented and flawless Spanish, she let the protesters know exactly what she thought of them. "You people have been outside our embassy all day, calling us brutes. Yet this is how you treat visitors to your country, people who are here to try to be friendly to your country? You are the ones who are barbarians, mannerless ruffians," Chēmā snapped in a tone as cold as the milkshake now slowly working its way under her collar.
Chēmā turned to one of the ASI agents next to her, giving a command in Huenyan. The ASI agent responded quickly, pulling a small tube of pepper spray out of his suit pocket. Without a word, he blasted the milkshake-wielding protester full in the face.
The protester hit with the pepper spray began coughing and gasping for breath, wiping futilely at her now swollen eyes. Her fellow protesters, suddenly realizing they were facing four very angry - and armed - Xiomeran agents, quickly grabbed their comrade and ran off down the street.
Chēmā stood and glared after them, her fury translated into a soundless defiance. "Shall we inform the gathering that you will be delayed to change clothes, madam ambassador?" the lead ASI agent asked.
"No. I will go like this. Let this entire ridiculous country see how their people act - and how Xiomerans respond to such abuse. If they think this will break me, they could not be more wrong. The people at this gathering want to know why Xiomera and Lauchenoiria are having such difficulties - well then, let us show them exactly why," Chēmā said.
As the official limousine made its way down the streets of Buttercity, Chēmā stared fiercely out the window. I will probably get fired for this - maybe worse, depending on how the new Empress reacts. But I do not care. At least then, I can finally go home.
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax