an orphan (one in a sporadic series)

From time to time, ideas come to me...lines, snippets of dialogue, even whole scenes...that have nothing to do with whatever I'm working on at the time. Sometimes these random writings are incorporated into full-blown pieces...and sometimes they remain as orphans, tantalizing teasers from the fickle muse that have no home. This then is one of the orphans which has been languishing in a file since it was born. This is the prologue for a novel that I plan to finish one day (though it will have to wait in line.) The working title is 400 Years to Protect:

*****
Contrary to expectation the revolution was not televised.

It came, instead, with almost no fanfare...plans given wing in the cool blue shadows of the night; plans shaped and refined in plain sight, for long tense years, in supposedly omniscient sunlight.

It came at as the result of decades of surreptitious planning, as a result of the sweat and blood and passion of thousands marshaled to what could be construed as a fool’s errand of heretofore unprecedented guile and scope. And it came as steely inspiration borne out of anger for slights real and imagined; borne out of a simmering need for vengeance and a conviction that the promise can indeed be fulfilled for one and all.

The revolution came with bullets and threats of bullets...with delicately orchestrated coups along the information superhighway and in the back recesses of the military-industrial complex.

The armies fell from within...the media fell from without.

The revolution struck at midnight. Six times. The few died...startled out of their complacency instants too late to save themselves...some falling in gathering pools of blood without being aware of why they had been killed.

The many slept...blissfully unaware that their world had shifted off its axis and was now spinning in a new, unpredictable rotation. They would wake as the world came round to the sun again but the implications of the new order would not be readily apparent.

And in a corridor that seethed with power and intrigue, a tall man in a neatly tailored black suit strode, flanked by eight heavily armed men and four heavily armed women in crisp khaki uniforms. Each had skin in varying shades of earth tones...tan and red and myriad shades of brown...each had steely resolve in their dark, piercing eyes.

They met no resistance in these halls as they marched, straight and true, to their destination.

Marcus William Jackson, paused for a moment at the great doors in front of them. The moment was, at long last, at hand. He took a deep breath and reached for the door's handle. With a confident twist, he turned it and threw the door open.

Inside the large office three men were huddled around the telephone on the desk trying to get an outside line. They all jumped, surprised and fearful, as the door slammed opened and a dozen soldiers streamed into the room fanning out in a precise half circle.

"Wh-what is the meaning of this?" the tall man behind the desk stammered, his face ashen and his eyes moist.

Jackson stepped through the half circle and stood in the middle of the room staring at the men at the desk. "Mr. President," he said softly, his dark brown eyes cauldrons of simmering emotion, "things have changed."

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