No Justice, No Peace

“We’ve never been good at this, have we love?” He says solemnly, placing the tips of his fingers against the gentle warmth and softness of Olivia Barne’s cheek.

This is her husband, Samuel Barne. They sit on a wooden park bench, surrounded by freshly cut grass, trees and the warmth of the sun. It feels like this could be a dream. And of course it is. It’s the only way Olivia can speak to her husband now. In short dream sequences, or nightmares where his smile haunts her memory; because she remembers the way it contorted into screams of her name while a police officer held him down with a knee pressed against the middle of his back, and a forceful hand on his neck. While another officer pointed a gun at her chest to keep her away.

“No,” She replies with a bright smile but looks away, tears welling at her eyes, “I’ve missed you.”

“I know,” He responds, closing his eyes tightly and scrunching his nose as if in pain, “We didn’t get to say goodbye last time. We have a chance now.”

“Why?” She yells, standing up suddenly and forming her hands into fists, “Why do we have to say goodbye? They’ve taken everything from me! My sense of safety when I was six and noticed that not everyone looked at my skin as just skin, but a target, or like it was something dirty. My father when I was eight… You… Damn it Sam, I’m angry. I’m sick and I’m tired, just so tired.” She screeches, falling to her knees and gasping for air. This is more than a loss of breath, tears or anger left to brood and breed… This is a plea for justice, for peace, for unity.

“Your anger, they mistake for chaos. For weakness. My love, your anger is strength, it is purpose.” Samuel says softly, getting up to lift her up and place his arms around her. He leans his cheek against her hair, closing his eyes tightly again as he feels her whole body shake and tremble. He can feel the fear and anger radiating off of her beautiful brown skin. The same beautiful brown skin that when the sun touched it, whispered rhymes of love and strength in his moments of weakness. Soft skin turning hard from decades of hatred and ignorance. Skin that poses no threat, skin he feared would one day be treated as one anyway. Just like his was. He leads them back to the bench and waits for Olivia to speak.

“What is the purpose without you?” Olivia grabs her head suddenly as if in pain, lowering her head between her knees, she whispers, “Sam I miss you, so much. You’re gone. Just… Gone… Because someone in a blue uniform who was supposed to be protecting us, used you for target practice. Did he want to see if we bleed the same? If we have the same weaknesses? Don’t they know? We are the same. We always have been. It’s their hate and prejudice that’s made it so hard to just see.”

“I’m so sorry Liv, I never wanted this. I never wanted to be parted from you, not so soon or so violently.”

Olivia scoffs, shaking her head, wondering what did he have to apologize for? Wondering why he had to be sorry for someone else’s malice and cowardice. She smiles for a moment before it fades and places her hands on either side of his face. They keep quiet for some time. Words just aren’t enough, but touch could be used to imitate the need and love they felt. Olivia spent most of the time studying his face, his smile and brown eyes. She blinked quickly when flashes of red and blue invaded her mind, screams of pain and terror.

Olivia laid her forehead against Samuel’s before closing her eyes, “Your side of the bed is cold, and you’re… Cold. They don’t care. They just don’t. It doesn’t matter how many of us are killed. How many hashtags we turn into. They get away with it. Every single time.” She said letting out a shaky laugh, shaking her head in mock disbelief.

“What is it Sam? What do they see when they look at us? How do you fight against deep rooted hatred, when it’s so undeserved?” She asks barely above a whisper, as if speaking is too much to do. It’s as if her lips are too tired to utter the same words over and over and over again, while being disregarded.

“The purpose is to be heard, my love. The purpose, is the one we’ve been 

fighting for generations. I don’t know what they see baby, I don’t know why they seem so scared of us. So agitated by our existence. But we are deserving. The sun kisses our skin, for generations we have held their great nation on bare backs while they forced us to walk along quicksand. Trying to sink us. They think they can keep us down, take away our fire, but they can’t. We have something they lack, it’s why everytime they hit us; we just come right back. Every Time. We have heart. Hatred, ignorance, they leave no room for heart.”

“You think they don’t hear us? You think they don’t hear the mothers crying out for their sons? The daughters begging for their fathers’ lives? They heard me begging for you that night. They make us beg Sam, they want us docile, for a basic human right. They hear us Sam, they always have, they just don’t care.”

“Then we must make them care, we must make them listen.” 

“How? When they spit or laugh in our faces. When they tell us to go back to 

our country, when they shoot at us. How can words ever defeat a bullet?”

Samuel is unable to respond, he doesn’t know the answer. Nothing seems to work, words didn’t work last time. All his words got in return, were four shots into his back for “resisting”. Resisting in this case was trying to lift his head and turn on his side slightly to try to say he couldn’t breathe, because how can one breathe when someone is putting their full weight on your windpipe. How can one breathe when you feel the warmth of someone's hand, trying to snuff your warmth out. Pressing your fragile skin into asphalt, like they’re trying to make you sink beneath it. As if you are beneath it anyway. 

Samuel searches for the right words, but Olivia looks up at him through red 

watery eyes, “Why do they hate us so much Sam? They see dark skin and perceive violence. My skin has never dictated to me to murder, or steal. Skin color doesn’t show the character of a person. Skin color doesn’t tell us to be criminals, our own hearts do. Our minds. Any race can commit a crime, why can’t they see us? Really see us?”

Suddenly Olivia looks behind Samuel, sudden dark movement in this picturesque sun filled field isn’t right. Doesn't belong. Her eyes widen in fear, wanting to unfocus, so she doesn’t have to watch as shadows of blue suddenly appear; solidifying into shapes of mocking officers waving batons at her.

Samuel grabs her face between his hands forcefully, “You look at me, you keep your eyes on me.” He whispers.

She starts to hyperventilate, shaking her head as the scene before her blurs through hot tears. The blue shadows creep closer, turning first into the face of the police officer who shot her father down, all because he thought her father had a gun in his pocket when it was his wallet. Then that police officer that stopped and frisked her best friend at the age of fifteen, because he felt he looked “suspicious”. Or the one that at the age of eighteen, stopped her and a group of her friends as they drove to a graduation party to ask her where they were going and if they had drugs in the car.

Then the last one, at the age of twenty eight, the one that stopped her and her husband while driving late one evening after dinner. The one that before he even greeted Samuel, asked if his nice BMW X5 was really his car. The same officer that later forced her husband onto the ground after making him exit the vehicle to search for any possible drugs or weapons, because “how else could someone like you afford this”. Placing his knee forcefully against the middle of her husband’s back, and his hand tightly around her husband’s neck to keep him down, while his partner searched and found nothing. Besides the medical ID and registration of one Dr. Samuel Barne, but this too, meant nothing in the face of racism. In the face of one man who seeked dominance over another because he felt like it, because he felt deep in his core that it was his right. As if anything of this, was right.

“What do we do Sam?” She asks, uncertain and broken, falling into his warm embrace. The words echo in her mind, as she remembers asking Samuel that same question the night they were stopped by the police. He runs his hand through her hair gently, holding her as tightly as he can before he has to say goodbye. He doesn’t know how much more time he has with her.

“I love you Sam. And I know you’re tired, I know deep inside you there’s that six year old girl learning the hatred of this world. And how scary it is. How unfair and infuriating it is to have to fight to exist. I know you have carried that hatred, theirs and your own, but I need you to keep fighting. Make plans, make strides. Keep loving. 

“It will be hard to know who your allies truly are. They want you to feel unheard, they want you to feel alone and devalued. You’re not alone though, you’re not unheard or of lesser value. They think they’re going to win, they are greatly mistaken.” He looks up to the phantoms that surround them. It’s almost like being drowned, surrounded by dark blue vests that don’t let up. Samuel stands up, stands tall.

“NO JUSTICE.” He yells, Olivia looks up sharply, she screams as a police phantom lifts his baton to hit Samuel over the head. To make him kneel, to make him submit to the notion of their dimwitted notion of superiority. In an instance Olivia stands up and places herself between her husband and the baton.

“NO JUSTICE.” He yells again. She closes her eyes, suddenly feeling very light.

“NO PEACE.” She whispers, and right when the baton is about to strike her collarbone, it disperses into black mist.

“NO JUSTICE.” She yells now, and feels her husband’s hand on her shoulder. The 

strength of it. The firm warmness. The hand that had, on countless occasions, lifted her out of the storms in her heart. The hand that always protected her. The beautiful brown hand that had never lifted in violence, but in solidarity and peace. In defense of what should not have needed to be defended in the first place, a right to live. A right to be. 

The phantom police officers shrink back as she takes a step forward. She pushes them back with no gun, no hand raised, but a voice. A fire reignited in her heart, a purpose.

“NO PEACE.” Samuel’s voice rings out, but it’s not just coming from behind her. It’s coming from everywhere. From her right side, from her left, from above and from within.