Free | A flash fiction story
63 of đź’Ż
“You know what I don’t understand, Agh?” Maya cleaned smudges of blood off her stun baton while standing in her best authority pose.
Agh shook his head, holding a bleeding nose, crumpled in a corner between a dumpster and a dark brick wall.
“Why do you keep doing this shit?” she asked. “Why don’t you get a job? A real one. Heck, you could even become Atlanta Security! You have some impressive moves. But it’s like you enjoy being arrested. Don’t you like to be free?”
Agh guffawed until he started coughing and he had to hug his injured ribs. “Free,” he said, one eye on her, the other one closed, swollen. “That’s cute. Do you think we are free? Do you think you’re free?”
“More than you are.”
“Maya, Maya, Maya…” He shook his head. “In this world, there are the ones who own shit and the ones who are owned. The second group will never be as free as the first. You work for Atlanta, so you know to which group you belong.” He took his hand to his swollen eye.
She rolled her eyes. “How Marxist. Tell me, what do you own?”
“I’m sure you love giving me a weekly beating for a living,” he said and she nodded with a smile, “but they still tell you when you can beat me up, what to wear while you do it, and when you should stop. I might not own much, but I do own my time, and what is life if not the limited time we have in this stupid fucking world?”
Agh was a disaster, covered in bruises, hiding probably-broken ribs under that stupid purple jacket, but, for the smallest of moments, it sounded like he had a point.
“Whoever owns your time,” he said, “also owns your life.”
She stared at him in silence for a long while, then she looked up at the dark sky through the maze of tall buildings — the tallest of them bearing the brilliant logo of Atlanta Incorporated.
A dark drizzle gently danced down the night sky and landed on her face. The stun baton rested on her hands, and the thin droplets covered her red uniform while Agh twitched in pain in the darkness.
She stored the baton away and walked out in the drizzle, leaving Agh behind. He laughed and coughed.
