“They don’t have to go quietly,” Emrik said. “They just have to go.”
Emrik climbed the wet granite plinth, his bad hip twinging with each step. He placed the chisel against the hairline crack and tapped once.
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That was the lie. That was always the lie. Republia did not build statues to its strongest believers. It built statues to the ones it had to convince. The next morning, Emrik Thorne did not go to work. Instead, he walked to the statue with a small steel chisel and a rubber mallet—tools of his former trade. A crowd of seventeen people watched from the bus stop. No one called the authorities.
If you are reading this, the statue has broken. Good. It was meant to break. I designed the flaw myself in ’43, when they forced me to pose for the casting. They thought I was weeping with gratitude for my pardon. I was weeping because I knew no one would believe what I almost died to say. “They don’t have to go quietly,” Emrik said
Emrik, being Emrik, did not let the matter rest.
For forty-seven years, the bronze figure of First Architect Maldon Voss has stood at the junction of Reconciliation Way and the old river road, his outstretched hand pointing toward the eastern mountains—toward the border, toward the enemy who no longer had a name. Children were taught to salute it. Lovers held hands beneath its shadow. Dissidents were marched past it on their way to the processing centers, so they might remember what strength looked like. The Republia Times stands by its reporting
But last Tuesday, the rain stopped.