CIVIL OBEDIENCE

PART III

I looked around the station lobby, this bleak bureaucratic aquarium where humans in polyester pretend their silence is the law. No one stopped me. No one said a word. No one so much as coughed. You could’ve heard a fascist’s conscience drop — if such a thing existed.

Rook: Now I just want to clarify something. For the record. For all of you here. For the lawyers watching later. For the ghosts of the Constitution still haunting this place.

I paused. Took a breath. It wasn’t for effect. It was because my mouth had gone dry from talking truth in a building designed to suffocate it.

Rook: I just told you that I’m anti-fascist. I did it on your premises. I said it loud enough to trigger every Ring cam in the breakroom. And under the Executive Order your boss signed — the one the fascist in the White House finger-painted into existence between campaign rallies and pudding breaks — that’s supposed to be a crime.

I let the words marinate. Gave them space to wrinkle their khaki brows.

Rook: So now we’ve got a problem, officers. Either I’m a criminal... or you’re complicit. Because if the law says it’s illegal to be antifascist, and you let me walk out that door, then you’re either aiding and abetting, or admitting the law is bullshit.

No response. Just one guy chewing gum like it was a hostage.

Rook: And look, I’m giving you a gift here. One last chance to act. You want me to sit back down? You want to cuff me? Charge me with believing in democracy? You want to give Sean Hannity a new mugshot to whine about?

Nothing. One of them blinked. Maybe.

Rook: This is your last out. If you want to prove the law means anything at all — or that you still know the difference between law and theater — now’s the moment.

Still silence. I turned toward the door.

to be continued….

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