LONDON. words by Claire Miller illustration by Ali Harford
I
t’s 10 p.m. on a Monday night in April, and the bathroom in my London flat is in desperate need of hand soap. I’m supposed to be writing a paper, but my inspiration level is as low as the liquid in that plastic bottle, and I can’t concentrate for shit. There’s a steady thump of bass rattling through the windows of my living room. It’s coming from Hyde Park across the street. “When do you think they’ll stop?” my flatmate Sydney asks, looking up at me pleadingly from one of her impossibly thick books. Restless, I shake my head, put on my coat, and head out into the night to investigate. I reason that it’s not technically procrastinating since going for a walk usually helps set my head right. Plus, I can solve our sanitary needs by stopping at a store. Out there, the streets are empty save for the shadows dancing across them. I walk my usual way onto Park Lane, which borders the eastern edge of the park. On a normal day, you can catch one of those classic red buses here every half-minute. But not tonight. Tonight, vehicles don’t exist anymore. Tonight, there is only them—the Extinction Rebellion. Stepping into the barren wasteland of the city street, I can see them all: the civil disobedients fighting in what they call the third world war that rages between life, climate change, and its profiteers. In the past year, members of the Rebellion have blocked bridges, super-glued themselves to the gates of Buckingham Palace, gone to jail, and plastered their hourglass symbol across the city. I saw that symbol this morning, painted on posters that school children carried out of the Tube station. There were stickers, too, on the walls of my crowded train car when a man got on and said, “For Christ’s sake. They’re making more rubbish than they’re cleaning up. Get a fuckin’ job!”
right before unceremoniously cracking open a cheap can of beer. But these protesters are less interested in jobs than they are in saving the human race from extinction, and they’re taking over central London to demand that Parliament declare a climate emergency and act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a net-zero by 2025. Now, they’ve occupied the north-east corner of Hyde Park where the Marble Arch stands as a monument to history. I walk
"i really need this stupid fucking soap.
