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Dorothea Tite Ahern Loreto High School
From Where I Stand She is walking in between two lives. Behind her; small, simple buildings, cramped in rows of dirt and brick. The air is thick with the stench of smoke and people. People getting along with what they are given, no matter the consequence or cost, they stay, they work. They walk on. In front of her; the city stretches across the horizon, mills stretch up to meet the sky, opaque windows reflect the glint of the August sun. It’s strange to see the sun again, so clearly after so long hidden behind those dark clouds. She knows they’ll come back again, once the wind dies down and stops picking up the dust. But the view from where she stands is enough for now.
The city seems to becoming denser the further she walks, as if all the buildings and lamp posts, carriages and people were being drawn to one spot. She’s getting closer to the square now, the thousands of different noises of city life hitting her all of a sudden. A carriage screeches as it’s dragged around a corner, horses huffing through the effort and whips cracking across their backs. People talk as they rush across the cobbled streets, skirts hitched up and hurried nods exchanged as they rush through their lives. But new noises have been added to the usual collection; a large group laughing and shouting, picnic blankets are spread across the ground. Banners are being spread out, people bickering about where they should be placed.
Children race after one another, ribbons gripped in their fists. One boy is complaining to his mother about his aching feet, another cries after being told to not pet the horses carrying the cavalry that seem to skirt around the edges of the crowd. Her heart swells with every new face she sees or voice she hears. The pride threatens to overflow her watering eyes, but she swore to herself she wouldn’t let it. She didn’t want to miss a single moment.
Not a single word or face, she just wants to take it all in. She wants to remember every second that she was there, to remember why she should keep fighting. She finds it easy, sometimes, when the sun goes down and she’s staring at her blank ceiling, to give up. She sees hundreds luxuriating in their easy lives, and she sees even more suffering far more than she could ever imagine, and that is all she can think about. But this scene that is playing out before her is a reminder that the best things are yet to come. From where she stands, even with the sun blinding her, she can tell that the people before her are bringing the future. 15th February, 2019. A red plaque sits on the side of Free Trade Hall in St Peter’s Square, Manchester. It is almost unnoticeable to a passer-by, barely a blemish on the wall. But once you know it’s there, and why it’s there, it’s impossible to miss. Just down the road, hundreds of
