Page 15 of Longing for Liberty

“No,” the man said sternly. “It’s by name.”

“Please?” I begged.

“I said no , lady.”

“Okay, all right, take it easy,” Jeremy said, putting an arm around me and glaring at the man, who leaned to the side to look past us.

“Move along! Next in line!”

Annoyed, we stepped aside, and I handed Clara back to Paola, hugging her again, and then Damari.

The air was thick with stressed energy as we said our goodbyes and see-you-soons, heading to our bus numbers and wondering where they might take us.

This was crazy. Everything felt wrong. I understood that bombs had dropped, and we were supposedly under attack, but why the sense of hostility?

My body hunched forward on the bus, my face in my hands, panic tearing through me like a live, rabid thing. My stomach was so knotted that my ab muscles ached as if I’d been beaten. Jeremy rubbed my back, whispering things like, “It’s okay. We’ll be back home soon. The kids are safe. Just breathe.”

Yes. I had to speak positive affirmations to myself because anxiety was throwing worst-case scenarios at me from every direction.

I finally calmed enough to sit up and look outside at the busy parking lot.

I wasn’t sure why armed personnel were everywhere, half of them in plain clothes, or how there were so many of them gathered on such short notice.

I guess to keep the peace if people freaked out about the attack?

But their presence definitely wasn’t calming.

A couple with three kids was checked off and pointed toward the bus in front of ours. The woman after them was pointed to the bus on the side of Damari and Paola’s. This went on for a few groups, and I noticed something.

All of the people being directed to buses on the other side were…not white. A quick scan of our bus found us all to be white. But there was no way…I was being paranoid, right?

I tapped Jeremy’s shoulder to make him look out the window—he was fiddling with his phone.

“Are they separating us by race?” I asked him. He leaned over me, and other people turned to look, too. Sure enough, white people to one side, everyone else to the other. A blinding fear lanced through me.

“What the hell?” Jeremy murmured.

“Why are they doing that?” I asked, fear ratcheting my voice higher. I got to my feet, staring out, willing them to prove me wrong. A Filipino family was next…and was pointed toward the non-white bus. “This is wrong!” I shouted.

Jeremy gently took my arm. “Libby.”

“Shut up, lady!” shouted the man in front of us, who’d turned to yell at me. “There’s a fucking war going on, in case you didn’t notice! Let them do their job!”

Jeremy stood now, too, saying, “Don’t tell her to shut up. She has a right to be worried.”

“They’re segregating people!” I tried to get past Jeremy, but he grabbed my waist now. “Stop!” I pushed at his hands. “We have to stop them?—”

A child on the bus started to cry as some people stood and started shouting, arguing with one another.

I looked at Jeremy. “What about Damari and Paola? What if something bad happens?”

He didn’t deny it or try to downplay how strange this was. He looked out the window with a crease between his eyes like he was trying to figure out what to do.

An older woman said loudly, “They probably just want people to feel safe and secure…” Her voice trailed off, and I felt my eyes bulge.

“Oh, with their own kind?” I asked. “These are our neighbors!”

“ Hey !” We all turned to the front of a bus where one of the military men stood with his massive gun held upward, finger on the trigger. “Everyone, sit down!”

People quickly sat, except me. Jeremy was half in the aisle, as if ready to run, his hand protectively on my lower back.

“What are they doing out there?” I pointed to the window. “Are they separating us by race?”

“I said sit down!” the man yelled at me, his words like a slap. “And keep your mouth shut!” He swung his gun down.

Jeremy yanked me hard by the back of the shirt, and I sat this time, my heart going faster than a spooked rabbit.

A collective gasp filled the air at the sound of gunfire close by.

One bang followed by a series of rapid shots and then screaming.

My hands went to my ears because it was so loud.

I looked outside, and a sob rose up from my soul into my throat.

The people, civilians, were fighting, and several military men were being taken to the ground by the citizens—yes!

But the other military men…they were shooting. Shooting to kill.

“Oh, my God!” I screamed and covered my eyes to block the image of blood spurting from bodies, people indiscriminately being murdered right in front of us. “ No! No! ” I screamed. Jeremy braced an arm around me and forced me to bend, covering my body with his as I wailed my fury.

“Go! Drive!” the military man on our bus shouted to our bus driver, who cranked the bus into gear as everyone on board cried and covered our heads while blasts and screams sounded from outside.

I had to look again, had to hope that the people, who outnumbered the armed men, were getting the upper hand.

The last thing I saw before we pulled away was a group of citizens rocking one of the military vehicles until it flipped. I hoped their uprising could take down the gunmen and stop the other buses. Maybe people all over the country would rise up and stop this…whatever this was.

And even then, I still hoped and told myself I was probably wrong, that it wasn’t something nefarious, that everyone was just running scared. I knew it was stupid to deny my eyes and my intuition, but hope was a strong coping mechanism.

Who would have ever expected hope to be a bad thing? Collectively, the country’s combined hope made us hesitate to fight, and that hesitation was our ruin.

I would later learn that the State Force had been quietly forming for months and had mobilized all over the country with no media coverage.

Martial Law was invoked in silence. No unarmed uprisings or skirmishes could stand against their war-grade weapons and the men who had no hesitancy to use them.