These two stories are quite similair but still very different. From an Utter! session in 2009. I really miss that group.

Smile. Look friendly and open. Be ready to engage the public. My leaflets laid out neatly trapped by paperweights to stop the wind from scattering them. Looking at all the people walking past, hopefully I will catch someone’s eye, the hours go by, I stand resolute.

This is important and can’t be ignored. Even so. Every averted gaze made by someone wanting to avoid eye contact with me or every time  someone walks past me deafly as I say hello is blow, a tiny blow, to my enthusiasm.

Climate change is what I want people to know about. I want them to know what they can do, what we can do, what we should force our leaders to do.

The police  are hovering like busybodies with nothing better to do than to make sure I’m not littering the streets with discarded leaflets.

Deep breath. I have made progress. Progress is slow. I look down at the list of emails I have collected and I feel that I have achieved something. If only one person from that list attends our meetings then that would be a victory.

It is Saturday morning. People are doing their shopping walking straight past me. THEY said I could set up my stall outside the library next to the streets preachers proclaiming the word of god and global damnation. Believing the the world is being damned is probably the only thing we have in common. There are pigeons loitering near a tree, pecking at crumbs, what a waste of food.

Different story.

There were far too few people, why did they not care? Can’t they see the suffering? Have they no empathy?

I don’t know what makes me more angry. The wholesale slaughter of those I seek to protect or the apathy this society has towards their plight.

There were only a few of us protesting. Holding our placards and chanting. Where were the journalists I wondered. I had made sure that the local newspaper was aware of our plans.

I looked at the pesticide factory. How could the people who worked there sleep at night? Finally the newspaper man arrives. He looks completely disinterested. I’ll soon change that.

I gather the few, the brave, the loving around me and begin my speech.

“Ladies and Gents, brothers and sisters, I’ve have convened us here today to so that we may say with one voice ‘No more’” I paused for applause. The gathered few cheered.
“No more slaughter, no more murder, no more killing, cockroaches have as much right to live as any other living creature”. Again I pause. The gathered few clap and hoot.