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Green with Envy
Winston Eastwood observed the tantalising golden medal resting in front of him. It lured him like a desperate siren.
“George Forest,” called the announcer snapping Winston out of his reverie realising that only the best and brightest could receive the prize.
“Loner!” shouted Winston as the boy walked down the stage. “Wimp, stupid, loser,” Winston propelled insults directed at the lanky boy, whilst he felt a reassuring nudge on his back.
Everyone laughed.
Winston smirked at the prize.
That night, he stamped on the tallest poppy resting on his windowsill and with that let the cluster of memories sieve out of his porous mind, which allowed him to forget that he had chosen the crowd. Forget that the boy was not indeed a loser.
***
Cold wind pierced his leathery skin as he unzipped his adidas bag and tied a black rope across his checkered apron.
Monstrous buildings towered above him and the green poster with the once frazzled boy neatly arranged in a suit. The end of his golden chain was like a phantom limb weighing down his chest with guilt. He caressed the simmering medallion It was heavy, consumed of success, overwhelming Winston with the guilty burden. He brushed a hand through his sweaty curls, plastered onto his forehead, wrinkled with years of stress.
“You’re late again Winston, make me a chai latte, skim milk and two sugars and deliver It to block 37! Pronto!” Reynolds glared at him with slate grey beady eyes.
Car horns honked furiously, pushing and heaving the heavy traffic like viscous honey. Passers by chugged coffee, gulping like savage animals. Women in tight dresses clicked their heels onto the asphalt. Their hair was tucked perfectly in symmetrical buns and the men had theirs gelled in sharp jarring angles.
A cacophony of posters polluted the streets in herds and the banners decorated the streets, dripping with green.
“Vote green. Save our world. Vote for a brighter future and vote Forest!” The jungle of clones protested in front of the voting centre in a rhythmic march.
A pamphlet slid into Winston’s hands and once a whimper, the grin stretched across the page preserving the insults he had once tortured the boy with. Buildings towered menacingly above him, puncturing the happiness from the clouds and absorbing the sun’s silver rays. They leered like spectators with ravenous hunger as early morning commuters trudged behind robotically. Their faces were encrusted with decade-old grime and suffocated between a thick blanketing haze. Winston threw the pamphlet in the recycling bin. His stocky frame blended with the harsh lines of the angry city.
Winston watched him enter the centre. Bitter bile clogged his throat.
Everything was muted, the auditorium silencing in his presence. He approached a microphone and a confident voice escaped his thin lips, crushing Winston’s dreams with every heavy step he took.
And in an instant as if seeing it all again, Winston’s mind raced back to a time in where he was nineteen. The same brown hair in a modern comb over stared back at him. A line was shaved in his part. His suit was handsomely pressed. The boy next to him also had his shirt ironed, and the same line was shaved in his part. And despite the artificial smile attached to his face, a quiver escaped his small lips. And Winston drowned. He drowned in the sea of clones surrounding him.
But a lanky boy stood out amidst the sea of sheep.
Winston looked at him, his chest constricted, his forehead damp.
The tattered jeans and outdated shag reflected in the shiny metal made it ridiculous for anyone to believe he was even associated with his man in a different time.
Clutching his sides Winston gulped for breath after sprinting out of the centre.
He tried to piece together how this could be, how such a…a loser could become something better than him. Now he didn’t have anything but the plain shards of its memory stabbing at him like a dull knife. He couldn’t recall why he had become the loser he had been trying to avoid his entire life.
The crowd of green drones followed George like unfed pets begging for attention. George’s voice droned on in the background, a slight whisper caressing him.
“Good morning my loyal supporters,
I am George Forest and, electing me will lead to drastic change in your city. I’d like to build a green wall along Sydney tower and let us Sydney-siders salvage our dying nation. I will make your health a priority, and monitor air quality readings daily.”
“We want green!” Cheered the supporters.
George rushed out of the centre heedless of the clutching hands and questioning voices, parting the sea of heads with his outstretched arms.
Hot brown liquid splashed onto Winston’s arm leaving a scalding reminder of George’s burning eyes as he was pushed over by the buzzing crowd.
“Get off me,” George sneered and the once perfect smile scowled into a bitter grimace. “And by the way don’t forget to vote for me of course,” he chuckled sardonically.
The giant billboard mocked him, and like a vicious cancer burgeoning through the city its gaze burnt Winston’s pride. But what was the use of this pride if it was going to isolate him?
Winston refused to keep such a demeaning object. He snapped the medal in his fingers and shards of yellow plastic scattered surrounding him.
Outside the voting centre red poppies emerged through the soil and their deep, rich-red petals coloured the grass.
George left as Winston observed a single green note escape his briefcase, gently landing on the tallest poppy.
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