The Most Galvanising Photo of 2019
“Edward!” a whisper screamed out of the doorway of the dark sitting-room. Edward Snowden was sitting on the settee, which would be facing a TV if they had had one. TV sets being the notorious wire-housing devices that they are, were not a luxury the United Corporations of America’s most wanted could afford. In the TV’s stead sat a Macbook, in front of Edward, on a small table. It was the only source of light in the room, save Moscow’s moonlight. The voice belonged to Suzie Dawson, an Australian WikiLeaks’ contributer & fellow exile.
“They got him. The Metropolitan police dragged him out of the Ecuadorian embassy. They got him, Edward. They’ve arrested Julian Assange.”
Edward did not stir. He sat there still absorbed with the developments revealed on his screen & brought to life with words from the darkness on the other side of the room.
A deafening silence followed. Suzie stood, rooted to the spot, waiting for who knows what, just waiting. Hearing her own words were just as sobering & paralysing to her as they were to the other occupant in the room.
“I don’t believe it” The silence had been broken by Edward in a quiet voice that echoed off the walls of the minimalist space. His voice was always quiet, & it always echoed. Like a refrain he repeated the same words with the same indignation, yet with lessened incredulity each time: “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.”
Suzie finally left her spot in the doorframe to join Edward on the settee. She studied him in a manner that one does in emotional situations, in that familiar way that people do when they show their emotional support & attention to another distraught party. But it was more than that. She was using this socially-sanctioned opportunity, as she had done often in the past years since she first met him, only days after arriving in Moscow, to caress his fine features with her gaze. He always wore that forlorn, melancholy expression; this time mixed with more concentration & a less oneiric quality than usual. His large, dark, friendly eyes, his modest fringe – he was a very aesthetically pleasing man, though she would not admit, even to herself, that she was falling for him. She just appreciated him from a distance. In the last years, that distance had been shrinking, drawing them closer to one another. At this moment they were closely flanking one another, his eyes still fixed on the screen, hers still regarding him. His hands were tightly clasped together, he drew them up, resting his thumbnails on his bottom lip. He exhaled; the air slowly straining out of his lungs, through his nostrils, that lacked any of the conventional ease that characterises a common sigh. It would not, in that moment, have felt wrong to wrap a supporting arm around him, or for him to lean into her, except for the fact that it would be quite the jump in physical intimacy that had yet to be crossed between them.
“The man saved my life. I wish there was a way for me to repay the debt.”
“Speaking of paying debts, the IMF pardoned 4 billion dollars worth of Ecuador’s debt. Ola Bini has been arrested in Ecuador too, though I assume Julian’s bounty would be the greater share of the 4 billion. In this sick, capitalist circus that we live in, Assange is the premium product while Bini is sitting in the reduced bin.” She knew it was macabre of her to say, but that had become the tone, living, as they did, away from everyone & everything they held dear, for as long as they had.
“The Ecuadorian people have been protesting ever since, yet mainstream outlets don’t covered it.”
“The protests are on a global level. But now that the UK has their mittens on Julian Assange, every 3-letter agency is going to be interrogating the crap out of him.”
“4 billion dollars… What wouldn’t someone be willing to do for that amount? If Julian is worth over 4 billion, what would you estimate the price on my head to be?”
He turned to her, bringing their faces unexpectedly close. She did not flinch away, or move back in a less awkward way than a flinch would have afforded. She stayed exactly the same distance that had felt a congenial only moments earlier, but now racked her nerves with teenage-like angst.
She chose to play it cool, not letting her body betray her. So after a moment of considering his rhetorical question, Suzie responded with a glib: “A handsome ransom”. She dared not break eye-contact, as that would colour her words with more flirtatious undertones than she had wished for. However, her body, screaming for a visible outlet of the feelings bubbling to the surface within her, fuelled by the prolonged eye-contact Edward unceasingly maintained, relieved some of the pressure against her will – she swallowed. Close proximity alone is a key to becoming privy to another’s feelings, but at this moment she was an open book & she knew it. The light from his screen shone on them like a spotlight, the darkness around them obscured the rest of the world. There was nothing else, just the two of them, just this moment. Then the screen went dark, the device had gone into sleep-mode. The book was closed. He broke off the eye-contact, withdrawing once more into a world of his own. Emptiness.
It felt as though the walls were closing in, now more than ever. It was almost on a daily basis that some military-action by the coalition governments, Israel or NATO were taking place, closer & closer to the Russian border. All it took was a regime change in Ecuador to get Julian’s refugee status revoked. Russia was becoming more & more open to corporate corruption & cultural imperialism. How long would it be before the government succumbed altogether, either externally via an invasion, or internally via a coup attempt? The only thing that alleviated the stress of this claustrophobic existence was the company. At least they had one another. The fear they shared melted away when in the presence of one another.
In the coming days, hope had crept by inches into their hearts. At first it could not be explained by either of them, but eventually they recognised it was down to a single image: a photograph taken on the day of Julian’s arrest. The image depicted Julian’s optimistic, winking face in the back of a MET Police van. It was an image of Che Guevara-esque proportions, that inspired a new hope, a new belief in the living legend that is Julian Assange. The image, now in poster form, soon adorned the otherwise barren walls of their flat, acting as a constant reminder of their very pressing & impossibly-ambitious quest: freeing Julian Assange, freeing Chelsea Manning & bringing them home; the only viable home for outlaws & hindsight’s heroes: The Mother Russia of Exiles.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/bfomlm/whistleblowers_chapter_1_unrequited_romance_tease