Placard

If you are going to accuse others of ignorance,

you might want to try being more careful yourself—

at least so you don’t clearly indict yourself

while trying to get attention for your rants.

____________________________________________________

Okay, so you don’t want to listen to other citizens. But at least listen to those who have worked hard to become smarter than you.

____________________________________________________

Placard

People were banging the barricades with their fists. The steel rails clanged like bells and the chants of the crowd swelled and broke in waves. The square smelled of grease from a food truck and the sugary soda drying on the pavement. A man in a trucker cap stood at the center, hoisting a corrugated placard above his head. Thick black strokes bled through the cardboard, ugly and uneven. He grinned at the cameras that turned his way.

The words read: TRUTH IS WHAT WE SAY, NOT WHAT “EXPERTS” LYE.

The letters were jagged, written in haste. The word WE was larger than the rest. The letters were gouged so deep that the cardboard had buckled around them. He had never cared for spelling: books and teachers were all “experts,” liars. What mattered was power and volume.

fdA young reporter edged closer to him, using her phone as her recording device. She had to raise her voice over the din to ask her question. “What brings you here today?”

“To stand up to lies,” he roared. He expanded his chest. “Experts are bought and paid. We know better. I’m here for the truth.” He shoved the placard toward her until it brushed her sleeve.

Phones rose above the crowd from behind her, capturing the exchange. People nearby stopped chanting when they saw they were being recorded.

He mistook the hush for awe. “See this?” He shook the placard once. “This is truth. My truth.”

His grip tightened. Ink smeared against his fingers. The reporter’s lens focussed on EXPERTS LYE.

A voice nearby said, “Spelled wrong.”

He barked back, “Spelling don’t matter. You know what it means. Don’t need no dictionary to tell the truth.”

But he caught an image of himself in one of the phone screens, cap pulled low, mouth twisted, and the oversized *WE* above the misspelled *LYE*. His grin evaporated. On the screen it looked like he was being judged.

The silence became total. Recording lights pulsed around him, but the reporter said nothing.

At last he lowered the placard. The crowd parted and went on its way. He stood there alone, holding his placard. When the reporter passed by on her way out, he was gone. His placard lay on the ground.

Later, in the newsroom, the reporter dragged one image into a folder: the placard flat on the pavement, the cardboard folded and trampled. She clicked the folder closed.

No one would look at it again.