It was a few weeks ago that Mother called up her pastor to ask if there were any volunteering opportunities he was aware of. Her pastor had told her that he would get back to her. In the weeks after, Mother enjoyed her sixty-fourth birthday, went to visit her sister to catch up with her nephew, and found ways to spend time with her friends that didn’t involve charitable work; at the swimming pool, at their homes, or at church itself. She was in the line at the grocery store when her pastor called back to inform her, sadly, that the church volunteer programs were just as stalled as they had been under COVID, only now with the new challenge of rising expenses to manage it. Mother thanked her pastor and hung up, wanting to utter merde under her tongue.
She did not need this phone call to know that expenses were rising. All she had to do was look at the prices for a kilo of peaches or a bag of frozen peas, or gaze around at the people in the Carrefour who were wearing spring sweatshirts and sweaters with food stains and holes. People were not doing well, and while Belgium had not erupted into the sorts of protests that had been happening on and off in France, Mother expected them to inevitably come to this country. She joked in her mind that maybe joining the protests was something she could do in the spare time that she increasingly felt she had too much of.
It started as a joke in her mind, but then it became a fantasy. Mother imagined herself in the French May Day protests she had seen on the television, shouting at politicians to raise the minimum wage. Mother envisioned tear gas being thrown into her eyes and rubber bullets bouncing against her chest. Mother’s aura tinged with excitement at the idea, as if she were a modern rendition of Liberty leading the people, moving forward and pumping a flag in her fist even as the police tried to mow her down.
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