By 14:30 the gathering had taken shape. The triangular shape of Plaza Centenaria. Thousands of people standing side by side on the copper-red cobblestones under the hammering Sun of early afternoon. Thousands of legs, arms and heads stuck together in a human shield to protect their most valuable right. Thousands of hearts beating simultaneously their love, their fear, their hope to overcome their greatest enemy. Thousands of eyes looking in the same direction, trying to figure out the best way to reach their ultimate destination. Thousands of voices singing the same slogans, hoping the power of their words would knock down their biggest obstacles. Thousands of attuned souls trying to understand how they got there, dreaming the same dreams of freedom, joy and peace.
Around them, the walls of the centenary building of the Town Hall and thousands of cops arranged in two neat rows encircling the square. The riot-equipped riot-squads: blackjacks, body armour, wired helmets, guns, tear-gas, handcuffs, anger and an unconditional and blind obedience to any instruction emitted by any immediate superior.

Habib was amongst the first ones to take control of Plaza Centenaria. He was, in fact, the second person to arrive there just after his friend Berthe to whom he had given rendez-vous for breakfast at eight thirty that morning. They had sat in the middle of the square where a sign, engraved on a small, triangular gold plaque read: ‘Hic Dies Irae Confecit’ -Here ended a day of anger. Berthe explained to Habib what he already knew about the inscription. She recounted how the architect, Romuald C., had caught his wife and his wife’s lover in their bed one morning. She told him how he had shot them both in the head more than twelve times. He listened to how, high on hallucinogenic drugs and galvanised by hatred for humankind and the rest of the Universe, Romuald had run to the middle of Plaza Centenaria, and pinned the plans for the new Hall he had been chosen to design to his chest with a thirteen inch-long kitchen knife. And how, while suffocating slowly, using his blood as ink and his forefinger as nib, he had written this phrase on a flat stone: ‘Hic Dies Irae Confecit’. When he was found in the morning he was dead, frozen and covered in snow. The map on his chest was barely readable unlike the blood-painted message on the floor, which somehow, looked intact.

They had had breakfast while they talked about the books they were reading and the films they had seen the night before. They had laughed a lot and thought about kissing and making love and leaving together to live together and have lots of children and all, several times each. But none of them had mentioned any of that. While she told him how happy she was that her literature studies were very interesting and that she was doing quite well, he pictured them on a king-sized, white bed in an immense bedroom with massive, sliding glass doors overlooking the beach where their five sons and five daughters were building sand castles and throwing Frisbees.
When he told her how wonderful it would be if they could find a way to eliminate money, work, religion, frontiers and weapons, she imagined him coming inside her for the second consecutive time, kissing her, caressing her nose and lips and forehead while, on the beach under their massive white bedroom, their six daughters and four sons would be throwing Frisbees and building sand castles. They had smiled and touched hands, always softly.

Gradually more people arrived and invaded the square. Habib and Berthe were almost disappointed the demonstration would actually happen because their dream of king-sized bed and children on the beach were replaced by the faces of caged, moustached, angry armed men.
They could hear, a couple of metres behind them, a group of teenaged voices singing John Lennon’s ‘Give peace a chance’ accompanied by a teenaged guitar. The air was charged with thick, white smoke emanating from huge spliffs and bongs, and rapid, festive beats flowing out of huge djembes and congas.
They could also hear a few steps in front of them, a conversation between two cops.
‘What the fuck are those little brats doing here? Saving the World singing songs, for Heaven’s sake!? Shouldn’t they be at school? Where the fuck are their parents, for Christ’s sake!?’
‘I bet your ass their folks are a bunch of bearded pot-head hippies with no TV!’
They said.
‘And look at this monkey-face. Who the hell does he think he is coming here telling us what’s wrong in our country? I think he should get his Algerian ass back to his jungle and burn down those fucking mosques.’
‘I think he’d be better off dead.’
‘Just wait for the signal, pal. And we’ll beat the shit out of ’em all.’
They also said, staring at Habib, well aware he could hear everything.

Berthe had grabbed Habib’s hand long ago and squeezed it as hard as she could. They looked each other in the eyes and smiled. He said ‘It’s all right’, stepped forward, leaned forward and put his lips on hers. She closed her eyes, breathed loudly and licked his lips with her tongue.

The drums, the guitar and the teenaged voices were soon after drowned in the cacophony of the synchronised clacking of thousands of pairs of black, shiny, leather boots, which preceded the synchronised banging of thousands of blackjacks against thousands of bullet-proof shields. The white, thick marihuana fumes were rapidly replaced by tear-gas.

The triangle lost shape and distorted instantly when the first line of cops started to trot forward protesters who immediately started to run.

Habib and Berthe ran together, their hands tangled up and their T-shirts over their noses and mouths to avoid inhaling tear-gas. They heard cops’ bats crack against rioters’ backs and skulls, women scream, children cry, their hearts pounding harder than ever before, the blood pulsating in their temples and then nothing. A cool and quiet street shaded by high, sparse centenary pines. They fell on each other in a powerful embrace, panting for air, giggling nervously. She passed a hand through his hair, he caressed her nose and forehead. She put her feet on his to put her lips on his. Tongues flirted with teeth. All around them people were running, screaming and throwing stones and molotov cocktails at running and screaming and blackjacking cops. In the shadow of the centenary tree, on their just-discovered island of love, they were deaf to the struggles of the World. Nothing could break the symbiosis.

Nothing but the voices of three Perfectoed skinheads walking toward them. ‘I’m gonna trash your motherfucking Arab face, you fucking rat!’ ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, monkey-face?’ ‘Do you fuck him, you slut?’ They closed down on them. Laughing. Spitting.
When they were close enough, Habib shouted at Berthe to run –‘Run! Run, now! Run!’- and threw the first punch in the face of Toby, the biggest of the three. Fists, heads and feet flew and landed randomly on noses, eyes, stomachs and knees. When the sirens came too close and a police car parked at the end of the street, those who could run ran away. Habib didn’t. He didn’t move from his foetal position. He listened to the birds and tried to move what used to be moveable. His legs and arms responded. His head ached badly. One of his fingers was abnormally blue and swollen. The descending sun finally made his way through the thick branches of the old trees, and gently licked his open eyebrow, his bleeding cheekbone, his slit lips. It felt good.

He was glad it was over and thought about Berthe, on her own in the middle of chaos. He thought about getting up and catching up with her to make love to her but a shadow flew past over him slowly. A tall, big, threatening shadow. A Toby kind of shadow. Like the shadow of a huge, hungry scavenger flying over a vulnerable injured prey. A nazi kind of shadow. At the end of the street the sirens were still howling but the police car was empty, just parked there to block the access to this street to escaping protesters. Toby wasn’t satisfied and wanted this son of a bitch to pay for the punch he’d thrown too early. Habib closed his eyes, almost stopped breathing and waited. Toby kneeled at his side, leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, ‘If I killed you I’d do you a favour, you son of a…’
Habib grabbed the fucking nazi’s hair with his right hand and pulled it forward as hard as he could. The fat wad of shit lost balance and fell on the floor and his big, white nose crumpled on the hot asphalt. Habib pulled the head back up in the air and slammed it down on the tar repeatedly. The noise the fuck-head’s bones made as they shattered against the road gave Habib goosebumps and when the fascist head became too heavy, he let it fall on the concrete and got up. The World around disappeared, all he could see and hear was this guy on the floor twisted and wailing. The first kick he threw in the motherfucker’s back was painful. The second felt better. The third, fourth and the hundreds that followed were vengeance for having been beaten up for no good reason. Vengeance for his parents’ having been deported as cheap slaves then parked and abandoned in dirty, smelly suburbs until death saved them. Vengeance for the three-quarters of the World’s oppression and starvation. Vengeance for bringing him to extreme, uncontrolled violence.

The protesters had all gone by then. The shouting and screaming and crying and blackjacking had stopped. The only sirens still crying were those of the patrol car parked at the end of the street. Next to it, stood two cops and their two guns aimed at Habib. He looked at them with eyes begging for help. He just couldn’t stop hitting. His foot landed for the millionth time on the dead skinhead’s mashed back. One of the officers yelled something he didn’t hear. His brain refused to process any incoming information. The cops shouted again and Habib stopped kicking and stared at them, immobile, breathless and tired, then turned around and staggered away. One cop yelled one more time. Habib was trotting when the bullet grabbed him at the neck, pushed him on the floor and kept him there.

He never got back up. Just died there as the Sun set, tired of all he had seen that day.

Berthe went home safe and learned Habib’s death the next morning on the phone, from Nasser, his father.