Andre's Run
trigger warning: violence
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At the steps of the city library, Andre was too busy telling the lady to his right that he was the next coming of Jesus Christ to notice the four people to his left putting out their arms and telling him to calm down. Nor did he notice the three teenagers behind them, recording what he would call his teachings.
With outstretched palms, he explained it all: “You see, Jesus wasn’t just one man. He was a collection of holy men that saw a hopeful path of righteousness for humanity! In time, Ghandi was Jesus. Martin Luther King Jr. was Jesus! The Dalai Lama is Jesus! I. Me. I am Jesus! What you need to hear is this, my people! Love for all! Spread and give love! And love you shall receive!”
With his grandiose thoughts racing out of his mouth, Andre didn’t register the look of terror in the lady’s face, standing there right in front of him, pleading with him to calm down.
The more she bawled for him to go, let’s please go, the more he amplified his rhetoric.
To get away from her clutching hands and the gathering crowd, Andre ran up the library’s front steps and climbed one of the statues standing watch over the square.
Perched on the shoulders of some guy who was immortalized in statue form, thinking of course there’d be thousands of statues of him some day, now safe from the poking and pleading hands of the crowd congregating round him, Andre continued his sermon: “My sisters, my brothers, what I’m telling you, what I’m telling all of you, is that there is no reason to fear. Judgement Day is here, and I judge thee divine! You have no fault for the sins of your life. You’ve been dealt a poor hand and all that is now over! Now go, be free, and, so long as it harms no other life, do what makes you happy!”
The lady that was now at the foot of the statue, crying up to Andre, was his mother. “Andre please,” she begged emptily under the boom of his shouts. “You’re not well. We need to go home. Honey, you’re making a scene.”
That, Andre heard. From atop the shoulders of giants, he looked down upon her. “A scene!? You want a scene!? I’ll show you a scene!” Andre ripped off his shirt and flung it around his head as he yelled, ever louder: “Hear ye! Hear ye! My fellow people. Hear ye! You are all saved! I have risen!”
At this point, dozens of cameras held by insensible bodies were livestreaming Andre’s manic proclamations.
Andre went on for a few minutes saying more or less the same circular thing. He could have kept going on and on, but soon, four police officers arrived on the scene.
The officers, upon seeing the deranged lunatic, gave one another vigilant glares. One radioed in for more assistance. The four of them approached the crazy dangerous man with extreme caution. They were like toy soldiers, all in the same position. One hand over an unclipped holster, the other hand outstretched in front of them, trying to show some semblance of: please calm the fuck down sir, do not escalate.
Now sitting with his legs wrapped around the statue’s neck, holding on to its head, Andre took note of the officers’ presence. He stopped talking and hurled a maniacal smile down their way, thinking he was expressing the platonic ideal of warm and friendly nonverbal greetings.
“Son, we’re gonna need you to calm yourself, come down from there, and come with us,” one of the officers said.
In response, Andre made a quick decision. He leapt down from the statue, and bolted away toward the street.
When his mother saw the cops chase after her boy, she yelled desperately, hopelessly after them: “He’s bipolar! He’s unarmed! Don’t hurt him!”
But the cops didn’t hear her.
The cops gave chase, tackled Andre to the ground, and when he struggled to get free against the weight of three men on his back and legs, the fourth cop got there and grabbed him by the roots of his hair and slammed his forehead into the pavement.
Andre’s skull fractured and he never spoke again.