Paris Black Star

The flag featured vibrant red and green colours against a backdrop of a bandana-wearing cartoon woodpecker, pointing a revolver. The words read “1871” and “Antifascist Hooligans”. Archie watched it swirl hypnotically with the other flags while he applauded the supporters, his arms raised above his head. After each game they would go over to the fans and have the same exchange before they returned to the dressing room. Tonight they had won so they would stay longer than some nights, and listen to the fans songs about all sorts; the club history, the supporters, the players, the trophies, and the local area.

There were only about 600 people in the ground in total, and at this level it was one of the few clubs with many supporters, but it was an old club, older than the revolution. One or two of the players were really good, and had come to play for the club with the aim of transforming it to former glories.

The end of game rituals were by now routine, nevertheless he felt nervous. It meant that the next game now was the big one, the rivalry with a team that had renamed themselves after the ancient memory of the empire. It had been a while since anyone had died at one of these games, but they still carried the reputation; besides which Archie had never played in the fixture.

His phone was buzzing, a call from his mother. Shit he muttered to himself and scooped into a quiet corridor to take it. He hadn’t told his family that he was playing for Arkadia, and truth be told he had never planned to. He wanted to play for the team of his commune, and it shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was. Some of his team mates were shouting and whooping as they went into the tunnel behind him, and he waited for them to pass. He prayed to God first and then he took the call. She wanted to know how he was, and he said he was good. She wanted to know what he done over the weekend and he said he had played football with some friends. She asked him when he was going to meet them at Hamilton Hall for King’s Day. Shit, of course.

As he shuffled to his place in the team’s changing rooms the conversation was already onto the next match. There was a nervous energy. They’re going to talk about this forever Archie realised, as they started to argue about the Accords of the Revolution. He stuffed his kit into his bag and took a very quick shower. The debate was ongoing, but the discussion had moved on to the more practical matter of preventing the fash from entering the ground. Thankfully he was able to bail out of the dressing room without too much hassle on the excuse of a “family thing”.

It took him only twenty minutes to drive to Hamilton Hall, a one-hundred year old relic of Babylon’s glorious industrial past. The pub was a pillar of his childhood and their community, and in spite of any resentment he felt the familiar warm glow as he entered. There were sixty or so people here, all familiar faces. The tables were arranged around the central stage, with the bar in the central island and accessible from all sides. They were taking it in turns to make speeches and sing songs to the piano. A man with an alcoholic’s belly and swollen features was speaking. He had been close friends with Archie’s dad, but they had fallen out because he’d stolen from his uncle, or something.

“Before this country went to the dogs, people worked for a living!… Some of us” Archie vaguely remembered being scared of this man as a kid. His joke about the Catholics got a laugh. “Not that lot from across the road!” his whisky sloshed into the air. Archie was stood next to the bar and found a whisky had been placed beside him. The lady behind the bar winked, a friend of his aunt’s… Sophie. Archie gestured thank you and took a sip.

“Long time no see” Sophie remarked, in a hush voice to avoid disturbing Iain’s speech. “Yeah!” Archie agreed awkwardly. “When was your last meeting?” “Oh… I dunno. Feels like yesterday though!” he lied. “In spite of everything, of all the attempts to shut us down” she said, passion heavy in her voice. “We survive!” They toasted.

And it was true, Archie was genuinely proud of some of what they had done together in the church, what his parents had done. The feeling of holding your own produce in your hands, aubergine, tomatoes, courgette and lettuce, or of eating a meal you helped cook for a hundred people, all the work they had done to help recover and protect the local countryside and adapt it to changing climate… filled him with an immense pride. On the other hand there were the Orange marches, the King’s Day race riots. The arson attacks. Seeing his uncle getting beaten up.

His eyes wandered to the portrait of the emperor, in his youth some forty years ago, the now long-lost crown still on his head. Archie had gotten to sit on the throne once, but a lot of people had. He got the impression that the man in the portrait was grinning at him.

“To the King!” went Iain’s toast. “The King!” echoed sixty voices, glasses raised high above their heads. The last toast was the brick that flew through the window.