Anonymous revolution

They were assembled on the borders of civilisation, rank and file arranged in battalions, battalions amassed as a legion that spread as far as an eye could see. The invisible legion; Invisible as their grey, shapeless forms blended with shadows cast by the waning moon. As invisible as an idea, coalescing with the wind.

Indistinguishable from a gust of wind through the canopy, an authoritative voice spoke.

“Are we in formation?”

“Yes, General. The anonymous legion is assembled, ready to begin the revolution.” The reply came like a sigh by the seaside, identical to the first voice yet unique and subordinate. “Each entity has the messages, they are keen.”

“Good. Good.”

The voice of authority stepped back to survey the congregated forces; the movement of a shadow of a silhouette caught in a breeze. It raised its voice to the dull roar of a waterfall, still not out of place within the surroundings of the  night.

“Invisible legion! Anonymous army of abstract concepts! Today we go to war.”

As the idea of the words passed over the illusionary semblance of the ranks, the silence that was all around transformed into a black hole for noise. In contrast, the speaker’s voice boomed into the emptiness like thunder in cloudless sky.

“We go to war against a mindset, our weapon is an idea. Each of you holds the sharpest sword ever minted, a blade that cannot be dulled regardless of how often it is used. Wield your words, your swords, and take this fight to change mindse--”

The superlative voice stopped suddenly as a ghost of footsteps approached. The sound was natural and yet artificial, the sound of a stone thrown by hand. A voice with a timbre, a personality, in perfect synchronisation with the anonymous grey hiss, spoke.

“General! I must raise my objections again. Our goal is pure, our fight is justified but we hide in the shadow, we slink through the dull tones of night.

“The message we carry is worthy, warranted and needed but why must we deliver it from beneath a cloak? Under this cover of darkness, our mission is naught but delivery of unsolicited mail. Why can we not show our faces?”

The black hole for sound had imploded, replaced by apprehensive, curious silence. Colour and faces began to flicker amongst the spectral legion — momentary phases of solidity.

“We are cloaked in shadow so that if we fail, we remain an invisible legion to wage this war again!” the figure of authority hissed.

“We should show who we are so that when we win, our victory can be celebrated. We should show who we are so that if we suffer defeat, lessons can be learned knowing who it was that fought and failed!” the voice was no longer natural, this voice was becoming real, the entity that spoke the words showed a face, became more than a shadow and stood solid, eyeing the invisible army. “I will not use this sword of words to stab from the shadows, I am going to war and I will show who I am to the mindset I fight!”

The solid figure moved beside the idea of a leader and spoke to the legions of nothingness.

“You can fight from the shadows, cowering behind a fear that your name may be attached to a failure, or you can show who you are and we can bring this revolution into reality. We will not abandon the invisible legion, we will fight alongside them, but we will fight unashamedly showing who we are!”

Across the ranks, as far as the eye could see, shadows took on forms and faces.

Now, on the edge of civilisation there stood two legions. The legion of the invisible and faceless and the legion of the solidified entities.

As one they emerged from beneath the trees to start a revolution against the pessimistic, armed with the idea of kindness.

Two parallel revolutions had begun.