The protesters moved down the street, pinned on each side by police and police barricades. Simon stood by the Capitol waiting for them to pass but they stopped and began to chant and crowd about the building. This is where they were going to stop and Simon cursed them. All he wanted was to move from the building to the offices across the road so he could finish his work and go home.

Simon put his hand in his pocket and made sure he had his keys. They weren’t there. He could not remember where he put them.

“You…” a policeman said coming up the stairs toward him. “Do you work in there?”

“Yes,” Simon answered without thinking.

“You had better get back inside, these protests are becoming ugly. They’re looking to attack people like you.”
“Like me?”
“People who work in this building.”
‘I have to get across the street”
“You can’t, not at the moment. Look how many protesters there are.”
Simon looked out from the steps at the thousands of people on the street. Some of them were wearing masks and they looked scary.

The sun was hot and heavy in the western sky. Some one threw a bottle and it smashed on the stairs near the front entrance. Simon did not even move, it was as if this wasn’t real.

Simon turned and went back up the stairs to go inside but the doors had been closed and locked, the heavy metal doors that they use only after hours were also shut so that none of the glass could be broken. Now a mild form of panic crept into his mind. People were looking up at him, some of them were screaming abuse. A line of police formed on the steps, the crowds pushed against them. Simon turned and went down toward them. He came up close to them and he could hear the things they were saying. They were calling him a pig and a capitalist bastards.

“No, I won’t have that!” Simon screamed and lurched forward grabbing one of the protestors masks, he tore it lose. A young blond man stared back at him, the man’s face was twisted into hate. The crowd broke through the police line, four or five police officers fell over and the crowd surged forward trampling the police. They grabbed ahold of Simon and pulled him back into the massive crowd like an ocean dragging him down.

Fists and feet flew all about him, he could feel the wounds they were making, the injuries, the wet warm blood that came from his cool numb wounds.

“Good,” Simon thought, “I’m glad they hate me.” His last thoughts melted into the place sleep of a dying man.