She sat cross-legged, handcuffed next to the WPC’s desk.
“Name. Can I have your name please?”
Her name was Lady Justice.
She smiled at her comrades outside the Police Station. Rahul zoomed in on her handcuffs from the street with his DSLR camera.
“NAME? I haven’t got all day!” the WPC bellowed.
“Amanda Nilushi Perera,” She said snapping to attention.
The WPC scoffs and jots down the name in the entry book.
Amanda looks around at the other arrestees. None of them were overdressed as quite as her.
Amanda looks at the effects strewn on the WPC’s desk:
A plastic sword.
A plastic weighing scale.
Toy stores are the most amazing of places.
Her smartphone and a white rag smeared with mascara and deep red lipstick.
Amanda prattles off her NIC number, address, religion and all the other particulars to the WPC.
“Now then, tell me what happened today?” the WPC asks.
Amanda clears her throat.
This was it; the dress rehearsal, the first in a hundred speeches to come.
“Well me and my friends over here were protesting in front of the National Mineral Sciences and Excavation Department,” she begins.
“I was wearing this costume,” she nods at her head at the effects on the table and smiles sheepishly.
“And we were just protesting,” she continues.
Silently her smartphone starts ringing. The name Amma beams urgently on screen.
“You were just protesting…?” the WPC inquires with a raised eyebrow.
Amanda nods. She darts her eyes around the room.
Understanding the body language, the WPC cocks an ear towards Amanda.
“Those boys,” Amanda whispers. “The Communist Students’ United. They started it. They started throwing stones at the Police”.
Amanda leans back in the chair. “I was doing my protest performance. Lady Justice. You know? There is no law against that right?”
The WPC leans in. “Look nangi. Protesting is your right, but you and your friends can be looking at a charge of unlawful assembly which is a serious offence”.
Amanda sighs.
She glances up at the window and notices Rahul giving her a toothy grin.
Rahul has been hounding Amanda around with his camera since the start of the General Strike and Amanda had loved the attention, especially when she is called out to have a picture taken with a banner or a placard while all her friends are looking.
One month into the strike, Amanda had already developed a concise protest-themed wardrobe which includes an assortment of T-shirts with fists, stars, Che Guevaras and hammers and sickles printed on them in bold red. She also picked loose fitting psychedelic parachute pants from a flea market to perfect that “Art Faculty” look.
And when it came to men, Amanda had a specific pick; Sulo, the coolest guy ever and the witty host of the Public Voices vlog.
Inside the Police Station, Amanda just smiles and waves at Rahul with her handcuffed hands.
Rahul smiles back and points frantically to a group of men wearing black suits stepping through gates of the Police station.
It’s the lawyers.
Rahul mouths the words. “You will be ok”.
At the sight of their black-clad saviours, small cheers escape from the arrestees before they are all shushed by a large Police sergeant.
A half hour later, the WPC is uncuffing Amanda.
“Consider yourself lucky,” the Police woman says.
She didn’t blink.
“Don’t forget your sword and scales,” one of the lawyers chuckle.
The chuckle turns into sniggers, and then the whole station is smiling at Amanda.
She felt like the whole world was laughing at her. Foolish Amanda, shuffled into the Police van in her tacky Lady Justice costume.
Feeling wounded by the attention, Amanda grabs her little plastic sword, weighing scales and white rag close to her chest like a shield.
Laughing at justice is what this corrupt nation does best, she thought.
Those cruel sniggers from her own comrades and allies left her feeling naked.
She felt dozens of eyes scanning her body.
Ducking her head, she shuffled out of the Police station looking for Rahul to save her from this cruel world.
Rahul was taking photo after photo.
She stood a inch close to him and tilted her head up cutely, all teary eyed.
“Are you ok?” he asked, noticing her distress.
“Please take me away from all this please.”
The photographer took the swooning Amanda into a waiting tuk tuk and they were lost in the afternoon traffic.
