The Bearists

“Did you get the memo that those Independence guys are blocking off the highway? It’s a mess downtown.” Kevin pushed through the front door to the Irvine office.

“I heard, I heard,” Irene answered.

“What do you think the context is this year? Are they rallying for a military breakaway this year, take the borders—“ He smirked and shook his head.

“What swarm?” Eric’s curious.

“Those Bearist people that walled off some part of Anaheim?” Irene with a furrowed brow. “Yelling ‘resist’?”

“Bearist. Bear Flag? Those guys? Weren’t they calling for jobs and for the feds to stop taking their homes and stuff?” Eric perked up.

“Mm-hmm. But make no mistake, they want out of the United States. They want to secede.” Kevin sat down at the roundtable opposite Eric. “They’ll never come out officially that they want their own country.”

A black-jacketed Bearist was seen shielding a plainclothes protestor as an American flag-wearing law enforcement officer was able to pull out his handcuffs.

“Not sure about their agenda. It could be one of their chapters going away from their main program. There’s always a few.”

“Calling for ‘independence and breakaway’, what else? All secretly, of course, like we wouldn’t notice." Kevin’s eyes darted around the room. “Ah, you have the newsreel on.”

The few in black uniforms with the same gold bear that emblazoned the state flag that were brave enough to rush the front line were summarily pushed back. They landed on their backs and one appeared to have the back of his head hit. One officer with an American flag patch yanked out his can of pepper spray to a receding crowd. Some on the other end drew their guns at the wave of incomers but it was not enough to stop them. A camera pointed at the makeshift badge of San Diego Third next to an American flag on a young man’s blazer.

The black-clad Bearist on the ground focused all his attention on the embroidered rectangular flag patch on the sleeve of his fully-black jacket, the white shirt inside more exposed as one of the buttons holding the jacket together was torn off in the scuffle. He hastily brushed the dirt off of it, made sure the maple brown-colored bear in the center was clear of soil before he gritted his teeth and lurched at the enforcer, and three, wearing casual clothes, only earmarked by the same Stars and Stripes on their collar.

“We Scouts will not let you destroy our California!” A loud crack was all that was heard before the camera cut away.

The camera angles switched and soon there was a birds-eye view over the entire city, entirely in chaos. The surface of the ground was dotted with the belongings some had left or fled from. In parts of the image where there was no clearly visible conflict, there is an apparent rife of tension that has arisen out of fear and frustration.

Two giant flags affixed to flagpoles were seen. A peculiar variant of what appears to be the Californian state flag, with no text, the bear in Maple Sugar was made more minimal and enlarged so much the tuft of green grass was removed and it was standing directly on top of the red stripe. The star in the top-left corner was made larger and turned the same color as the bear. The bear’s snout seemed to be angled upward so as to appear that it’s sniffing, or at least, trying to touch the gold star with its nose. Most strikingly, instead of a white background, the flag was instead set with a light blue background.

The exact one on the Scout’s sleeve.

“We can no longer trust the Federal Government! They’ve taken my home and are refusing to pay for it! The Eminent Domain Amendment is an affront to property rights! We don’t forget that they forced us to Santa Cruz, and put us directly at tsunami alley! They’ve beaten us to within an inch of our lives, yet we remain here!” An African-American’s shrill cry of protest was picked up by the aerial cameras that lowered closer to the skirmish. She had a similar-looking bear pin pinned to her chest. “We demand jobs! We demand our own right to exist! We demand our own destiny! We reject this federal control over our lives! We reject this reign of terror by Johnson’s Unionist goons!”

“They wanted this way out. They can’t trust Washington anymore.” Eric raised his tone feebly in fear of being shoved back down for alleged immaturity.

“What they are arguing about has nothing to do with us. Really we are dragged down along with them. We’ve stayed for centuries. Nothing we can do.”

Irene and Eric ignored Kevin and continued to stare at the screen.

“You know, they might come up with some weird official excuse with it. Maybe, the civility that has brewed into this fire or some odd language. They love their theatrics.”

Cars went alight as the traffic was completely shut down to stop the influx of people for the authorities to exercise crowd control. Both sides were persistent. Both water and pepper spray jets partially dispersed some of them, but that only caused them to split up.

Irene swiped left on her wrist. The image disappeared.

“Let’s go get some bite. Just ignore whatever this is.”

The outside air cut into their faces. The sky lost its warmth, and was replaced by the raging threat of rain. The small houses and structures mirrored the clouds in color. The deli brought the only hint of color to this environment.

The door rotated its hinge clockwise as they walked on near it, folding it itself of the store where the three strolled into. On better days, the staff might take the initiative to greet the guests, perhaps as a formality. The quiet city had an intangible tension in the air.

“Find a seat. I’ll meet up with you.”

They split ways. Kevin let out a yawn in front of the empty cashier desk. The metal payment terminal laid dead on the counter. A worker walked to the counter after much deliberation.

“Can I get you something, sir?”

“The check, please.”

He held out his wrist over the counter and had her examine the transcript. The woman slowly retreated back into the kitchen enervated, clicking on a few buttons on the side of the automatic cookers at the back end.

Normally he would have taken issue at the relative inattentiveness he had received, but the desolation that blanketed Lakewood. Indeed, it was a suburb, yet the emptiness was odd even in this setting. The only distinct sound was the low drone of the mechanics as it churned out preprogrammed food items.

The staffer came back with a cookie platter sided with a nutty candy bar. Kevin’s film processed the transaction, and when it’s complete, he silently took the tray back to their table.

Eric snapped the dough in half. The snapping was mostly silent, save for the crumbs that rained down onto the gloss sheet beneath the pile.

“It’s not even warm.” Kevin was drained of any slight hint of enthusiasm. “It’s like someone just took it out of a fridge and let it sit for a minute.”

“Okay, Kev, what is going on?” Irene swallowed the last bite of an extra butter cookie. “The stuff on TV was bothering you, fine. Then we came to grab a bite because we’re all hungry. Tell me.”

“I want to keep this to myself.”

Eric’s heart sank a little as he felt that a quarrel will take place.

“Is it because of, you know, that footage we’ve been watching?” She skillfully dodged what might be sensitive to him.

“I don’t know.” Kevin broke another open with his front teeth. “Suppose.”