There's a Technician I Know

"Shut up."

The first words I uttered softly were amplified through the microphone and echoed across the square.

"Cowards."

"W-what did you say?!"

"Has he lost his mind?!"

The crowd murmured. When I should have been trying to placate them, I was provoking them instead. But I kept going, sneering at them.

"If you have the guts to shout, why didn't you use that courage to pick up a gun and fight? Where were you, and what were you doing, when your proud corps commander knelt at my feet?"

The jeers began to die down in the face of that painful truth.

"Y-you bastard…!"

A young man in the front row fumed. He looked ready to leap forward at any moment, but the military police soon shoved him back with the stocks of their rifles. Just as the atmosphere had grown as hostile as it could get, I changed my tone...