Utopia

A collective of hearts; A community; My town.
My village of a thousand faces. Of a millions thoughts. Of infinite dreams.

My town's heart got bruised up four years ago: A bomb came and gutted its skin and unraveled its madness in the form of a bigoted tyrant. The emperor.

My town didn't see it coming. It was in a daze, for centuries. In 'Eden' of sorts. Of total naivety.
And then came the bruise, the hurt, the pain; The President in his naked vulgarity.
My town tried to shield its eyes from the horrors... but to no use. The terror infected the minds, like a virus affecting a Microsoft computer. Relentless and vengeful as if it was sitting low for centuries, like a volcano, just waiting for its time to pop. 

The town's people care about each other. We like to help each other strive and blossom. We share our hopes and dreams and white fences.... But chaos drifted us away from each other, into our own shells to try to soothe the bruise on our own.

But without the help of each other, the bruise went deep.
So deep it seemed impossible to heal, no matter the amount of bandages, of self-care that we put on it.
The bruise was simply yearning for its brothers and sisters:
'Only when we come together - the bruise could be healed.'

And so we joined forces, little by little, nod by a nod, march by march. We moved on and counted the time together, for when the pendulum would flip, and the healing could finally start.
We took a journey from young and innocent, to beaten and charged with determination:
Neighbors showed up. Showed up for each other. Exchanged gifts. Sent virtual hearts. Cheered each other on. Until our collective bruise dried enough to turn into a scar.

A scar we will hold on to and never forget.
A scar that reminds us to not let go of each other, and say goodbye to our naivety.
This is not our first scar. We have a few from earlier turmoils. Some were even deeper.
But this one... this is the one that turned our little town into a blossoming city.

And our city will remind our children of our morals, and values, and fairness, and good justice, and of equality, of peace, of all the ideas that we used to talk about so freely, and now we talk about with fear. We'll wear our scars with pride, because they shaped us to be better. To be smarter. To be mindful of the things that matter most: Each other. 

We built our town into a city of a million faces and million more thoughts.
And not one of them was of hate.
And not one of them was of bigotry.
And not one of them was of tyranny. 

This was Utopia.