Ruination

"...who rode with such nonchalance on the high beam of uncertainty, whose life was crammed with dangers he seemed to find necessary, emerging, as if they were the fuel that made him a phoenix, ever reborn, calmly emerging from the flames."
Richard Rayner


The phone went off again, his boss, again. This time he turned the phone right off, but it was too late. Even as a security man approached him, he looked around the uniform, watched transfixed as Warren Gabriel Austin was loaded on to a stretcher; on to a trolley and towards the lifts. This man who laid claim to being the most hated man in the country; who's sonorious, comfortable, well fed tones had filled the airways while hundreds of thousands struggled to survive.

The government had never admitted fault, never changed course; as the line of darkness moved deeper into the population.

Who are you, this is a secure area, the policeman demanded. Can I see your identification please, now.

He fumbled for his wallet, said nothing. He wished he had dressed better for the day. It might have helped.

The Sergeant looked at his media identification in a funk somewhere between astonishment, outrage and anger; took down his name and the name of the company.

"Get out of this building now; stay behind the crime tape."

He put up absolutely no resistance, he had learnt that much.


THE BIGGER STORY:

Time:

On Friday Burma began to go dark. After days of the largest street protests since 1988, the ruling military junta cracked down, confronting and firing on civilians, reportedly sealing thousands of monks inside their monasteries. Lines of communication into the country were apparently being cut, with Internet cafes closed and web sites shut down, leaving Burmese exile groups and reporters starving for information...

:But while the junta can control the street, the monasteries and even the web, they can't control the sky...For the first time in Burma, scientists were able to use orbital satellites to confirm on-the-ground reports of burned villages and forced relocations of civilians by the military."