Being Red

I haven’t really done much. The least I can do is write this down while I can. I was a lazy redhead – the sloth of the world. Always feeling miserable for being born as one. The redheads are hated, expected to be lower and worthless, and considered the pimple of society. I always blamed society.
“Why didn’t I make my ping pong team?”
I don’t know. Maybe because I am a redhead. Not because I suck at it. 
“Why did I get caught doing drugs?”
Because I am a redhead. 
The world had convinced me of it as well. They said that society made me what I am. That it wasn’t my fault.
Yesterday, I sat on the street without a job.
Today, I am listening to how we redheads are condemned at every step of our lives.
Tomorrow, I will be holding a gun to the chest of some bluenette who harmed a red.
Robbie, my boyfriend, was killed a week ago. He was talking to a girl, helping her out with directions apparently, when two brunettes caught hold of him and shot him dead. The law, had bent for them and the two walked home.
“If it was a couple of redheads, they’d probably be in some deep, secret pit by now.” Keith said. Keith was the protestor – the one who cried out for the atrocities we faced.
I waited on the street, tonight. Keith had gotten me everything I needed. I was high, angry and ready to kill. Or so I believed.
I saw the two blackies walk past me. I became their shadow. I saw them enter a quiet house. Soon after, I broke in with the gun in the air. It was supposed to be a sacrifice. Two shots and one to myself.
“AN OUTCRY FROM THE REDS!” the headlines would read.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I commanded them to sit down. They were smart men, who knew there was no escape from the gun. They obliged.
I needed to know that I was dying for a cause. That they hated me and my kind. That I was dying because of them.
“Why did you kill him?” I asked.
“Ma’am. If you would please…”
“Shut up and just tell me why you did it!”
“We didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Oh! You didn’t mean to, huh?” I shot the silent one with my doubtful finger.
“I didn’t mean to kill him, either.”
The talkative one grew nervous seeing his bloody, dead friend.
“Why did you do it, you bastard?!”
“He was trying to mug a girl!”
“What?!”
“We were walking on the street when we saw him drag her from across.”
Robbie was never a good guy. I had always known it. He had those eyes – green ones. I didn’t really care for him. He was perfectly capable of doing what the brunette had said and more.
“He pulled out his gun at us. My friend had to shoot him.” the man cried.
Things aren’t always as they seem. Robbie did that crime. Not a redhead. It was Robbie who was killed. Not a redhead. The protests and marches were now redundant to me. I had lived a false life.
Many redheads do suffer but Robbie didn’t. Many redheads are oppressed but not Robbie. The redheads do get killed for being so. But Robbie wasn’t. Robbie was a farce. A false flag representing the injustice and hatred to the redheads.
I can see the future. Keith will call the cops on me. He will hire me a bad lawyer. I will be taken to prison, known as the red who put down two blackies. They will hate me there.
“Murdered Redhead’s Girlfriend, Takes Revenge!” 
“INJUSTICE TO THE REDS, AGAIN!” 
“Woman claims justice for murdered redhead.” 
But I will not be a false flag.
– Sarah Agrella