Ernest Hemingway, in that clipped and unflinching way of his, is here to tell this tale straight. But first, the facts, plain and simple.
A man climbed Big Ben’s Elizabeth Tower in London, waving a Palestinian flag as he did it. The authorities didn’t take kindly to it. Once he came down, they arrested him. Now, he’s been charged. No word yet on why he did it beyond the flag, but the climb itself was bold, maybe foolish. The Palace of Westminster is no place for stunts. The clock keeps on ticking, indifferent to the man, to the law, to the cause he carried in his hands. The law has him now, though, and the story moves to the courts.
Hemingway’s Cut
The Climb
The man moved up the stone like a soldier scaling a wall. No rope, no net, only his hands and feet finding purchase on the weathered face of time itself. The city watched, some in awe, some in anger, most in indifference. London does not stop for men who climb towers. The clock hands turned just the same.
Above him, the sky stretched gray and heavy as it always did. The wind tugged at the flag in his grip, a Palestinian banner, its colors stark against the dull stone. He waved it once, twice. A message, though no one could hear him speak it.
The police gathered below, waiting. There was no need to rush. Gravity would do its work in time, or the man would come down on his own. It was always one or the other.
The Arrest
He came down. They took him. No struggle, no fight. Just the quiet inevitability of law meeting man. They charged him, though what they charged him with hardly mattered. The real sentence had already been passed. The world had seen him climb, seen him wave his flag. Some would call him brave. Others, a fool. The truth, as always, was somewhere in between.
The tower stood unchanged, the clock still turning. The city moved on, as cities do. The man sat in a cell, waiting for the next step. Perhaps he thought of his climb. Perhaps he thought of nothing at all.
The wind still blew. The clock still chimed. The world, indifferent as ever, did not stop.
