The Paper Uprising

Amber shafts streamed through the high arched windows, lighting the suspended coins like tiny suns and setting each torn edge of parchment aglow. A heavy crate served as a pulpit, and from it a figure thrust a single sheet toward the fire of upraised hands. Those timbered walls seemed to lean inward, straining against the roar of hope. Someone yelled, softly but clear enough to carry: "We won’t stop ‘til he walks among us again." On the message board just inside the frame, a scrap tugged loose at one corner whispered its plea—*Where Vojta?* That question pulsed like a drum behind every clamor, behind every paper skittering across the floor. They said this rally was never meant for gold, despite what the coins suggested; it was payment in rumors, escape routes sketched in ink and urgency. And though the crowd surged with euphoria, no trace of him surfaced, leaving only sunlight and the restless echo of his absence.