20. Flying fish

The next day he spent most of his time reorganizing his ideas and feeling courageous about speaking up in his meeting at noon, he even asked his trainer if he thought that the board would listen to him, to which he, obviously, answered affirmatively. 

At that time in the group’s talk, when all of them talked about the same thing, he asked for more solutions or ideas, even for any other complaint they could had about the NAC. It was a useful chat, and the best when they barely said a thing regarding him.

When the meeting hour came, he felt all his bravery wavering, suddenly he didn’t want to talk with them. It was a common feeling for him, one that he thought that his speeches had already helped him to overcome. Whenever he needed to talk about something important in which his opinion was the reason, he felt anxious and the words were always stuck on his mouth, with his palms sweating and his heart beating fast.

He knew they didn’t consider him really important in the meeting, all the decisions discussed in there were already approved or disapproved, nor that he complained before because the less he wanted was to have to make such important decisions. But now he was truly hoping they’ll listen to him and took his words with seriousness.

In the end, although it was a big challenge for him, he got to talk about changing the NAC, he exposed his little knowledge about the people’s problems while hiding, so he asked if they couldn’t change the countermeasures right away, at least they should not leave the streets empty.

He asked to first decrease the time to one hour, then that the only people in the bunkers were from the cities closest to the seashores where the ship sighting happened. Before, it was an order that all the people from almost half of the island to take cover, however now that he lied saying that he was more confident in his abilities, the people in a radius of 180 kilometers were the only ones in need of hiding. In addition, he asked for the cops to patrol the streets.

All of them, him included, knew that the thieves were always smarter, they would now how to evade the police, however he convinced them that it was more for the people to know that the government cared, although he wanted the cops doing an effort.

The meeting ended with the change in the NAC approved, concerning the time in the refuges, while the rest of what was discussed still needed further consideration, which results were to be given the next week.

The protector felt relieved after that conclusion, for once he was brave enough to speak up and they, while apparently were really trying to conceal that information from him or from the people, listened and considered his ideas.

He, too, was so thankful for deciding to go to the group’s reunion the day before. If it weren’t for it, he couldn’t have felt useful. Because of that, he decided to go again to the reunion.

This time the Awkward Boy wasn’t around, so at the beginning he felt a bit off until Shonda and Hieronymus came to him, along with the same woman that in his first day asked for his opinion towards The Protector, whose nickname was Flying Fish.

That day their talk was about less relevant things, were about their daily lives, school, work and family. Because of that he had to lie a little, talk as if his activities when he was a normal person, were his yesterday’s activities. He let himself feel as a normal person again, at least for a bit.