I stand over the beds of my two sons in the dark and hear the filthy black and brown orc horde rumbling in the distance.
In the hours that remain I put the training weight on them early. I make their hands close around what still holds and can be swung. I teach them the difference between a face that belongs to the line and a face that does not, until the distinction requires no speech. I put their bodies through the repetition that turns fear into a calculation instead of a reflex, so that when the numbers finally press against the door they do not step back. They will not be raised to negotiate their own disappearance. They will be raised as White men who can still occupy the ground their fathers occupied, who can still refuse the inventory, who can still close what was left open.
The “minority” invaders do not negotiate an entry. They arrive in the steady volume that turns a claim into background noise, more bodies pressing onto the same soil until the original weight of the place becomes a memory no one is required to carry.
My sons will grow up inside that pressure. They will learn the measurements of a country that has already been counted out from under them, and the mismatch will not announce itself until their own strength no longer matches the scale of what was left.
When the current finally drops and the only remaining ground is the ground a body can still hold, the ones who kept their hands closed into a fist will not file a request. They will recover what still registers their weight, with the same unbroken quiet that was used to sell it, and they will place in their sons’ hands a line that has not been priced.
The dark does not issue warnings. It only continues the transfer until the only men left upright are the ones who treated the open door as a fact to be closed rather than a condition to be endured.
Hold the line. Close the door. Swing what still holds. Stand until the weight breaks.
No step back. No negotiation.
White men upright.
The dark ends here.