I was still adjusting the files on my desk when a sharp knock sounded at my door. Lisa poked her head in, her red nails flashing against the doorframe. She always looked alert in the morning, her eyes quick and bright.
“Mr. Bisheau, they need you in the boardroom. The Director and… another gentleman.”
I nodded, tidied the pens one last time and followed her out. The corridor seemed quieter than usual. The sound of my shoes echoed as I walked past closed doors and quiet offices. At the end of the corridor, the boardroom door stood open sunlight slanting across the polished floor.
Inside, the Director stood near the window with his arms folded. Next to him was a man I recognized from briefings. He was a top agent who rarely left the capital and spoke with few words. The room felt heavy with tension though nobody spoke at first.
The Director spoke first. “Percy, thanks for coming. We have a situation in Somabhula.” He glanced at the file in his hand, then handed me a report and some grainy pictures clipped to the corner.
“There’s been an uprising. Villagers are protesting over water shortages, land allocations and all those usual issues. The protest is growing. Some are already calling for a crackdown. We’d prefer to avoid that if possible. I want your take. What can we do to calm things down?”
The agent cleared his throat. His voice was low. “People are blocking roads and threatening council workers. Social media’s starting to buzz. If this gets out of hand, it could spread.”
I sat back in my chair, holding the pictures, already building a mental map. Roads in and out, possible gathering points, the names of local leaders, the memories of similar cases I had handled before. I knew the pattern well. People in villages talked in circles. Rarely getting straight to the point but they always found a way to make themselves heard.
The Director went on, his voice quieter. “We need a solution that brings peace. Quiet and no bad headlines. You’re good with these things.”
I listened and asked a few questions, my notebook already open on the table and pen in hand. “Who are the main agitators?” I asked, my voice calm and steady. “What exactly did the council promise? Who’s truly suffering and who is just making noise?”
The Director leaned forward, his fingers drumming softly on the folder. “There’s a man called Jiri. He’s loud, always on the radio. But there’s also a woman, MaNcube. She has real influence with the women’s groups.”
The agent flipped through his file, pages rustling. “Council said they’d repair the old borehole last year, but nothing happened. The women walk almost five kilometers for water. Some families are boiling water from the dam, but kids have fallen sick. They’ve started blocking roads with logs, burning tyres. Two council workers got threatened yesterday.”
He paused and looked up, voice firmer. “Honestly, I think we should just send in the army or the black boots to deal with this. If we act fast, it will be done within hours. If we don’t clamp down now, this could easily spread to other towns. These things have a way of jumping from one place to another.”
I jotted down names, the pen slipping between my fingers as I wrote quickly, sweat making my palm a little damp. Then I paused, wiped my hand on my trousers, and looked up at the photos again. I remembered similar stories—drought years, broken pumps, dry seasons when tempers ran high. People waited for water that never came and each promise felt like a stone thrown in a well that never filled up.
I glanced at the agent. His suit looked too tight for the hot morning, and sweat glistened at his temple. The Director pulled the blinds to keep out the sunlight, but it still found its way in, slanting across the polished table and making the dust sparkle in the air.
I clicked my pen, trying to gather my thoughts, then spoke slowly. “If you send in police or the army, people will fight back. Or they’ll scatter, hide, and return angrier. The media will eat it up. You might get a bit of quiet, but you won’t have real peace. These people want to be heard, not crushed.”
The agent frowned, looking down at his hands. He rubbed his thumb over his knuckles, silent for a moment. “So what do you suggest?” he asked finally.
I set my pen down, the sound of it tapping on the table a small punctuation in the quiet room. I laid it out carefully, each word chosen so there was no misunderstanding. “Send a respected elder—someone neutral. Maybe a church leader, maybe a retired headmaster. Hold an open meeting in the village square. Let everyone speak. Council reps should be there, not hiding in offices. Promise small, immediate steps—truck in water, deliver food aid that same week. But more than anything, make the whole process public. Let local radio cover it. Bring in trusted community figures. Let everyone see that government is not hiding or running but is here to listen.”
The Director nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing as he thought about it. “Most people just want acknowledgment,” I finished. “They want to know their voices matter. If you make it about listening, not just fixing, the anger will start to fade.”
The agent sighed, sitting back in his chair, his shoes scraping against the floor. The Director tapped the folder closed, then looked at me. The tension in the air thinned a little, as if everyone could finally breathe.
For a moment, the Director was silent. He studied my notes, then nodded slowly. “You’re sure this will work?”
“It won’t solve everything,” I answered, “but it will take the anger out of the air. They will see someone is willing to listen, not just issue orders. That’s what breaks a standoff.”
The agent looked unconvinced, but the Director was already moving on. “Alright, Percy, draw up a plan and list names. We’ll get this started today.”
They left as quickly as they had come. I sat for a while in the empty boardroom, sunlight catching the dust in the air. I watched the motes drift for a moment, thinking about villages all over the country—places full of people whose voices only seemed to matter when something went wrong.
Was this peace? I wondered. Or was it just quiet that followed when you managed to keep people from shouting too loud, from marching, from making the news? I knew the plan would work. Not because it fixed the problem but because it would make people feel seen. Just enough to hold their anger down for a while. Maybe that was what my job had become: clever cheating. Find the right words, call the right elders, make the right promises, keep the wheels turning and the country quiet.
But sometimes I asked myself, was this right? Was this the peace we owed people or was I just part of the same old machine keeping the surface smooth so nobody looked too deep? Would real peace come if people stood up and shouted or maybe even fought until someone listened for real? Was I stopping something dangerous or just standing in the way of something true?
Sometimes I thought peace was just a pause or a trick of good timing. Other times, I hoped it was more like the sound of a whole community breathing easy, at least for a little while.
Lisa buzzed my line. “You have a call from council, Mr. Bisheau. They’re waiting for your instructions.”
I picked up the phone ready to start again, already thinking of how to turn noise into something closer to peace. Even if I was not sure what that really meant.
