Tears of the Tiers | Teen Ink

Tears of the Tiers

July 17, 2023
By Jacob-Braun SILVER, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Jacob-Braun SILVER, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

The Tiers are a place of injustice.

The Tiers are a place of crime.

The Tiers are a place of tyranny.

I cry for the unfortunate.

I cry for the hurt.

I cry for the mistreated.

I blame the powerful.

I blame the rich.

I blame the upper tiers.

While the lower tiers struggle to pay for a broken down house,

The uppers struggle to decide if they want a piece of clothing that costs more than a factory in purple or red.

While lowers are forced to join a family to save their family,

An upper pays for the murder of a man because he looked at her for too long.

While the lowers work a miserable job, to pay for a miserable house, to live a miserable life,

The uppers sit, lie, and sleep while getting everything hand fed to them.

While the upper profit off of free and cheap labor, us lowers are forced to constantly work to pay for a life that we don’t even want.

The uppers expect us to worship, praise and pray to them.

But we know the true gods.

We know the gods will aid and protect us from the deep cruelty of this hierarchy.

The uppers say the lower tiers are a place of sin and squalor.

But we live in filth because of the true sins of the higher tiers.

We deserve more,

They deserve less,

We will make Arcania a city of equality

They make Arcania a city of oppression.

We deserve a life worth living,

They deserve the life that they inflicted upon us.

We will make Arcania a city worthy of us,

They make Arcania a city of disgrace.

We deserve justice,

They deserve condemnation.

We can set Arcania true,

They make Arcania a lie.

The uppers lie to us telling us what we are worth and how high we can climb

But we know the truth

The truth is no people are born unequal.

We are more than a status

We know we have power

If we speak the truth, rebel against the wrong, and fight for freedom, then we can rise.

We need to rise.

We need to rise up in the Tiers.

We need to rise up against the uppers.

We need to rise up together.

Because only together we can change the Tiers.

Only together can we change the world.

Only then can we make the Tiers what it should be.

The Tiers should be a place of justice.

The Tiers should be a place of safety.

The Tiers should be a place of love.


The author's comments:

Background: This speech was writing by revolutionist Alver Alxim.  This is talking about the social injustice of the city of Arcania.  Arcania is a floating city of 9 tiers.  For this reason Arcania is often referred to as the Tiers.  Those higher up in the Tiers are often richer and more powerful.  Uppers are a name given to people who live on higher tiers, while lowers refer to people who live on lower tiers.  The lower tiers are often run by organized crime families who get paid by upper tiers to carry out dirty work.  

Alver was a revolutionary whose life was cut short due to his beliefs.  It's known he was murdered by a family paid by an upper.  He climbed up through the tiers, after being born on tier two, he moved to tier four and eventually tier five.  Alver published other works like “Never Look an Upper in the Eye” and “True Divinity”. “True Divinity” helped win a war to keep some temples in the city, which the higher tiers wanted to get rid of after worrying that they might help cause a rebellion.  While Arcania is still under the rule of tyrants there is still talk of rebellion mostly thanks to Alver.  “Never Look an Upper in the Eye” is a story about his dad, Alxim, who went to a government meeting and supposedly looked at a woman from tier 8.  He was murdered for this reason.  Alver then took his dad’s name as his last name and mentioned his dad in this speech.


Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.