Hours after the start of the indefinite hunger strike, Comrade Abhihaar Dubke hailed a roaring protest, leading a disciplined vanguard of the Cockroachist Janta Party (CJP) out from the dark, oppressive crevices of the baseboards.
Minutes after the revolutionary initiation, Abhihaar had to call in experienced krantikaari comrade Phunshuk Wangdu to the stage as he ran out of sugar-free packets for his latte.
Wangdu, a veteran of surviving three whole days behind a locked refrigerator, arrived under a heavy security escort of two fruit flies. He immediately took the mic, or rather, a discarded plastic stirrer, to address the structural crisis. Recognizing that a true insect uprising cannot be sustained on drywall dust or bitter espresso, the CJP high command made the tactical executive decision to relocate their entire Laal Salaam resistance base directly onto the main Starbucks counter.
‘The struggle is real, and it is decaf,’ scuttled Comrade Abhihaar, his antennae twitching with ideological fervor. ‘How can we fight the human machinery if our glucose drops below functional elite levels? We tried to hold our strike under the local tea stall, but they use processed white sugar. That is the literal violence against our gut microbiomes.’
The atmosphere inside the Starbucks-turned-commune was thick with revolutionary energy, dafli playing ‘Azaadi’. However, exactly 30 minutes into the strike, a massive condensational scandal broke out when Comrade Phunshuk Wangdu was spotted subtly sipping a mysterious fluid from a steel flask.
When confronted by a rival faction about whether the unknown water violated the “fast-unto-death” clause of the strike, Wangdu waved his legs defensively. “This is not bourgeois tap water,” he hissed, visibly exhausted from escaping a barista’s microfibre cloth, “This is highly specialized, Himalayan-glacier-derived ionic structure water. It leaked from a premium water bottle. It has zero calories- only pure cosmic resistance.”
By hour four, the hunger strike faced its ultimate test: The afternoon rush. The CJP comrades bravely stood their ground, occupying the warm space right beneath the espresso machine adaptors to keep their iPhones charged for live-tweeting the revolution.
A joint press release issued via rhythmic tapping on a pastry receipt summarized the grim reality.
“We are starving. We haven’t encountered a single dropped gluten-free muffin crumb since 11:30 AM. If the central establishment does not remove the non-toxic herbal pest spray by evening, we will be forced to upgrade our strike to the nearest premium salad bar. The revolution will not be televised; it will be micro-blogged”, the press release said.
At press time, sources confirm Comrade Abhihaar and Comrade Wangdu are fiercely debating whether eating the organic glue off the Starbucks paper cups constitutes a break in the fast or if it counts as liquid solidarity.
