"So you admit it? It was you who threw the acid on her?"
"Yes, yes..."
His head was down, unable to face the police interrogator. He was chained; untrusted. Only the two metal chairs and the cold metal table were in the blank white windowless room, a place where humanity goes to die. He wanted to be caught, he wanted to be free.
"Then tell us why."
His head stayed down, muttering "Never", then his spirit left the trapped room.
"You must tell us why! You know if you don't give the reason they will cut your hands off!" Still no response. "You knew her. She said so. This isn't random. Give us the reason!"
The motionless response drove the interrogator over the edge. He shook the body before him until he could see the guilty man's eyes. That's when he found out no one was home.
***
Walking out of the hospital after the final surgery, the counselor spoke to her.
"You must go to see him."
"Never!"
"You must face him in order to move forward. To run is to die."
"I will never give him the satisfaction."
She briskly moved forward.
***
In his cell, the prisoner was chained to the wall, forced to face forward. But at the first glimpse of her being ushered in he started screaming, pulling violently at the chains, bruising his wrists, squeezing shut his eyes as sweat formed on his wildly shaking forehead as the unforgiving flames raged within.
"Unleash me! I'm not going to look! Let me out! Leave me! Go Away! Don't let her know!" He started sobbing. "Don't let her know...don't let her know..."
He passed out. She drew in her breath.
"He needed me," she said to no one. "Stupid bastard never said a word. May Allah damn him."
"His tragedy is complete," remarked the counselor.
"No, you don't understand. I needed someone to need me. He just assumed I wouldn't allow it." She looked at the blank faces around her, like they were safe or something, none of whom comprehended the life and death situation before them - in her life or their own. She ran yelling to the exit.
In a dark corner of the world in the year of our Lord 1953, a group of murderous hearts was having a Hoods Night Out party. Never is support from your fellow man so needed as when you plan to do wrong.
"We needs to finds us a nigger to kill."
"Who been uppity lately?"
"Don't make no matter really. Them all deserves it."
A boy of proper pigmentation was found and everyone looked forward to a family-friendly Christian lynching. God was properly thanked for the picnic baskets of food that were provided while cloth was stuffed into the mouth of the screaming boy facing a cruel and certain death. The presiding Grand Dragon gave a speech.
"We've all heard what them outside agitators have been saying and we ain't the backwards folks people say we is. This is America! Land of the free! Folks got rights in this country and not none of them more important than votin'!"
The attending crowd applauded and heartily agreed with the speech-maker. He continued. "And to show you what fair minded man I must be, we be letting every person in the whole city have a say - even the nigras!"
More applause and whistles though some laughter was mixed in. When the final tally was counted the result was 90-9 in favor. The Grand Dragon was confused.
"Ain't there ten niggers in this town? One of them votin' for it?"
"Can't never tell with them they so ignorant. Point is, we won!"
The Grand Dragon announced the count. "So you can see, this is all proper and legal - just liken when we voted to kill Jesus so he could save us. This gonna save us too! Thank you, God!"
But while the crowd roared and feverishly started making preparations, the Mayor privately spoke of his reservations to his staff.
"Voting doesn't make this any more right. I have to put a stop to this."
"But your honor, you can't! You saw the count. You'll lose the election next month. Remember: You can't help fix things unless you're in a position of power. That's just a fact! If you want to keep on doing good things then you got to go along. You can write a book about it later when you're out of office about how much you abhorred it."
The Mayor looked at each of the faces of his staff who were in complete agreement. His reply was immediate: "Go fuck yourselves and your triangulating. There's no point being in power if you don't do the right thing. Without justice no one has a future."
That's when the Mayor addressed the crowd in a plea for sanity. "Friends, I ask you a question: Is this what's really in your heart? Are we really so pathetic that we seek to normalize murder? Are our lives without any hope? We can do better. I see it from each of you every day on the street. Don't give up on love - because love never does on us."
A stranglehold of silence gripped the crowd. The Mayor asked for a re-vote and the Grand Dragon acquiesced. This time the vote was unanimous.
"I'm here announcin' fer one and all, this time the votin' be all the same: Hang the Mayor."
Everybody got what they wanted. The crowd satisfied its bloodlust, the Mayor stood by his principles, and the town retained a veneer of morality for having voted in the American way.
CODA:
Concerned town leaders gathered in City Hall to discuss who would be the next Mayor when a sharply dressed black man entered the room.
"Gentlemen, may I introduce myself? I believe I have the perfect candidate to solve all your problems: Me."
"You'uns must be crazy! We ain't have no nigger Mayor."
"Actually, your double negative makes it so. You were wondering which black voted for the lynching? That was me."
The men started laughing. For while having voted to make things "proper", papers around the land furiously condemned the lynching. It dawned on even these molasses minds that having a black mayor would make them appear moral again.
"OK, then! You-all is the new mayor. No on can call us racial ever again! We can hate all we wants!"
Once in office, the new Mayor passed sweeping reforms that easily passed the town vote as the citizens were deliriously happy to be hailed as a beacon of light - while still retaining the precious hate they loved above all else. What was not understood by the citizens was that the reforms gave the majority of the money now to the blacks. This went unnoticed as the whites in town had a long history of voting against their economic interests. Finally, one day a redneck noticed something.
"Hey, how come all the whites is out workin' in fields and all the blacks is drivin' 'round in big fancy cars?"
The Mayor enlightened him. "Because that was the plan all along, you dumb fucking hillbillies."
The dry ground was limitlessly barren, a hard shell resisting the trespass of human intruders. I traveled as an unwanted alien for whom refuge is forbidden - maybe even outlawed, as is for many crying, hopeful hearts. I had to wonder if to continue was more of a sin than stopping, better to melt under the blinding sun into the resentful ground as if I'd never been. You may ask how I even came to be in this spot. I had nowhere else to go.
The one thing I thought must be a mirage, was real. A Ukrainian flag, planted as if it were on the moon, with no visible tree line or vegetation in sight, fluttered defiantly in the ceaseless crosswinds. Part of me wanted to laugh. The edge of the flag was charred, burned away by some unknown enemy. At first I was confused on why the entirety of the flag was not burned. Then I felt the currents of the wind and wondered how they ever got a flame started in the first place.
A flag is placed where no one can see it, someone does see it and tries to burn it - and just who the hell drags a flagpole onto concrete land like this in the first place?? Questions kept streaming into my head and I half-believed that had been the point of the entire exercise. But something told me that was not it. Whomever planted that flag had a clear and present reason in their head. And if I knew that reason I doubt I'd be comforted to hear it.
I certainly knew my reason to be wandering the land that time rejected. Man is never so monstrous as when he becomes civilized: the worst of our traits institutionalized into heavy molten chains. We are told to shine our chains like good little boys, to ignore the chain pain, accept the "inevitable". Do that and your future is secured, they say. Few ask if any of that is even true. I did - and look where it got me. But that final conversation with a civilized man was more than I can take.
"This Crusader guy tried to destroy us. He was showin' everyone how to take the chains off. Can ya imagine that! We'd be left to ruin our own lives!"
I was too disheartened to immediately reply realizing this is with whom I share my planet. "Perhaps you meant to say 'run', not 'ruin'."
"Oh, no sir. None of that for me. A Political Man saved us, said he'd run our lives for us. Showed us how chains is freedom with that smart talk of his. But now, for some reason no one knows, everyone is all pissed off all the time."
"Go figure. Maybe that Political Man can figure out."
"Oh, he done that already. He says it's everybody's fault but his."
"How's that working out for ya?"
"Won't know till we're through killin' everybody."
So that's how you end up in the middle of nowhere. I'd just as soon die with the taste of freedom in my mouth as staying on the chain gang. But I didn't want to die alone. As if to answer my private plea, I saw a ghost stop on the horizon.
Behind the cantina bar was a woman with her elbow on the counter and her face resting on the palm of her hand. On a park bench table was a preoccupied mother with her child, both slowly eating from stark plaster bowls. No one moved or noticed my arrival. In fact, I came to see they were unmovable, mountains of eternity. This scared me.
Despite the silence, the air was thick and heavy, as if I were wading through invisible water. The simple act of my standing observation wore me down as the waves kept crashing against me like a sea wall. I sat at the farthest bench to steady myself. It was then I realized I was saying nothing because I somehow knew to say nothing. It was as certain as the sun in the sky. But why?
Because they've heard it all before.
They were simply going through their daily rituals as required by the thorns of the earth - but they were waiting. And until what they were waiting for came, they had no interest, to be delivered from Egypt their only concern. The Political Man has no audience here! A dawning smile in admiration crossed my lips. Every dog has its day - and for some that spells doom and for others it brings final victory. The Ghost Stop regulars are not be trifled with.
Moving on, a thought struck me on my way out the door.
"Love is in the air!"
Every eye turned to me in cautious anticipation, but seeing I had no follow up, their focus returned to their lives. But I'd joined their waiting queue.
It was clear my future lay as a Forager in Nature's forest, living off society's scraps, hiding in the world's blind spots, trying to stay out of the crosshairs. No, my lifestyle will not be envied - but my breathing will be as they choke on the rage of their chains (however willing they may be). And for that I won't be forgiven by the mad hordes.
But I found a fellow Forager and in our communion was the presence of God amid the impartial dead leaves and harboring trees. I told her the story of the chain gangs and she cleared my eyes.
"Yes, I too sought to escape that hell. The true battle is not what they claim. It's not between this group and that group or any divisions in nature. It's the battle for self-respect that's underneath the rising rhetoric you hear. They use many disguises! But if you stay true to yourself you will never be fooled. Those who've given up seek you to join their Tragedy. But their greatest fear is you'll find out the tragedy need not be. Life is a state of mind."
Nobody could have predicted this but everyone knew it was coming.
The Mutants, with their Mutant Manifesto, had risen up to be a force of their own. Short and squat - looked down upon literally as well as figuratively - they'd had enough of their lot in life and would war and chore no more. Though created to serve their masters they suddenly realized it was they who held the strings of power.
The 21st century will go down as the most horrific yet in Mankind's torrid history. Wars like giant knives ripped open the earth and with the perverse logic and lies behind them, the idea of stopping the bleeding had turned abhorrent to the compliant masses who shrugged even at their own death. No one cared as long as their belly was full. But in the 2020's the term "food riot" was first heard even among the wealthy nations. The wounding wars had bled the world dry.
Criminality that had burst into the open in the late teens turned into a universal mad scramble by the 2030's which spared none. No one even bothered to pretend to be honest anymore, the world a giant smash-and-grab operation of taking where taking could be done - babies beware! By the time anyone cared about the rampant daylight robbery going on it was too late. The dummies who'd gleefully and fanatically supported the thieves looked down to find their pockets empty and their prospects forever gone.
One born every minute
A mutant underclass was needed to prop up the old order in place. Created for "chores and wars" no human wished to undertake, it was the last hurrah for the planetary plantation system that has beleaguered Mankind from the start. Slavery by any other name was no longer chained by the need to disguise its desire. The Mutants were the perfect answer, bio-genetic marvels of evil engineering from a technology worshiping world. But like all false answers, it only served as a conduit for doom.
The mutant leader was called The Presbyterian. The Old Guard thinking in old ways, quickly assassinated The Presbyterian, thinking they'd won the day by cutting off the head of the snake. But another one took his place as the Mutants were designed to be headless and regenerate at will. Their makers had outsmarted themselves. Designated and designed to be without hope, their place in the world became their power, unleashing karmic hell. Why suffer the thorns of the world if thorns are all you're allowed to have?
So gradually, slowly - but irreversibly - they began quitting their wars and chores, sending the Old Guard masters into wailing hysteria, as the blessings they'd assumed slipped hopelessly through their fingers, leaving them to once again spill their own blood and drip their own sweat. But by this time, the idea of that had become wholly unacceptable even as they realized that shooting the mutants left them with the same fate as non-working mutants.
Remember: You're not a slave if we don't call you one!
Politicians rose and fell with fantastical proposals to get the mutants working and warring again. Every idea under the sun was tried - except for giving them hope. That was the one thing everyone agreed could never work. "Freedom for us is life. Freedom for mutants is death." The Old Guard's rage and fury at their self-imposed predicament could not be quenched. So possessed were they by their pre-conceieved ideas that many even resorted to suicide. "Nature leaves us no choice!"
The Mutant question so divided the Old Guard, they even lost their reluctance to resume intra-human killing. The small sliver of Humans who did actually propose giving hope to the Mutants were quickly killed off to provide a "united front". The united front only worsened the situation, causing even fewer mutants to obey. But for the humans, the idea of admitting they were wrong was more intolerable than any fate imaginable. Like a festering fire it consumed them, calling traitor on anyone who refused to keep lying.
The purity of their evil was their ultimate guiding light. "Don't give up! Keep fighting. There's a way forward without justice! There's a way forward without Nature! There's a way forward without hope!" But in blessing themselves they had irrevocably written their own death warrants. In the entirety of the 21st century, it was they who were most convinced of evil's future who were put in charge, doing irreparable damage making criminal decisions one after another.
The Day Of Doom could be delayed but not denied. Fury's fuel is finite. Every hard heart shatters from brittleness, never to return.
"He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing."
- Proverbs 29:1
i swim inside a sea of endless blackness, a voiceless void suffocated in formless vacuum outside i see faces. their lips move, thinking i can hear them. the void disallows contact as there's nothing to carry the sound. to leave the void is to return to the awaiting horror. i'm trapped in time, never to live again. i can't go back to that spiderweb, to be feasted upon, unable to move. i am a student of sin. i became its slave by believing i was its master. my atrocities are like a fire that can't be put out. only the void can suffocate the flames. the jungle hell still jails my recruited soul. they told me to kill to be good. life ended when i signed my name. how can such a small act be so powerful, to take one from possible dreams to certain nightmares? That Which Cannot Be Spoken grips my universe in unbreakable hold. the answer, she said, was in my head: my prison of pain, memories of a family's death screams from a burning thatched hut. "that which can be destroyed should be destroyed." this became the code i lived by. it included myself. my code of dishonor allowed me to rot for the greater good. how convenient. the dry straw ached to be burned it was so perfectly fragile. my life was a nightmare, so shouldn't everyone else's be? the dying screams of the souls inside gave voice to my inner tears. i fed off them, a red-faced monster playing god as master of life and death. and in that moment i am freeze-framed. what is time but a measure of consciousness? decades are a blink of the eye. eternity is each day passing. i can't un-know my crime, so there is no "time". and no rest. closed eyes only continue the slow searching march through the seething jungle of sinister green leaves and villainous yellow sun. the stain remains the same. my child would have to die in punishing payment. it should thank me for not being born. or curse me for never seeing the light of day, blindly picking me in innocent knowledge of my sins. yesterday, today, tomorrow - i have nowhere to go. nothing ever changes. not a single particle. god is a lost cause
Taking a note from our infamous history, self-loathers have taken a new shine to witch-burning as a cure for present day ills. And with self-loathing itself on the rise, self-dealing politicians were quick to seize on this phenomenon.
"Friends, I may be phony and retarded, a despicable loser from the bottom of the barrel, the rottenest of rotten apples, but I'm here to tell you today: I will not let this country be overrun by witches!"
(Much cheering was heard.)
"And we know who those witches are, don't we?" Crowd chuckles. "It's everyone we hate!"
(Much cheering was heard.)
"No one disagrees this country has been going to hell, but I got a word for you witches out there, and the word is it's you who's going to hell!"
(Much cheering was heard.)
"Now, we all know about the radicals, don't we? They don't want to burn anyone!" Crowd boos lustily. "They'll just let the witches do anything they want. Are we going to stand for that? Are we going to give up our country?" A chorus of "NO" erupted in reply. "That's right! I am your savior. I am the only one who'll stand up to the witches!"
(Very much cheering was heard.)
The witch-burner-in-chief proved successful in his election bid, who then duly followed forth on his promise, burning at least one witch a week to the very great delight of his anti-Christ supporters. Even when courts ruled his burnings to be illegal, the criminal kept right on doing it - also much to the delight of his fanatical following. "He's a man of conviction!" they crowed. Plus the moron didn't know how to do much anything else.
These suicidal circumstances put opposing politicians into a pickle.
"See, we can't be seen as opposing all burnings or we'll lose the centrist independents, alienate the pro-witch-burners, and divide the nation. We'll be called "Witch lovers" if we ban burnings outright. No, what we'll do is start some investigations that prove the burnings are unwarranted, make the case to the public, reverse the polls, and then we'll be able to stop the killings. We can't just be seen recklessly acting on our own convictions and doing the right thing!"
As the janitor in the room who overheard this conversation, I repeated it to my friend Tony the next day. Tony, however, has no interest in political calculations.
"Shit, man, we leave that crazy motherfucker in charge this country don't deserve to live noways."
Buckley Pierce had lost the last lie in life; 55 and time to die. His devil's bargain with the devil's world finally expired yet his middle-aged body lived on. He hadn't counted on this tragic timing. To live now would be to live inside a coffin in a grave, buried alive, no one to hear his screams - and worse yet - no one to revive his dead dreams. Such is the fate of a corporate cunt.
He hadn't always been a hatchet man setting up innocents for betrayal. In the beginning he served an actual purpose for the big box company. But as times changed he did not; outmoded and outdated. He had to invent a new way of serving his masters, and that was by being willing to do any dirty deed he was told. He'd write up underlings on the flimsiest of excuses - even outright fabricate if needed - and then railroad whomever he was directed to right out the door. He told himself it was kill or be killed.
The big test was the massive management reorg where no one was safe. Surviving that meant more than just slitting someone's throat. He had to find a way to take the place of a legitimate person who actually contributes. Just how much did his masters value him? Buckley took sick pleasure when he heard the news a competent person would be thrown out into the street so he could keep his place. The executives knew the loyal dog they were buying because they knew their days of ill intent were far from over.
Curiously, the worse Buckley felt about what he was doing, the more he defended it. Savagery was his way through this world and he prayed to it as his god, teaching his twin children the necessity of being cutthroat. He donated money to church to buy off his Maker. He paid off his wife with gifts as he as a person had less and less to offer. "I must be savage! I have nothing without it!"
Painfully white feeling painfully entitled, this drowning rodent fed on a diet of desperation. But at some point the corporate Judas becomes a liability to his masters, evidence to be rid of. The rats in charge could barely contain their laughter when they betrayed the betrayer with a smile and a handshake. It was only then Buckley realized the true price of his previous treachery.
He'd been living the Aryan dream of assumed superiority. Hiding in one of the last vestiges of white male dominion deep within the tangled web of modern corporate bureaucracy, Buckley had grown drunk on a feeling of invincibility and privilege. He'd subscribed to the "might makes right" theory, that he couldn't be wrong in what he was doing if he were allowed to do it. That justified every knife he put in every back. On this day, however, "Buckley the Butcher" got butchered.
Now it was his turn to ponder life without a future. (Actually, those he helped terminate were better situated at the time of their demise having led more honest lives.) Buckley was too old and too withered to start over. In reality he'd become a charity case. Then the devil came to take his due.
Rage. Red seething rage. Without the bribe of his protected position, his true feelings could no longer be held back, the dam had burst. Always a right winger, he radicalized into joining the Konservative Krist Killers, who blamed the ills of the world on everyone but themselves. Buckley's appalled wife divorced him when he started bringing assault rifles home "for the coming race war." Even after realizing his corporate masters had used him and thrown him away he still could not let go of his old ways.
For the rest of his miserable existence Buckley spewed filthy hate, a victim of "our savior Jesus's betrayal", forever seeking acceptance without penance among the world's losers. A man who preached to his children "money over dreams" ended with neither; lost and alone in a sea of darkness, flailing and screaming to his bitter lonely death.
Every life before it's born is assigned a car code of some sort. Country to country, land to land, it varies. Here in the home of the knave, it's possible to have a very fancy car code such as the one I got: Ferrari. I know what you're thinking: You lucky dog! But not so fast.
Rare is it for someone to know their car code but mine came to me in a dream. I guess the universe needed to help me get unstuck. (Unfortunately, it still does.) It came to me clear as day, as real as the sun. To achieve a Ferrari would mean I'd achieved success, simple as that. So I started with the direct route. I stole one.
It's not easy to steal a Ferrari. All I can tell you for a hint is try hotels. But when I read up on stealing high end cars, it said to leave the car parked for three days to see if it's hot. No one comes for it, you're home free. But sure enough, I saw a police stakeout van monitoring the car, just waiting to nab me. Those tracking devices are tough to beat. Bottom line is, I didn't get nailed, but I lost the Ferrari.
Failure.
Next up on my search I found you can rent high end exotics. So I saved up my money and for an entire week I had my own Ferrari. I waved to God as I got in to make sure my success was noticed in Heaven. Was a great week but the aftermath was hell. The financial hangover was grueling and nothing magical happened during the week that allowed me to keep it. Not sure what I was thinking.
Failure.
I was starting to get a little worried. How the hell was I going to get a Ferrari in my lifetime. I hung around the Italian car club meets and I thought maybe if I could get a driver job in one I could fool God into thinking the car was my own. One thing I know now for certain: Ferrari owner don't let other people drive their cars EVER. Out of luck again.
Failure.
I was flummoxed and stymied and paralyzed. Now what the hell do I do. I don't know any rich people to help me out. Nor is there any reason for them to do so. It seems getting a Ferrari is as far away as the moon. I can see it, but never get there. I fell into a deep depression. When I ate it wasn't because I thought I had a future. I was just too chicken to die. How the fuck did God ever think I could own a Ferrari. If it's my destiny then why didn't one of my plans work?
So you see, had I car code of VW I'd been fine. Ferrari is not a blessing. It's a curse. I felt I had a scarlet "F" branded on me - only my F stands for Failure. I left the house as little as possible for fear of being seen. Paranoia's roots sprouted, reaching deep into my soul. Stands to reason: if I could find out my car code, so could others. Oh, God.
So I started my very own propaganda campaign. "I'm a Volkswagen bug guy!" Since that's what I drove, I had to prove that it was my Sign Of Success. There's all sorts of aftermarket accessories for bugs, of which I ordered many. That proves I'm into this car and I've achieved success! I was always trying to show it off to everyone, to impress them with my alleged satisfaction. It seemed to work.
This is me! No, really!
What they didn't see was my constant nightmares any time I closed my eyes. Goddamit, I can't escape the Ferrari car code! I'm doomed. All that's left for me is to keep up this charade and die before anyone finds out the truth. An ignoble goal, I know. But I see no way to escape my shame. My constant pleadings fall on deaf ears. If I'm here, then it's Ferrari or bust, no exceptions.
I let no one touch me or see me. It's forbidden by my state decree. Anyone gets in and finds out my car code I'm finished. I curse my Maker who does not understand I have no path to my so-called destiny; imprisoned for life. Just by virtue of remaining here, I've been forced to consider cruel thoughts, though. Perhaps there was a way and it was I who failed to understand. Oh, dear. Oh, very dear.
Much to my dismay, another angel spoke in my tormented sleep. "Pursue love and the Ferrari will come. Pursue the Ferrari and nothing will come."
Second part sure as hell was true! But that first part? How could that possible work? Don't I need the Ferrari to prove I deserve the love?
It was night on the edge of downtown Dallas where every street is one way but never the way you need to go. All I wanted to do is get on the highway and get my ass back home. I got more and more angrily frustrated as I felt the streets pushing me into a corner where I didn't want to be. I kept thinking "There has to be way out! It would be insane for this to lead to a dead end." But my screaming instincts told me otherwise.
Part of what bothered me was nobody else was going same way as I was. What do they know? I was in an area I'd never been before, just wandering aimlessly as I have no place to go and no place to be. And no one to be. But my boiled rage had had enough and I wanted out, my direction home. But I was denied with every imperious one way sign until finally, eerily, I saw no lights ahead. But I was doomed on the one way road I'd chosen.
And then, nothingness.
Yes, I was still moving as I saw the lights behind me grow farther and farther away. But the road noise stopped. Any relational points of reference vanished. I had, it seemed, driven off the edge of the earth. I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could as if that would make a difference. I also pondered the idea my gasoline engine needs oxygen for it to combust and in space there's no air. But then like an irrational child, I feared mental inquiries would make my fears come true. So I stopped questioning.
It was then I truly learned the meaning of the word 'disconnected'.
I had left the world behind and I would die alone, a freak in outer space who thought he could do without. Please don't let anyone catch me dead out here! My heartbeat slowed into a panicked crawl like a slowly hit bass drum. My head compressed as if an ever-tightening vice squeezed forbidden room for thought. I'd always wanted off the planet but not like this!
I would go down as the biggest fool in history. Who gets so lost they drive right off the edge? I didn't even know it was possible. Aliens could be watching me, wondering what the hell this crazy lunatic is doing. These thoughts kept running through my head but all I wanted to do was get back before anyone found out what I'd done. Of course, in the back of my mind, I'd always know what I'd done. But I would deal with that later.
Truth is, I was too panicked to panic. If I were to ever get back I knew I had put my hysteria on hold. Without any visible reference points - black was here, black was there, black was everywhere - one only has one's self. The timing for this couldn't be worse! In a fit of madness and fear, I had destroyed my hearth and home. Horrified of my own hands, I'd begun to disconnect. Perhaps...perhaps that's why this is happening. To die alone in space could be my just desserts.
But I tried to find my way back in spite of my certain judgement of a deserved death. I just let go, surrendering to the car's path, closing my eyes, not daring to utter even a prayer. And in time, I found myself back on earth. You could say I survived, but I certainly paid a price.
What I say now I expect no one to believe. I write this for me alone, a testament to God. Yes, I made it back, but not to the earth I knew. The sky was a brownish orange; burnt and forlorn. Gone forever was the blue I knew. When I tried to point this out I got quizzical looks. "What are you talking about? It's always been this way. You need your eyes checked." Yet in the books I saw, the sky was blue in older photographs. A creeping horror seeped within me, impossibly bubbling to the surface. "Oh, God, no."
I adopted a stance of silence. I observed as one person put it, "Laughter carefully acted and tears carefully crafted." That's when I knew: they did know the sky was once blue. But no one dare admit it - even if they said it. To what other lies had they agreed to pretend? I began to wonder if I had entered a space-time warp when I drove off the edge. I don't know how it happened, with a bang or a whisper, but a Great Darkening had descended on the land. They feared to face it, as if silence could keep them safe from something over which they felt they had no power. But to my exasperating dismay, I knew they were deadly wrong.
CODA: I wander alone now in quiet disorientation. Maybe others have driven off the edge of the world too but are too scared to say so - just like me. I feel a heaviness that was not here before. Do others see in my eyes what I see in theirs? It's as if someone has died. We each feel something must be done - but nothing is. An ill wind pushes us forward - and that end is to a cliff from which there is no return. I feel I've joined a brotherhood of self-betrayal. Sometimes I tell myself none of this could be true. But the sky does not lie - nor answers to Man.
The two biggest factions among the mice of the house were the anti-cat and pro-cat factions (mice being pro-cat is a phenomenon that can be observed but not explained). The pro-cat faction, though irrational and suicidal, had achieved the upper hand and convinced the majority of the mice to let the cat roam the house freely, even though the cat said very clearly, "I'm going to eat you" - something the cat had spoken aloud for the first time. Many mice applauded the cat's "authenticity and honesty" - and then observed in horror as their children were eaten.
The pro-cat forces had never been happier. They had made a deal with the cat for it to eat only anti-cat mice and this the cat did vociferously. And while the cat, emboldened as never before, roamed the house it destroyed as many of the defenses as it could that had been built up over the years to keep the cat out. He lifted up pro-cat mice into places only the cat can reach, having them "guard" windows and other entry points. This infuriated the anti-cat mice, however.
The anti-cat faction pushed back, putting their leader Fancy Peloshi back in a position of power. Fancy had the reputation for being "radically anti-cat" which she had cultivated over the years. In a secret meeting with the cat, however, she told it, "I'll say bad things about you and you say bad things about me and that will keep both our power bases happy. But don't worry, I won't do anything meaningful to get you thrown out of the house. Your bad behavior got me back in power!" The cat wasn't so sure. "Won't your side be angry when you don't do anything?" Fancy Peloshi smiled, "They believe in me, not themselves," she purred. The cat understood all about suckers.
The cat and its mice supporters were having the time of their lives. While it's true the cat did betray on occasion its promise to eat only anti-cat mice, the pro-cat faction thought that was worth the sacrifice for the "greater good" of giving the cat free reign. And while Fancy Peloshi did nothing to keep the cat from feasting on the mice, the anti-cat faction also looked the other way for the "greater good" of keeping Fancy in power. In this way each side hoped to have a future.
Both were wrong.
Though only a sliver of the population, a third faction existed: the pro-mice mice. The pro-mice faction was bitterly hated and vilified by both the anti-cat and pro-cat groups. While it's true the anti-cat faction pretended to represent the pro-mice group that was only part of their power play. The pro-mice group maintained that the only path to survival was the wholesale banning of the cat, no exceptions. "We don't want to hear about how you think you can 'work with the cat'. That's just a fantasy," they scolded Fancy Peloshi. Instead, the anti-cats accused the pro-mice mice of being the fantasists. What both the pro-cat and anti-cat mobs realized was that their power depended on the cat's threat.
In the end, with the majority of the mice refusing to ban the cat altogether, the cat continued to devour them over time one by one, not bothering to distinguish between pro-cat and anti-cat mice. Too late it was determined to ban the cat but the defenses had been so weakened at that point that any decision the mice made was moot. Some mice only learn by dying.
