"The Day the Great One Appeared" Part I
by John Amaruso
They call him 'The Great One'. Nobody knows where he came from, who he is, or exactly what he is. All we know about him is that he watches over this world of ours. He is a guardian to all of man's good. He is the all knowing, the all seeing, and the all powerful. He is omnipotent, indestructible, and benevolent.
Since the beginning of The Great One's reign, mankind has experienced no famines, no wars, no poverty, no injustice, no crime, no despair, no corruption, no filth, no disease, no pain, no suffering. There is only him, and the rest of us. His loyal subjects. His flock of disciples. A testament to his greatness. For he is, The Great One.
This is what I was taught to believe; rather, that is what we were all taught to believe.
It started almost 500 years ago when The Great One made his presence known. He was discovered on the streets of New York, dressed head to toe in what one could only describe as a Native American tribe's Head Chief garb. The white pointy feathers fanned out from the top of his head like brilliantly carved spear heads pointing up towards the sky. His chest exposed, a satchel around his right shoulder, and moccasins, he stood on the streets of lower Manhattan, preaching about how he was the one who would lead mankind to redemption. How he was the answer to all of man's problems. How he understood their fears, their hopes, their dreams and their desires. He claimed to have lived thousands of lifetimes and was here to right the wrongs of man's indiscretions.
At the time when The Great One made his presence known, his words fell on deaf ears. Passerbys shrugged him off as what they would have called a 'homeless' person with 'mental disorder'. His message and tongue were wholly ignored except by a few faith seeking nuts who continually showed up for his public street sermons. It was like this for many years, until one day, The Great One proved his words to be truth and their judgments to be in haste.
"While you all may all look at me with great disdain; with utter apathy and reluctance to believe; I warn you all heed the word of The Great One; for I am not destined to suffer the fate of mortal existence. No, I am of a higher breed. A higher consciousness. A higher plane of being than any single mortal on this earth could even begin to absorb. I am infinite, I am all, I am one."
A man from the crowd heckles him.
"Yeah? You think your betta' than the rest of us huh tough guy? Prove it! Prove you ain't no 'mortal'!"
With that, The Great One with his toned, red leathery face, looked towards the man with eyes of conviction and confidence.
"If it is only what you can see that you are willing to believe, then I shall make my cause known. I will bestow upon you all the answers to the questions with which you seek. First, I must ask a question of you, Sir. Do you presently carry a weapon on you?"
The crowd which has now congregated looks confused towards the man.
"Uh yeah, hey, is this some kinda trick question?"
"Not a trick Sir, my words are not to be taken lightly, for I will not repeat myself again."
"Well, I, uh, gotta pocket knife..."
"That will suffice. Hand it over to me."
The man makes his way through the crowd. Nervously he hands the tiny red swiss knife set over to the man dressed as a Native American.
"Now, I want you, to take this knife, and stab me with it."
The crowd's chatter intensifies, as the man looks around confused at the request.
"Excuse me???"
"My words are not to be taken lightly, for I will not repeat myself again."
"I'm not gonna' stab ya man, as much of a lunatic as you are, I ain't no murderer."
"You will not kill me, nor will you harm me, for I am infinite, I am all, and I am one."
"What kinda drugs you takin' man?"
"Hold your tongue and behold the miracle that is I when your feeble attempts at maiming me fall in vain for I am immortal."
The crowd looks around at each other, still chattering and whispering.
The Great One hands the knife back over to the perplexed man.
"Holy fuck man you are crazy."
"Give it your best, right here would do."
The Great One points to the right side of his chest. He then proceeds to get down on both knees, stretching his arms out like Jesus on the cross. He looks up towards the sky, closes his eyes, and breathes deeply.
The crowd's eyes are now fixated on the man and the knife.
"You're all my witness here! He's askin' me to do this..."
With that, the man's trembling hands bring the knife above his shoulder. He brings the knife down and into The Great One's chest. The knife stabs deep, spilling blood from the wound.
The crowd gasps and screams as The Great One's blood trickles down to his abdomen.
"HEY HEY ! YOU ALL SAW IT! HE TOLD ME TO DO IT! HOLY FUCK HE TOLD ME TO DO IT!"
The knife still lodged in his chest, The Great One opens his eyes and looks towards the crowd. With almost no expression, he takes his left arm to the handle of the knife, and rips it out of the wound. Within seconds, the wound begins to heal and the blood dries up. Where there once was a gaping wound returned to an intact right breast.
The crowd gasps again. They begin to clap and cheer wildly at the miraculous stunt.
The man standing over The Great One remains frozen in shock at the sight. The Great One lifts himself off the ground to his feet.
"How did you do that?!" says the man with an open jaw.
The Great One places his hand on the shoulder of the man and smiles.
"I am infinite, I am all, I am the One."
The news took the world by storm. A man who is impervious to death has defied all laws of physics and what we know as life. He is immune to disease, to harm, to death, to anything anyone tried throwing at him.
On national television he lit himself on fire, threw himself from a cliff, was shot at, stabbed, beaten, anything and everything humanly possible used against him was futile against whatever it was that was protecting this being.
"You know, you've really got the whole country talking Great One, and we would all really like to know; Where are you from?" asks TV's biggest late night talk show host Kelly Green as The Great One sits across from her on a green couch next to two other celebrities.
"I am here, presently, to show you the way. To guide humanity into a new age of existence. One which has never been known before."
"What do you mean by that Mr. One? Can I call you Mr. One?" the crowd chuckles with the cute blonde talk show host.
"I will bring you all to Eden. To what man was always meant to reach but strayed afar ages ago. Man must abandon all that he knows and pursue my words. My teachings. My philosophy and my wisdom. Those that doubt can no longer be accepted in this new age of human progress. There will be no more wars. No more hate. No more pain. No more suffering. No more poverty, crime, pollution, disease, lies, treachery and all that draws man closer to the burning embers of eternal hell. Follow me, The Great One, and we can all become One, together."
The crowd claps wildly at The Great One's prolific speech.
A mass following sprung up around the cult like figure, as thousands upon thousands followed him across the world, breathing and living his message of a new world order. An existence of never handing happiness. A world without famine, without terror, without violence. The utopia mankind has always struggled for seemed only a heels click away, just so as long we all followed, The Great One.
Political leaders and elites scrambled to make sense of the situation. Uprisings and demonstrations from discontent citizens who demanded that The Great One be installed as the world's new leader crumbled fragile societies. Africa was one of the first continents to fall, followed by Asia. Then South America, Europe, North America, and finally Australia. The world had rid itself of sovereign nations, entangling alliances, national identities, historic rivalries, cultural heritage, all to be a part of the new World Society, appropriately named, One.
The world of One was exactly what he promised. There no longer was any suffering to be had. There was an everlasting peace between all of The Great One's people. The collective identity of man had been solidified, institutionalized and programmed into the minds of every generation that followed the next, deeper and deeper until the remnants of history seemed more like far off fables of mythical worlds rather than mankind's past.
It is at this point that I find myself here. Another cog in the machine of One. The world with which I was brought up to love, to worship, to be inspired, to be wholly faithful. It is here that I find myself, plotting a way to bring the world to it's rightful place. To bring meaning back into existence, to be human like my ancestors once were. To destroy all that The Great One has created- this monstrosity of progress. To bring back chaos, fear, depression, hate, torture, suffering; to bring back what defines Man as Man. To do this, there is only one way. I must expose The Great One for the monster he truly is...
....To be continued.
"The Day the Great One Appeared" Part II
By John Amaruso
At a very young age I found myself writing to myself. Scribbling notes, jotting down ideas, stringing words and phrases together to remind myself of who I am, what I think, what I want. It was this system of brainstorming and record keeping that kept me going, kept me alive. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have such a medium for my caged soul.
It was Nietzsche who thought of art as the highest form of human activity. Without art, man would be nothing more than a barbarian armed with less than nothing to express himself. Art's absence bleeds any sort of meaning out of the very unique existence we have been granted by God himself. Without art, we have nothing to love, and without love, we have nothing. Nothing.
Art as mankind had come to know it in the 20th and 21st century is now obsolete. There's no use for it. The depictions of ancient fables, stories of crime and passion, the tales of trial and tribulation, the songs of settings and scenery, the pages of love and despair, they have all but disappeared. It's not because they had lost their meaning; it's because we as a society have lost our meaning.
It's near impossible to relate to something in which you haven't the slightest clue about. It's just as alien as coming into contact with another form of life- you know nothing of it. It's language would be wildly foreign, it's customs overtly shocking, it's beliefs wholly blasphemous; how can you empathize with it's being? With it's desires? How can you see, think, or feel what they do? It's for this exact reason that the art of Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Bach, Hemmingway, were not only undesirable- they were loathesome.
As society became more and more collective, more concentrated, organized and controlled, so did their thoughts. Individualism was something of an uncivilized brute. A disease which infected only the uneducated, the unenlightened; the simplified yearnings of animals. To be different was to be unfaithful to the world of One's greatness. To disavow all that has brought peace to the world. To bring art, philosophy, analysis, critiques and thoughts into this world would be as though you brought the water to the burning fire of human progress.
What I know of Nietzsche, Beethoven, Jules Verne, I learned through word of mouth or the few pages you could find in the One archives. Their existence and their contribution to the world was no longer appreciated by the world of One. Their records are left to gather dust in Tupperware bins in the back halls of the archives. With only express permission from the Great One himself could you be granted access to these files.
"I'm sorry Sir, what is the name of the book you are looking for?"
"Fredrich Nietzsche, the Use and Abuse of History."
"...Who?"
"Nee-tch-ah. Fred-rick, Nee-tch-ah."
"Hm, ok let me just check in the database... How do you spell that?"
The secretary looked at me bewildered. For starters the One archives is one of the least visited places in the town. It exists not because people actually used it, but because people should at the very least have access to use it. Or at the very least that's the reasoning applied to it's place in society.
I must have been her first patron all day and it was almost closing time.
"Hm I'm sorry dear, but we don't seem to have any record on file for Frederick Neetche... We do have a short form review of it if that would suffice..."
"No I don't want that. I want the original copy, the Use and Abuse of History."
When the Great One took power, he took the liberty of reviewing all of man's literature from start to finish. It is said it took him over 1000 years to do so, and his work is still not complete. The works he has finished though he has re-written himself, summarizing the key points and elements you as a member of One should emphasize in your studies.
"I do apologize honey. Would you like me to put in a special request with One services?"
"No that's just fine, thank you."
It was like this for a long time. Roadblocks at every turn when I tried to educate myself on something other than One. All I wanted was to understand what it was like in the past. To immerse myself in exotic ideas, breathe in poems of ancient tongue, to absorb every last drop of humanity before it was sucked dry by the Great One. My struggle to circumvent the system was seemingly futile, that is, until one day, I landed the job that would change everything.
It was my particular knack for writing that landed me a position in the One 982 Council. One 19982, along with all the other One's, was one of over 500,000 city states which were independently ran and autonomously governed by it's people. The idea came from Aristotle, who thought that true democracy could only come from small city states which governed themselves, much like ancient Athens. It was later adopted by the Great One in his re-design of human living.
The way it worked was this. The world's one billion people were divided among roughly 500,000 city states, with a maximum of 2,000 citizens within each state. Within each state, each citizen was assigned a job, and each set of jobs within each city state were uniform among each of the 500,000 city states. So for example; in my city, One 19982, 500 are assigned farming duties where they tend to the One 19982 Center City Farm. 200 are assigned custodial duties, cleaning the cities trash and litter. 200 are assigned maternal duties, or 'child care' as it used to be called. 400 were assigned book keeping or organizational duties, pushing through the paperwork needed to setup city meetings, city events, etc. Another 200 are assigned merchant duties, where they sell the products created by the remaining 300 miscellaneous factory workers. Meanwhile all citizens had mandatory Representation duty. We are all required to attend City Hall meetings to address grievances, propose ordinances, and discuss any other such issue that was at hand. Children within these 2,000 person populated city states aren't included in the City census until they became adults at age 15.Some people were assigned other duties to accompany there mandated civil service. Those few who were granted the privilege of doing something other than the tedious pushing and shoving of the world's daily labors were considered to have exhibited superior skills in fields that the Great One saw as useful in his rule. Things such as architecture, advertising, public relations, professional athletes, were all fields that required talent and extensive knowledge, things the average person could care less to possess. Me though, I had the skill of the pen, which landed me a job writing my city state, One 19982's press releases and city meeting summary reports.
This privilege put me in a position close to the Great One himself. An honor and an unimaginable burden within itself, I was required to scrupulously comb over every detail, take down every word, dot my I's and cross my T's on every report and hand deliver it to the Great One himself once a month at his residence in the One Sanctuary located where Bristol, England used to be. This was a position not to be taken lightly and was something one did with great respect for the opportunity to be graced the Great One's presence, even if it is only for a brief second or two.
It was for this reason that I was chosen by The Many to carry out a hit on the Great One. A plot to expose the Great One for his insolence, for his fallacies, for his inexcusable disregard for human value. The underground sleeper cell was beyond anything illegal- they were considered the scum of the world, the face of true evil, wrought with trechery and deceit, they were known as 'The Many Scum' by most. They were treated like the plague- if you had been exposed, or even suspected as being a member of The Many, you would most likely never be heard from again.
"There is no more room for doubt in this great world of One we have designed." bellows the Great One from his balcony to a procession of millions of adoring citizens.
"It is those who seek to undermine justice- who live to see hate and violence undo all that we have created- that work tirelessly to trick you into embracing death and evil- it is they who shall be banished from the privilege of One. It is they who have proven just how important it is that we bond together against such devilish treachery, to make our voices heard; to put an end to that which we have come so far from. To turn back now would be nothing less than the defeat of love and peace."
Applause rings out through the crowd, around the world of One through TV sets, radios, projector screens, computers, mobile devices.
The Many, a shadowy, almost unknown entity lived through word of mouth and well managed networking. If they made their presence known to you, it was because they had been following you for some time now. They studied your every move, spied on you, searched through your trash, hacked your computer, monitored your home. Anything and everything to ensure that by coming into contact with you that their cause wouldn't be put into jeopardy. When they finally did contact me, the last thing they had to worry about was my loyalty to their cause; what they did have to worry about was just how far I was willing to take it.
...to be continued
"The Day the Great One Appeared" Part III
by John Amaruso
When the pigeon flew through my window, I will admit, I was startled. Fluttering and flapping its wings wildly, it landed on the windowsill and began to bob its head back and forth, cooing every few seconds. Attached to its leg was a rolled up piece of parchment tightly wrapped in a rubber band.
It was within the first few years of the Great One's reign that a sizable opposition gained traction. They connected themselves through the internet. Groups like "The Many Against the One", "Freedom From Tyranny", and a group simply known as "The Greens" came out to protest against the consolidation of power into a single authority. Among the groups, "Anonymous", was the largest, most active, and most critical.
At first their activities were limited to cyber attacks, viral anti-One videos, propaganda messages and the like. Eventually they began executing small scale terror attacks, bombing recently built One World communities, attacking gatherings where the Great One was to give a speech; they even attempted assassinations against the Great One himself. While hundreds if not thousands died in these attacks, the Great One always walked away unscathed, even more emboldened to the rid the world of doubts against his superiority. The events showcased the Great One's resiliency, his strength, and his commitment to defend against the evils of the old world.
"As we have all witnessed, a great tragedy has befallen this great world of ours- 7 blessed souls were taken from us after cowards who refuse to see the way of righteousness and Greatness, attacked a One community that was being constructed. The injustice and inhumanity these groups represent is the precise reason why I have been sent here- it is this example of cruelty against one's fellow man that I have made my divine task to eliminate, for the good of all, and for the Greatness of One."
His uplifting tone of solidarity and community against those who perpetrated these acts of violence slowly morphed into a call for restrictions on community activities and daily life- most noticeably was his crackdown on the internet.
"It is through this free flow of information that security and freedom is undermined. It is in the confines of the underbelly of the internet where terrorists, pedophiles, the corrupt, the diseased, criminals, and the obscene find their breeding grounds. The internet has brought the world together in so many ways and yet these groups have used precisely this instrument to rip us apart- It is today that we say No Longer, No More, and Enough. It is with great pleasure that I announce a new campaign which will ensure the security of all and carry on the pursuit of justice for the victims of these rogue heretics and thieves. I present to you today, 'Operation Right It', a mission to rid the global web of all that is 'wrong'. It is this operation which will secure your freedoms, protect your liberties, and save your lives. An unavowed commitment to this plan is necessary if we are to continue on our path of progress towards the virtues of Greatness."
Operation Right It mandated that all existing computers be thrown out, demolished, dismantled, burned, or recycled. A factory located where Beijing, China used to be was constructed. There, all the world's computers would be manufactured, serviced, and distributed. The computers were all the same blue color, created with the same dimensions, 15 inches by 8 inches, installed with the same keyboards, processors, everything. The computers required registration into the "Right the Wrongs" database, a system of information collection and interpretation. Every citizen who wanted a computer was required to sign up with their local One Community Center where they would then receive an ID card, with a pin and username which only under extreme circumstances would be altered.
It was thereafter that the internet itself was transformed in its entirety. The independent servers from around the world were ordered to dismantle their services and join the Great One's server. A majority of companies and websites surprisingly signed onto the plan. Those that didn't lost everything they had and were labeled political subversives, an offense which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
This new 'One server' gave the Great One access to any and all information exchanged on the world's only working internet service. E-mails, browser historys, purchase information, everything was now under the watchful guise of the Great One. Any attempt to establish an external server that could circumvent this was punishable by 25 years under the Community Threat and Terror Act.
This put groups like Anonymous and The Blue out of business. The medium essential to their operation was essentially destroyed. Despite the threat of prison or exile, external servers were established by rogue organizations in the following years. Their lifespans were short, usually lasting up to about a year before being uncovered by the Great One. By the time they were caught, recruitment efforts by the organization would still be in their infancy, making the task of creating an external server futile and frankly unprofitable for the cause.
It is for this reason that The Many, the evolved accumulation of these groups, used means like carrier pigeons to send messages to one another. The birds were untraceable for the most part and were rarely the subject of investigation by authorities, making their use highly favored. There were only a few cases where it was discovered that pigeons were used to deliver messages for The Many, and that only happened when someone who had been solicited by The Many turned the bird in, either out of fear of being wrongly accused as a potential member of The Many, or simply because The Many misjudged the individual's loyalty to One.
As I unraveled the note attached to the cooing pigeon's leg, it read in bold ink blotted letters“BRICK GROUND PLANT SEED SEEK WINGS – BEGIN 1/4″
This cryptic message had more written in the spaces between the words than it did in the words themselves. They were purposely written as a puzzle to elude detection if caught accidentally by the wrong person. Fortunately for The Many, I knew exactly what they wanted. I knew where we would meet, when we would meet, and who I’d have to meet. I’m just not sure if they knew exactly who they were going to meet.
...to be continued
by John Amaruso
They call him 'The Great One'. Nobody knows where he came from, who he is, or exactly what he is. All we know about him is that he watches over this world of ours. He is a guardian to all of man's good. He is the all knowing, the all seeing, and the all powerful. He is omnipotent, indestructible, and benevolent.
Since the beginning of The Great One's reign, mankind has experienced no famines, no wars, no poverty, no injustice, no crime, no despair, no corruption, no filth, no disease, no pain, no suffering. There is only him, and the rest of us. His loyal subjects. His flock of disciples. A testament to his greatness. For he is, The Great One.
This is what I was taught to believe; rather, that is what we were all taught to believe.
It started almost 500 years ago when The Great One made his presence known. He was discovered on the streets of New York, dressed head to toe in what one could only describe as a Native American tribe's Head Chief garb. The white pointy feathers fanned out from the top of his head like brilliantly carved spear heads pointing up towards the sky. His chest exposed, a satchel around his right shoulder, and moccasins, he stood on the streets of lower Manhattan, preaching about how he was the one who would lead mankind to redemption. How he was the answer to all of man's problems. How he understood their fears, their hopes, their dreams and their desires. He claimed to have lived thousands of lifetimes and was here to right the wrongs of man's indiscretions.
At the time when The Great One made his presence known, his words fell on deaf ears. Passerbys shrugged him off as what they would have called a 'homeless' person with 'mental disorder'. His message and tongue were wholly ignored except by a few faith seeking nuts who continually showed up for his public street sermons. It was like this for many years, until one day, The Great One proved his words to be truth and their judgments to be in haste.
"While you all may all look at me with great disdain; with utter apathy and reluctance to believe; I warn you all heed the word of The Great One; for I am not destined to suffer the fate of mortal existence. No, I am of a higher breed. A higher consciousness. A higher plane of being than any single mortal on this earth could even begin to absorb. I am infinite, I am all, I am one."
A man from the crowd heckles him.
"Yeah? You think your betta' than the rest of us huh tough guy? Prove it! Prove you ain't no 'mortal'!"
With that, The Great One with his toned, red leathery face, looked towards the man with eyes of conviction and confidence.
"If it is only what you can see that you are willing to believe, then I shall make my cause known. I will bestow upon you all the answers to the questions with which you seek. First, I must ask a question of you, Sir. Do you presently carry a weapon on you?"
The crowd which has now congregated looks confused towards the man.
"Uh yeah, hey, is this some kinda trick question?"
"Not a trick Sir, my words are not to be taken lightly, for I will not repeat myself again."
"Well, I, uh, gotta pocket knife..."
"That will suffice. Hand it over to me."
The man makes his way through the crowd. Nervously he hands the tiny red swiss knife set over to the man dressed as a Native American.
"Now, I want you, to take this knife, and stab me with it."
The crowd's chatter intensifies, as the man looks around confused at the request.
"Excuse me???"
"My words are not to be taken lightly, for I will not repeat myself again."
"I'm not gonna' stab ya man, as much of a lunatic as you are, I ain't no murderer."
"You will not kill me, nor will you harm me, for I am infinite, I am all, and I am one."
"What kinda drugs you takin' man?"
"Hold your tongue and behold the miracle that is I when your feeble attempts at maiming me fall in vain for I am immortal."
The crowd looks around at each other, still chattering and whispering.
The Great One hands the knife back over to the perplexed man.
"Holy fuck man you are crazy."
"Give it your best, right here would do."
The Great One points to the right side of his chest. He then proceeds to get down on both knees, stretching his arms out like Jesus on the cross. He looks up towards the sky, closes his eyes, and breathes deeply.
The crowd's eyes are now fixated on the man and the knife.
"You're all my witness here! He's askin' me to do this..."
With that, the man's trembling hands bring the knife above his shoulder. He brings the knife down and into The Great One's chest. The knife stabs deep, spilling blood from the wound.
The crowd gasps and screams as The Great One's blood trickles down to his abdomen.
"HEY HEY ! YOU ALL SAW IT! HE TOLD ME TO DO IT! HOLY FUCK HE TOLD ME TO DO IT!"
The knife still lodged in his chest, The Great One opens his eyes and looks towards the crowd. With almost no expression, he takes his left arm to the handle of the knife, and rips it out of the wound. Within seconds, the wound begins to heal and the blood dries up. Where there once was a gaping wound returned to an intact right breast.
The crowd gasps again. They begin to clap and cheer wildly at the miraculous stunt.
The man standing over The Great One remains frozen in shock at the sight. The Great One lifts himself off the ground to his feet.
"How did you do that?!" says the man with an open jaw.
The Great One places his hand on the shoulder of the man and smiles.
"I am infinite, I am all, I am the One."
The news took the world by storm. A man who is impervious to death has defied all laws of physics and what we know as life. He is immune to disease, to harm, to death, to anything anyone tried throwing at him.
On national television he lit himself on fire, threw himself from a cliff, was shot at, stabbed, beaten, anything and everything humanly possible used against him was futile against whatever it was that was protecting this being.
"You know, you've really got the whole country talking Great One, and we would all really like to know; Where are you from?" asks TV's biggest late night talk show host Kelly Green as The Great One sits across from her on a green couch next to two other celebrities.
"I am here, presently, to show you the way. To guide humanity into a new age of existence. One which has never been known before."
"What do you mean by that Mr. One? Can I call you Mr. One?" the crowd chuckles with the cute blonde talk show host.
"I will bring you all to Eden. To what man was always meant to reach but strayed afar ages ago. Man must abandon all that he knows and pursue my words. My teachings. My philosophy and my wisdom. Those that doubt can no longer be accepted in this new age of human progress. There will be no more wars. No more hate. No more pain. No more suffering. No more poverty, crime, pollution, disease, lies, treachery and all that draws man closer to the burning embers of eternal hell. Follow me, The Great One, and we can all become One, together."
The crowd claps wildly at The Great One's prolific speech.
A mass following sprung up around the cult like figure, as thousands upon thousands followed him across the world, breathing and living his message of a new world order. An existence of never handing happiness. A world without famine, without terror, without violence. The utopia mankind has always struggled for seemed only a heels click away, just so as long we all followed, The Great One.
Political leaders and elites scrambled to make sense of the situation. Uprisings and demonstrations from discontent citizens who demanded that The Great One be installed as the world's new leader crumbled fragile societies. Africa was one of the first continents to fall, followed by Asia. Then South America, Europe, North America, and finally Australia. The world had rid itself of sovereign nations, entangling alliances, national identities, historic rivalries, cultural heritage, all to be a part of the new World Society, appropriately named, One.
The world of One was exactly what he promised. There no longer was any suffering to be had. There was an everlasting peace between all of The Great One's people. The collective identity of man had been solidified, institutionalized and programmed into the minds of every generation that followed the next, deeper and deeper until the remnants of history seemed more like far off fables of mythical worlds rather than mankind's past.
It is at this point that I find myself here. Another cog in the machine of One. The world with which I was brought up to love, to worship, to be inspired, to be wholly faithful. It is here that I find myself, plotting a way to bring the world to it's rightful place. To bring meaning back into existence, to be human like my ancestors once were. To destroy all that The Great One has created- this monstrosity of progress. To bring back chaos, fear, depression, hate, torture, suffering; to bring back what defines Man as Man. To do this, there is only one way. I must expose The Great One for the monster he truly is...
....To be continued.
"The Day the Great One Appeared" Part II
By John Amaruso
At a very young age I found myself writing to myself. Scribbling notes, jotting down ideas, stringing words and phrases together to remind myself of who I am, what I think, what I want. It was this system of brainstorming and record keeping that kept me going, kept me alive. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have such a medium for my caged soul.
It was Nietzsche who thought of art as the highest form of human activity. Without art, man would be nothing more than a barbarian armed with less than nothing to express himself. Art's absence bleeds any sort of meaning out of the very unique existence we have been granted by God himself. Without art, we have nothing to love, and without love, we have nothing. Nothing.
Art as mankind had come to know it in the 20th and 21st century is now obsolete. There's no use for it. The depictions of ancient fables, stories of crime and passion, the tales of trial and tribulation, the songs of settings and scenery, the pages of love and despair, they have all but disappeared. It's not because they had lost their meaning; it's because we as a society have lost our meaning.
It's near impossible to relate to something in which you haven't the slightest clue about. It's just as alien as coming into contact with another form of life- you know nothing of it. It's language would be wildly foreign, it's customs overtly shocking, it's beliefs wholly blasphemous; how can you empathize with it's being? With it's desires? How can you see, think, or feel what they do? It's for this exact reason that the art of Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Bach, Hemmingway, were not only undesirable- they were loathesome.
As society became more and more collective, more concentrated, organized and controlled, so did their thoughts. Individualism was something of an uncivilized brute. A disease which infected only the uneducated, the unenlightened; the simplified yearnings of animals. To be different was to be unfaithful to the world of One's greatness. To disavow all that has brought peace to the world. To bring art, philosophy, analysis, critiques and thoughts into this world would be as though you brought the water to the burning fire of human progress.
What I know of Nietzsche, Beethoven, Jules Verne, I learned through word of mouth or the few pages you could find in the One archives. Their existence and their contribution to the world was no longer appreciated by the world of One. Their records are left to gather dust in Tupperware bins in the back halls of the archives. With only express permission from the Great One himself could you be granted access to these files.
"I'm sorry Sir, what is the name of the book you are looking for?"
"Fredrich Nietzsche, the Use and Abuse of History."
"...Who?"
"Nee-tch-ah. Fred-rick, Nee-tch-ah."
"Hm, ok let me just check in the database... How do you spell that?"
The secretary looked at me bewildered. For starters the One archives is one of the least visited places in the town. It exists not because people actually used it, but because people should at the very least have access to use it. Or at the very least that's the reasoning applied to it's place in society.
I must have been her first patron all day and it was almost closing time.
"Hm I'm sorry dear, but we don't seem to have any record on file for Frederick Neetche... We do have a short form review of it if that would suffice..."
"No I don't want that. I want the original copy, the Use and Abuse of History."
When the Great One took power, he took the liberty of reviewing all of man's literature from start to finish. It is said it took him over 1000 years to do so, and his work is still not complete. The works he has finished though he has re-written himself, summarizing the key points and elements you as a member of One should emphasize in your studies.
"I do apologize honey. Would you like me to put in a special request with One services?"
"No that's just fine, thank you."
It was like this for a long time. Roadblocks at every turn when I tried to educate myself on something other than One. All I wanted was to understand what it was like in the past. To immerse myself in exotic ideas, breathe in poems of ancient tongue, to absorb every last drop of humanity before it was sucked dry by the Great One. My struggle to circumvent the system was seemingly futile, that is, until one day, I landed the job that would change everything.
It was my particular knack for writing that landed me a position in the One 982 Council. One 19982, along with all the other One's, was one of over 500,000 city states which were independently ran and autonomously governed by it's people. The idea came from Aristotle, who thought that true democracy could only come from small city states which governed themselves, much like ancient Athens. It was later adopted by the Great One in his re-design of human living.
The way it worked was this. The world's one billion people were divided among roughly 500,000 city states, with a maximum of 2,000 citizens within each state. Within each state, each citizen was assigned a job, and each set of jobs within each city state were uniform among each of the 500,000 city states. So for example; in my city, One 19982, 500 are assigned farming duties where they tend to the One 19982 Center City Farm. 200 are assigned custodial duties, cleaning the cities trash and litter. 200 are assigned maternal duties, or 'child care' as it used to be called. 400 were assigned book keeping or organizational duties, pushing through the paperwork needed to setup city meetings, city events, etc. Another 200 are assigned merchant duties, where they sell the products created by the remaining 300 miscellaneous factory workers. Meanwhile all citizens had mandatory Representation duty. We are all required to attend City Hall meetings to address grievances, propose ordinances, and discuss any other such issue that was at hand. Children within these 2,000 person populated city states aren't included in the City census until they became adults at age 15.Some people were assigned other duties to accompany there mandated civil service. Those few who were granted the privilege of doing something other than the tedious pushing and shoving of the world's daily labors were considered to have exhibited superior skills in fields that the Great One saw as useful in his rule. Things such as architecture, advertising, public relations, professional athletes, were all fields that required talent and extensive knowledge, things the average person could care less to possess. Me though, I had the skill of the pen, which landed me a job writing my city state, One 19982's press releases and city meeting summary reports.
This privilege put me in a position close to the Great One himself. An honor and an unimaginable burden within itself, I was required to scrupulously comb over every detail, take down every word, dot my I's and cross my T's on every report and hand deliver it to the Great One himself once a month at his residence in the One Sanctuary located where Bristol, England used to be. This was a position not to be taken lightly and was something one did with great respect for the opportunity to be graced the Great One's presence, even if it is only for a brief second or two.
It was for this reason that I was chosen by The Many to carry out a hit on the Great One. A plot to expose the Great One for his insolence, for his fallacies, for his inexcusable disregard for human value. The underground sleeper cell was beyond anything illegal- they were considered the scum of the world, the face of true evil, wrought with trechery and deceit, they were known as 'The Many Scum' by most. They were treated like the plague- if you had been exposed, or even suspected as being a member of The Many, you would most likely never be heard from again.
"There is no more room for doubt in this great world of One we have designed." bellows the Great One from his balcony to a procession of millions of adoring citizens.
"It is those who seek to undermine justice- who live to see hate and violence undo all that we have created- that work tirelessly to trick you into embracing death and evil- it is they who shall be banished from the privilege of One. It is they who have proven just how important it is that we bond together against such devilish treachery, to make our voices heard; to put an end to that which we have come so far from. To turn back now would be nothing less than the defeat of love and peace."
Applause rings out through the crowd, around the world of One through TV sets, radios, projector screens, computers, mobile devices.
The Many, a shadowy, almost unknown entity lived through word of mouth and well managed networking. If they made their presence known to you, it was because they had been following you for some time now. They studied your every move, spied on you, searched through your trash, hacked your computer, monitored your home. Anything and everything to ensure that by coming into contact with you that their cause wouldn't be put into jeopardy. When they finally did contact me, the last thing they had to worry about was my loyalty to their cause; what they did have to worry about was just how far I was willing to take it.
...to be continued
"The Day the Great One Appeared" Part III
by John Amaruso
When the pigeon flew through my window, I will admit, I was startled. Fluttering and flapping its wings wildly, it landed on the windowsill and began to bob its head back and forth, cooing every few seconds. Attached to its leg was a rolled up piece of parchment tightly wrapped in a rubber band.
It was within the first few years of the Great One's reign that a sizable opposition gained traction. They connected themselves through the internet. Groups like "The Many Against the One", "Freedom From Tyranny", and a group simply known as "The Greens" came out to protest against the consolidation of power into a single authority. Among the groups, "Anonymous", was the largest, most active, and most critical.
At first their activities were limited to cyber attacks, viral anti-One videos, propaganda messages and the like. Eventually they began executing small scale terror attacks, bombing recently built One World communities, attacking gatherings where the Great One was to give a speech; they even attempted assassinations against the Great One himself. While hundreds if not thousands died in these attacks, the Great One always walked away unscathed, even more emboldened to the rid the world of doubts against his superiority. The events showcased the Great One's resiliency, his strength, and his commitment to defend against the evils of the old world.
"As we have all witnessed, a great tragedy has befallen this great world of ours- 7 blessed souls were taken from us after cowards who refuse to see the way of righteousness and Greatness, attacked a One community that was being constructed. The injustice and inhumanity these groups represent is the precise reason why I have been sent here- it is this example of cruelty against one's fellow man that I have made my divine task to eliminate, for the good of all, and for the Greatness of One."
His uplifting tone of solidarity and community against those who perpetrated these acts of violence slowly morphed into a call for restrictions on community activities and daily life- most noticeably was his crackdown on the internet.
"It is through this free flow of information that security and freedom is undermined. It is in the confines of the underbelly of the internet where terrorists, pedophiles, the corrupt, the diseased, criminals, and the obscene find their breeding grounds. The internet has brought the world together in so many ways and yet these groups have used precisely this instrument to rip us apart- It is today that we say No Longer, No More, and Enough. It is with great pleasure that I announce a new campaign which will ensure the security of all and carry on the pursuit of justice for the victims of these rogue heretics and thieves. I present to you today, 'Operation Right It', a mission to rid the global web of all that is 'wrong'. It is this operation which will secure your freedoms, protect your liberties, and save your lives. An unavowed commitment to this plan is necessary if we are to continue on our path of progress towards the virtues of Greatness."
Operation Right It mandated that all existing computers be thrown out, demolished, dismantled, burned, or recycled. A factory located where Beijing, China used to be was constructed. There, all the world's computers would be manufactured, serviced, and distributed. The computers were all the same blue color, created with the same dimensions, 15 inches by 8 inches, installed with the same keyboards, processors, everything. The computers required registration into the "Right the Wrongs" database, a system of information collection and interpretation. Every citizen who wanted a computer was required to sign up with their local One Community Center where they would then receive an ID card, with a pin and username which only under extreme circumstances would be altered.
It was thereafter that the internet itself was transformed in its entirety. The independent servers from around the world were ordered to dismantle their services and join the Great One's server. A majority of companies and websites surprisingly signed onto the plan. Those that didn't lost everything they had and were labeled political subversives, an offense which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
This new 'One server' gave the Great One access to any and all information exchanged on the world's only working internet service. E-mails, browser historys, purchase information, everything was now under the watchful guise of the Great One. Any attempt to establish an external server that could circumvent this was punishable by 25 years under the Community Threat and Terror Act.
This put groups like Anonymous and The Blue out of business. The medium essential to their operation was essentially destroyed. Despite the threat of prison or exile, external servers were established by rogue organizations in the following years. Their lifespans were short, usually lasting up to about a year before being uncovered by the Great One. By the time they were caught, recruitment efforts by the organization would still be in their infancy, making the task of creating an external server futile and frankly unprofitable for the cause.
It is for this reason that The Many, the evolved accumulation of these groups, used means like carrier pigeons to send messages to one another. The birds were untraceable for the most part and were rarely the subject of investigation by authorities, making their use highly favored. There were only a few cases where it was discovered that pigeons were used to deliver messages for The Many, and that only happened when someone who had been solicited by The Many turned the bird in, either out of fear of being wrongly accused as a potential member of The Many, or simply because The Many misjudged the individual's loyalty to One.
As I unraveled the note attached to the cooing pigeon's leg, it read in bold ink blotted letters“BRICK GROUND PLANT SEED SEEK WINGS – BEGIN 1/4″
This cryptic message had more written in the spaces between the words than it did in the words themselves. They were purposely written as a puzzle to elude detection if caught accidentally by the wrong person. Fortunately for The Many, I knew exactly what they wanted. I knew where we would meet, when we would meet, and who I’d have to meet. I’m just not sure if they knew exactly who they were going to meet.
...to be continued
No comments:
Post a Comment