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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The People Threw Off Tyranny


In closing this chapter, after a prolonged and discomforting argument, let us examine how things might have been if America had come out of her trance, along with her billions of wasted dollars and actually challenged once again the mysterious lady and the city on the hill shining its light on the world.

One hundred.  Almost down.  The End is near.

“Look, Lisa,” he paused as he realized that it was the first time he’d actually considered such things.  The only Socialism he’d ever known had been a lion among the dead wearing a fancy straw hat and a beige suit.

“You can call me Lisa.” she assured him (though her name was, in fact, Mary) as his eyes caught hers.  “What is it?”  His face was completely in the shadows. Whoever had been in the house was gone.

“What did you see?” she asked him again.

He was, for a time, the keeper of the word.  He would have died, but resources made it possible for him to continue.  It was a minimum guarantee, but it kept him alive.

“Why won’t you speak to me?” she begged. “We believe in the peace method of solving internal and international disputes.  We believe in love.  We believe that global poverty must cease.”

He once again studied the cross.  It was a two dimensional sketch done in pencil without artistic flair. 

“What do you make of it?”  She asked as she lit another cigarette, her third in less than an hour. “The cross could be a symbol of the Christ.  I see freedom, liberty, and prosperity.  Do you remember those stories about the Boston Party Massacre?  That type of work usually involves a revelatory dream and a cryptic end-of-the-world vision recorded very precisely by an electroencephalogram, a vision of the coming of the dead.” 

No sensible person could imagine the number crunching, transcendental curves and isoperimetry, dancing and trembling during worship services to purge our bodies of the past.  Leave nothing behind.  While they believe in a future seven year tribulation period in which the Antichrist will rule the world, even they do not believe that Hollywood, with its secularity and liberal politics, will give the team one more mystery to try and understand.

“Tell me…”

“I’m no expert in this field, but I doubt a rogue Taliban group would have done it this way.”

Two hundred.  Unfortunately, the trip would not improve.  No other system would be devised.  Which is probably why, despite a historical success rate over the past two hundred years, Professor Cross hasn’t donated to the university.  He flipped a light switch. A single 200-watt bulb, hanging with no shade from a rafter, illuminated the room.

Three hundred.  He had a nice voice.

Saddam Hussein, who was trying to rebuild and restore the ancient city of Babylon, Is closely affiliated with the Communist movement in the United States of America, and fully 90 percent of his efforts are on behalf of communists who have come into conflict with the law.  Replace the American flag with a photo of an old car pasted to the back of a sheet of newspaper. He shrugged.  The process of decay had not yet begun.  It may yet begin.  It could begin today, a spectacular blaze of cataclysmic glory, horoscopes, UFOs and bent spoons. 

She flipped a switch and the scanner came on.  But still he would never answer her.  Mary (or Lisa) left the house and went out to eat eggs; the people threw off tyranny.  




(A word of explanation:  I have recently been reading some of William Burroughs' writings, and I am a fan of his "cut up" method of writing.  So I thought I'd do a little cutting up, myself.  I do this every now and again.)


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