p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Part 1. Chapter 4. White Pawn./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar looked down at his hands, and a certain power flooded up his spine. His hands were no longer shaking. Fred's body laid perpendicular to the trash cans in the alley, head covered in the trash from a ripped open bag, sweat beads glimmering like fluid jewelry. Jar Jar waited for something other than eerie calm to flood him, expecting moralistic remorse or a relief from a new found freedom. The neutrality remained, though, and he threw his hands in his hoodie front pocket and turned away from the garbage./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Where was the relief? He had, in one moment of cruel violence, ended over a decade of torment and hatred, ten years of seeing his mother emcry and the blackeye staring back, crooked tooth grin Don't worry, your mom's fine, she just fell down the stairs Yeah listen to your mother kid now get back in your room go play outside and beat it would ya I gotta practice for th bowling tournament and the spider web in the window glistening glistening morning dew drops like tinsel a colorless stained glass the howl of anger from the bannister, goddamn It boy a fist in the face is worth two in the stomach and /emhe felt no better. He left the alley, making sure no one was looking, and began to weave through the urban labyrinth into the street. It was a busy market street, crowds of tourists and homeless alike flooding the sidewalks, one peddling their wares to the other, rows of tents selling knockoff Disney merchandise, false flowers and plants, charicatures of celebrities, and bottles of water, along with Burkin Bags, Supreme jackets and pants, and Gucci belts. The chorus of merch barkers and salesmen cried out from their booths:/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Get your Louis V Mickey Hat! Only 20$! Hurry before they run out!/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I've got Burger king crowns! Burger King crowns for sale, just as you remember them from your youth! Come and fold your crown and be a king for a day!/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Crucifixes here! Jesus Pieces, studded in diamonds and gold! They say the meek will inherit the earth, but what good is that if the Earth is just a buncha dirt and sand? Look out for number one and manifest your own personal Jesus! Why be like Judas, who sold Christ, when you can BUY him instead?/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar ignored their cries, weaving in and out of the crowd. The social smell was noxious, even after years of living in the city he had not gotten used to the contradictory stench of feces, unwashed bodies, expensive cologne and bodywash, and Scent Neutralizer (a once an hour spray, provided by Amazon Public Service Division, that was meant to stifle the suffocating smells of the streets. It was never effective, only instead providing its own uncanny scent of nothing. Groups at the University of New Disneyland, where he attended, had advocated for reformist policy to get rid of the Scent Neutralizers, as they presented a 'problematic approach to the issues of poverty, and only exist to marginalize communities of people who can't do anything about the scent.") Jar Jar made special care to control his breathing and kept his eyes forward. He had already seen some IKONS patrolling the area, both in uniform and Incognito (they always thought they were smart, but Jar Jar had trained himself to spot uncanny or inconsistent physical features in anyone he passed by. Take for example a homeless looking fellow near the Churro and Bulgogi stand, slumped over and drooling. The hairline was off just by a little bit, almonst as if the scalp had been moved an inch back, not to mention the slight dulling of the facial features, almost as if a very thin layer of plastic wrap had been applied. It was faint though, and would be invisible to anyone passing by unless they were, like Jar Jar, looking specifically for these kind of traits. IKON technology had improved greatly even recently, so Jar Jar suspected that the IKON was using facial scrambling mask on either an energy saving mode or even an older model, which could explain why the IKON had chosen to be a homeless person in the first place. Certain IKONS had been reported to be able to scan and read facial cues to determine if people were harboring feelings of guilt./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar shifted his focus to the night sky. A dull, rust red color could faintly been seen between the immense, bulbous designs of characters, products, etc that were erected outside most every building, like giant pop art statues of devotion to consumer goods. He had spent many an hour looking outside the University's window on the top floor of the Empathy Tower looking down at the backside of a nearly three story Kardashian lipstick. The line was always long, and he could see even from a distance the large blobs of the bouncers as they let people one at a time set up their phone tripods and take videos in front of the structure, mostly dancing. Right now he was looking up towards a giant Funco Pop, the features morphing and shifting dynamically with IKON technology. Right now it was a figure of Barack Obama, and it was beginning to shift into either James Baldwin or The Grim Sleeper. He didn't want to stick around to find out./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emDon't let them see me think don't let them see me think don't let them see me breath and the song was playing on the speaker, all American rejects as the sound of the tv downstairs even that couldn't drown out the yelling and screaming. Cmere you fucking kid. You think you own this goddamn house, you put food on the table? Who here works their fingers to the bone to get this shit, you little trash fucker? Yeah how do you like them apples, you trash fuck? Trash fuck, get the hell out of the way, maybe you'd like to feel a bit of the old 'flintstone fever', like your whore mom has you little /embit to the left, said the cameraman. Jar Jar stopped and quickly walked around the man holding his phone and the woman he was shooting, who was dressed up like a beggar. Jar Jar turned around and watched the woman pose sadly to the camera, then quickly take off her crusty looking shirt and reveal a crop top made of sequins and diamonds. She began to stunt, showing off her legs and did a pop-lock dance. emWere they IKONS? Why does she look that way, theres something about the both of them, look at them, are they staring at me? /em Jar Jar swallowed and headed into an alleyway. He wanted to get away from the bodies. It was time to go to the park./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar wove his way through the alleys, stepping over sleeping or dead homeless bodies. Groans almost harmonizing in the bright fluorescent lights that shone at all times. Ever since his presidency Mickey had declared that 'darkness would never be a problem again, for evil always hides in the dark,' and so lights were always on, even in the daytime. It had become much hotter since this mandate. Jar Jar hated it, even more than the social scent. He was careful not to feel too much hatred though. A camera on any of the corners could probably read his facial cues enough to determine if he was feeling hateful, which was a precursor emotion to violence. emI got away with it though, I played my cards right. Drunken fuck didn't know what hit him. No cameras that work in alley 23-A. as long as no IKON sees any violence traces, no scent of fear, no violent urges. Don't let them read you longer than you need./em/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar tried to steady his mind. It was no small feat though. Even his normal mode of imaginative philosophical pondering were dulled in his state of false contentment. He had slaughtered a man whom no one would miss, a man who had no loved ones, no friends, and no job. A consummate drunkard and a debt sponge with no plans of paying anyone back. Jar Jar had satisfied his own appetite for revenge, and had rid the world of one more waste of flesh. And yet, he felt nothing toward it. Not even as much as guilt. He was beyond moral objection, as it was clear that it was if anything more morally sound to let someone like Fred out in the real world. He had committed a merciful act if anything. Professor Griffin always made it a point to inject his lectures with what he had a called a 'humanist touch', and spoke against the very mindset that Jar Jar possessed now, "it is our moral duty, we at the top, to provide for and uplift the marginalized, to work to create material harmony among everyone, so that to each what they need. For each man and woman and person is equal and always will be. This is the great lesson of thinkers like MLK, Ghandi, Marx, Obama, and even Mickey." How many hours he had spent arguing with Professor Griffin in his office, how many times did he bring up the will to power, learned helplessness, technological suppression, the works of those like Linkola and Greer, only to be laughed at for bringing up 'pseudo intellectuals', despite being no more pseudo intellectual than Zizek or Butler. He was always astounded by professors like Griffin, who seemed to latch on to moral relativism when it came to state mandated morality, but would always go for broad egalitarianism to justify why each man and woman deserved to live. The right to live. And yet, the right to live was in of itself a contradiction, because it would only be presumed that the right to live existed in the first place at the mercy of institutions or government. On a purely ecological or 'natural' level, no one man had any more right to live than another, yet naturally there existed a harsh utilitarianism, one that relies on what you can bring to the table for survival in a tribe or pack. There was no right to life, only the fight to live. And what should be done about the fred Flintstones of the world? The true scumbags, the ones who leached off weaker individuals? Parasites get poisoned. Professor Griffin would have been horrified by the unspeakable act he had committed, purely because someone like Fred could have the right to live, and that he could verily change his attitudes and methodologies and be a corrected member of society? Academics struck Jar Jar as some of the most oversocialized people he had ever met, people who believed that it merely took a restructuring or remixing of society's values in order to make a healthier, more engaged society, despite the very fundamental problems of society existing still, but with a brighter coat of paint. He didn't hate Professor Griffin, but he felt a sense of pity-loathing towards him, for he would never reflect that the world had dug itself into a moral grave, one that had rejected imagination and skills in favor for pleasure and consumerism./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar had made his way to the park. It was always a nuisance getting into the park, as the throngs of homeless were at a peak here. Standing in line to get in, he kept a clenched hand on his wallet. Pickpockets had been known to rob people blind near the park. The row of IKONS stood around the perimeter of the park, with more patrolling around. Any person, especially if they were homeless, were whacked or beaten, and many more would be carried off towards some unseen or otherwise unknown holding facility. Jar Jar had heard the rumors that the facilities were in the sewers, but he was skeptical of this. He figured it would be in plain sight, what did they have to hide? Everyone knew what they did./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar didn't have to wait too long in line, it was late in the night and many were off in their own homes or shopping in the streets./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ticket. Now," said the Front Desk Machine. Jar Jar paid the machine one ticket (about $20, plus taxes, purchasable at most Amazon Hubs). He entered the park./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"There were a couple of bars and restaurants he could go to, but he wanted to see some of the greenery first. They had put down a new patch of artificial sod throughout, and even the trees looked remodeled. He felt a leaf from a maple tree, the soft, papery green piece of plastic a welcome retreat from the feeling of concrete and brick of the city. It was nice to be in nature./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"A small crowd had gathered, laughing and pointing at a figure on a box. Jar Jar wandered over, less out of curiosity and more to contain his mind (IKONS were always around after all). The crowd, mostly multiethnic men in powdered wigs, were sneering at the man on a soapbox, wearing tattered and worn jeans, turtleneck, and vest. The man was midspeech-/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""and, Gawrsh, it should be clear to anyone living that the current state of the world is not good. We were promised an end to fear, and yes no flying saucers have come, but we've given up so much personal freedom to ensure that we can remain safe. We are not in control of anything anymore. We have turned to social media, to the internet, to try and find some semblance of control. Of power. The flying saucers were a hoax. Designed by the government to appear as an outside, malevolent force we could band together and destroy. It's a narrative that has appeared in all comic books, in all Godzilla movies, in all modern narrative designs! And Lo, the vipers of the age sit in wait and rest comfortably…the chess board is designed, the material is drawn and sitting in wait. We have given up control of our lives, our basic freedoms, liberty too! We let our lives turn into numbers, man! Binary code is now the language of the masses, ones and zeroes, absolutes, yes and no. Cosmic absolutes do not exist, and yet we have allowed ourselves to believe in them so. Material, material, all is material. Don't you feel it? The crippling terror and dread, worthlessness a shadow that we sleep in…tenets of the broken motherboard, picking up silicon and crawling toward the neural pathways…don't you got it in your bones? Do you not want to lurch forth, grab the simulation by it's very fabric, and reveal the magician behind it all? All of us are Mkultra test subjects, all of us lose ourselves in the black sea of information, all data is lost in the servers. Mountains of servers beaming down and we are looking backward, the inescapable, the divine too! Remember the divine gate, the grace of the Gorilla, the terror of CHUKKK! Terror is conjured from the maw of CHUKKK! The grace of the Gorilla can save us…I've read it on the subway walls, bathroom stalls, even in potmarked in the fabric of my dreams. I love to sleep, for I can astral travel into the deepest parts of the universe and stitch together truth among the noise...I have read Marcel's teachings, I have seen the truth! The gorilla can save us, through our faith we can defeat evil and triumph over the sick and twisted world that has been delivered to us by the evils of MIKKK, CHUKKK, and the rest of the fools and philosophers-!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He was stopped by a tomato in the face. One of the men in the powdered wigs had thrown it, and others soon began to follow. Each vegetable that flew at the soapbox man hit with a great force. Despite this, the man did not concede his slouched composure. He simply took the beating./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The loudest of the vegetable men pushed the man off the soapbox and took it for his own. Jar Jar could tell that the man, and maybe the others, were at least drunk if not also on Opiopleasure./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""This buffoon is talking straight gibberish, dawg! Gorillas? Chucks? Get real! Yeah, times are not all sunshine and roses, but this is America we're talking here! A land built by immigrants! Where democracy is king, and every person has a voice and a vote! I think your problem, buddy, is that you think it's all doom and gloom, when everyone knows the sun will come out tomorrow! We have the amazing opportunity to make art, speak our mind, and choose paths of freedom! We get universal basic income, we get free healthcare, we get to live in a world that is like Disneyland, where your wildest dreams can come true! Hold up hold up, I can't just talk about it, Fellas, why don't you do the honors? George, lay down a beat."/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"One of the powdered wig men began to beatbox. A couple others joined, providing sounds similar to record scratches, bass, and guitar./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The man on the soapbox jumped off and began to juke and jive, doing a box step while the others circled around him:/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""This is a story about how my life got flipped, turned upside down/br /it's one that won't make you frown, I've lived it down/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I once was cynical, bombastic, a little fanatic/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"A dash of manic, mixed with a splash of frantic!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I thought the gov'ment was a hoax without a boast/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"But I did the research, and I gotta give a toast/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"This is the country to be in!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"This is the country where you can win!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It ain't a sin, don't throw your life in the bin/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Prosperous, gospelous, bulbous and porous/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"We can build it together, just the two of us!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I went to class, got a degree, felt a lot more free/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Because my knowledge grew, my power grew/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"My faith in my country grew!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Don't be blue, you tool, and get in the groove!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It's time to wiggy wiggy whack and attack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The fools who ain't got the knack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"To be believing in the American dream/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Are, in my humble opinion, extremely whack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Because they all caught up in the conspiracy scheme!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Everyone and everything is all right, don't be stressin'/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Drink from the fountain, and receive the blessin'/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Life is good, even when it's bad/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"So get glad!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He continued to rap in the middle of the circle, but Jar Jar had had enough. The useless prattling was beginning to upset him, not so much for the content but the lack of a consistent meter and rythmn. He turned and headed towards one of the bars./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The only open bar was BAR, which was one of his least favorite chain of restaurants. Inside, the confusing hodge podge of designs smacked him in their disorder. The bar had been modeled off of Cheers, but the restaurant part had been based on the Restaurant from Seinfeld, all the while a small gathering spot of couches sat in the middle much like the Central roast from Friends. The walls were shiny, offering a smudgy reflection, which made the joint he seem artificially larger and brighter than it really was. He sat down at one of the screens at the bar, and opened the beer tab. A list of beers, foreign and domestic. He chose Billy Beer, the cheapest. The automated bar tender struggled to fit the glass under a large nozzle in the ceiling. Jar Jar presumed his programming hadn't been updated, and as a result the automated bartender couldn't quite tell where the nozzle began and ended. The liquid that poured out almost entirely missed the glass, and what got in was foamy. The automated bartender slammed the glass two meters away from Jar Jar on the bar. Jar Jar got up and retrieved it./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The soapbox man came into the bar, still red and green stained from the slew of vegetables that had been pitched his way. He plopped down in a booth. Jar Jar watched him from afar. There was an entrancing energy about the soapbox man that Jar Jar couldn't quite articulate. He had seemed crazy, rambling and raving, but beneath the word salad was a truth that Jar Jar at least agreed with on some level. Maybe those who spoke in tongues were divinely inspired after all./p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar approached the man, who was slumped in his seat. He was twisting his hat in his hands nervously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hey, you mind if I sit with you. I'll buy you a beer."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The disheveled man waved a hand in presentation toward the other side. Jar Jar sat down and clicked on the tablet to on the table. The two watched in silence as the automated bartender yet again began to attempt pouring out beer from the nozzle in the ceiling, the hops just barely making its way into the glass, the pool of beer on the floor growing larger. The automated bartender began to make it's way over to the booth where they sat, but halfway stopped, paused, and made its way back to behind the bar, glass still clasped in its specialty designed beer handling claw. It began to move back and forth, back and forth, as if dancing, moving to the point halfway between the bar and the booth and behind the bar, like a man pacing back and forth in confused agony. All the while, the claw which held the beer was shaking slightly, so with each trip to and fro more and more beer began to fly out of the top. Had Jar Jar not gotten up in defeat and retrieved the glass himself, ripping the beer from the clasp of the automated bartender as it reached one end of its cycle, it might have moved back and forth forever./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar slid the half empty and mostly foam glass toward the bum, who took it and lapped it up excitedly. Jar Jar watched the man slurp the cup emDon't think Don't think IKONS reading your heart beats at all time, they are presuming reading always reading this poor bloke has no clue what is going on no clue my crime no clue my power to wield violence as a vengeance tool against the great and powerful evils of my life no clue what the hell is that sound it is/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Gawrsh, thank you kind stranger. How can I repay you?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Think nothing of it. I just find you interesting is all."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum narrowed his eyes and leaned in towards Jar jar in suspicion. "Just what exactly are you getting at? You gonna make fun?"/p
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p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Not at all. I find your ideas subversive. I'm a philosophy and literature student at the University, and I'm interested in subversive ideas, even if I don't necessarily you know agree with them."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""my ideas, they are not subversive though. Subversive means they are untrue, or fringe. I simply speak the facts."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""sure, I don't disagree. Listening to what you were saying, there was a coherent thought schema-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"the bum laughed. 'Listen to yourself, my friend. You talk of ideas as if they were conversational, and yet, they are poised with explosive rhetoric! Society, government, culture- even our reality that we live in- is no different than that of the simulation, no different at all from a movie like the Matrix quadrilogy!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emThis guy is going in. Let him ramble, I'll engage. Don't think of the death, don't think of the murder/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""uh huh. And someone, you were endowed with the knowledge? That sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm just curious where you presume chuck or whatever is running the world."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum's gaze flickered paranoidly around the BAR. No doubt also looking for IKONS. Bums were perhaps the best at spotting and avoiding IKONS, as they had to spend long hours on the street, and the more and more dehumanized one became in the face of giant, immovable systems of economics, politics, and authority, one became more cognizant of the separation of what a living organism and what a derivative or interpretation of a living organism looks like. Plus, the dregs of society (more kindly referred to as 'economically challenged' by the students at the university) were not as inundated with images of screens and images as those in society were, and were therefore more acutely aware of reality. There is nothing that can confirm the hardcore truth of reality like spending your days in the streets fighting to live, surviving, while the media savvy members of society became more and more lost in video games, films, television, video content, and social media./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""my friend…can you keep a secret of a poor soul such as I?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""of course."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I once…I once was a member of an underground group of freedom fighters…religious freedom fighters…we had found the prophet, the living manifestation of the spirit of the Gorilla…Marcel Toing. We would meet in secret, in the alleys of the city, in the underground network of sewers and forgotten metro stops…there we discussed the Truth, the prophecies of Marcel Toing, of the evil of CHUKKK…we were in the presence of a new age gnostic text…powerful stuff…oh, please, by the way, cut me off if I begin to babble, I get quite excitable and my time on the streets alone have made me antisocial."br /br /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Do not fret, my friend. I am here to listen, to perhaps toss in a question or two. Play devil's advocate. I myself am trying to escape the demons of the night."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""what sort of demons?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Never mind that. Continue please."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Well…myself, and a group of five or so, I won't name them for their sake, speaking their name out loud is dangerous…we would gather, and we were planning. You see, there are rumors that evil has entered into the System a long time ago, but…those flying saucer attacks, that was a turning point. The attacks, they were real of course. They destroyed so many lives, I'm not, I'm not saying they didn't. But we saw something. You see, Marcel had begun around that time to prophesize those very flying saucers, but he warned us as well that the punishment came from within, that, gawrsh, what was it that he said? "and the flying saucers will destroy us, but look not to the sky for their entrance, nay, for the evil against man will always come from man's hand, and evil was birthed from CKUKKK". And-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on, you're saying that the flying saucers were an inside job? What about the Martian bases, the bombs we sent to Mars, the pictures of the destroyed crafts? "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ye- yes, yes it was. All those, those pieces of evidence- all doctored. We have yet to find no physical evidence of the crafts having come from Mars, there have never been any piece of technology that has been extracted, despite the fact that one flying saucer did manage to be shot down over Alaska. Why haven't we extracted any?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""didn't it get destroyed over the ocean?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""and yet nothing- in fact, as recent as 5 years ago, the last piece of news you would have heard about it was that it was 'lost to the sea.' A flying saucer! Gigantic in size, nearly the size of a small metropolitan city, and it was lost to the sea? Despite the wonderful president Mickey making promises to do everything they would do to progress our society to that of some supposed Martian society, to spend every last dime extracting the craft. And silence came next. And silence deafend throughout the country, as we all fell into gleeful joy at the idea of more revenge…We, that is our group of thinkers, also came to study the astrological and thelemic energy of Mars, and discovered a strange amount of chaotic energy, an unknown energy…but anyway, we started to work together to expose this fact, but the knowledge of marcel-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on, ok, I need some more contextualization. Explain marcel, Gorilla, chuck. "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on- yeah, you're right, ok- Ok, so where do I start…right, so I guess I should explain the nature of Gorilla and CHUKKK. The two are synonymous to god and satan, but more specifically, it is a god of the natural realm and the god of the technological. I don't mean merely machine and nature…I mean also technology as like control. Nature is chaos, in a lot of ways, but it is still ordered. Technology I mean in this sense is more like imposing a new system of control that is beyond order or chaos, it would be equivalent of taking the yin and yang and painting it over with a single color. Natural vs. human made, do you understand?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I do. I am a big fan of deep ecology thinkers and peak oil philosophers. I think they speak a lot to…"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""No, not quite though. Those guys are still wrapped up in material reality, even if it is 'true'. This is in the spiritual realm. The gorilla and CHUKKK are opposing forces, CHUKKK was created by the Gorilla almost as an experiment, but the experiment backfired…in a similar way to the works of Yakoub, the scientist. Some time ago, they apparently began to make their presence known more and more. People started to see more and more strange visions, more reports of such were posted even in the news. And the Gorilla began to breath his wisdom into a chef in Brazil, Marcel Toing. Marcel had been an early advocate of the Gorilla's teachings of good will and righteousness even before knowledge of the Gorilla had come to be. He began to tell people on the news, in the streets, but had been mocked and chastised. In addition, the flooding of the knowledge into his mind proved to be too great. He left Rio, travelled to Neo Angeles, New Disneyland…I met him after a long and painful departure from my friendship with Mickey, I was lost in the malaise of life-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""So you used to be friends with the president, and then you met a prophet chef and joined his cult?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""laugh and jest all you want, for laughter is the fool's nectar. I know the truth though, I have stared into the prism of truth."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ok, so, what happened to the rest of your group then? Why didn't your teachings of the truth spread like wildfire?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""In fighting abounded. We all became more and more fractured in our stance of what the truth was…much like you, we were wrapped up in philosophy rather than gospel. Marcel became even sicker, his own mystic knowledge proved too much for his mind to handle. I left after we took him to a safe house, it was as though he would die, he looked so bad. I could no longer take it. I left and resigned myself to a life of spreading the truth, and slowly I lost all my material wealth, my possessions. And you know, I never regretted it. No hate in my heart, truly. I have never felt more alive combatting the evils of the today, even if it feels as though I do nothing."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He nodded, a glint in his eye. Jar Jar noticed that he had, even amidst the excitement of talking, had become more relaxed and more at peace, more settled into himself. emDon't tell him don't tell him/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I find all of this very intriguing, but you must forgive my forwardness, I don't believe a lot of it."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""nor would you. It is fantastical, yes. I don't deny that. But, it is the truth. The truth is rarely ever understood fully. Especially when it is not influenced by the material realm."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He suddenly shot up, as if a great amount of adrenaline had rushed into him. He feverishly reached into his pocket on his pants and pulled out a square piece of metal, like a remote control, only no buttons were on it, only the bulb of an extinguished red light./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""you want proof? This here has a divine energy ruminating from within. We called it The Device. It has power beyond your comprehension. Contained within is a collection of Ancient Chemicals-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ancient chemicals? What's that, old hydrogen or something?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""ancient chemicals are the chemicals, water, the air, you name it, present at the creation of life. Most chemicals found in nature stem from these ancient chemicals, compared to modern chemicals that are born out of air pollution, petroleum, fast food protein strips, you name it. Manufactured chemicals. The ancient chemicals within The Device respond the high frequencies, determined by whether someone is 'touched' by a divine force, or in tune with the infinite."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He placed the Device on the table. For such preamble, it sure looked like nothing out of the ordinary. Stupid even./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""the more someone is in tune with the celestial wavelength, the more able they are to channel their energy, positive or negative, into The Device."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Yeah? And what does it do? "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The vagabond grinned. "Nearly anything you want." He closed his eyes and put his hand on top of The Device. The red light began to glow. He took his hand off and the incandescent ruby went back to sleep./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""that's fine and all, but what could you do, like you. Right now."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I wouldn't do a thing right now. The president thinks that I have given up the life of the soul. But I haven't. how could I? In the madness of this world he's built, of the rampant materialism and denial of the spirit…no, never. Not once would I give myself to that kind of world…a dark, bleak world this is, but within glows a transcendence that no IKON can ever take away…to a point I suppose…anyway, as long as I am without such a powerful tool, I am a mere bum. But the moment I use it, IKONS will be on us like flies to the carcass. But were I to use it, I would be able to teleport, to fly, my inner strength made physical. Some of the most powerful could, rumor has it, create matter from nothing."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He shook his head, eyes again darting./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""But no one can know. Do you understand, stranger? No one. Not your mother, your father. Not your friends. "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Excuse me?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The two snapped out of their conversation and looked up. An overweight woman stood above them, with a sickly sweet smile and neon pink hair. Jar Jar cleared his throat./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""can we help you miss?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The woman, still smiling, pointed at the bum. "Oh this fella here, he thought he could sneak his way out of this one. I'm sorry to tell you sir, but you've been talking with a very disturbed man. I work up the road at the Institute of Socially Challenged Individuals, and it brings me no pleasure, really sir it doesn't, but we must bring him back. He is a danger to himself and to others-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""She's lying! She's an IKON!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Now really, is that necessary, Mr. Goof? Come along now."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar jar scrutinized her appearance. She didn't seem out of the ordinary, he couldn't see any overly textured skin or flat composite facial structure. No voice modulator, no out of the ordinary physical tells. Unless…/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar heard nothing. There were no other patrons in the BAR. Had it always been this quiet? Were they always the only ones in here?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""sir, please. Don't make me upset, I've had a very long day-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum, whom jar jar presumed now was named Goof, began to scramble out of the booth./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""RUN BOY, BEFORE THEY-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He suddenly went straight as a board, unnaturally so, and fell flat on his face. Jar jar got up slowly, looking down at the stiff body of the bum. He looked at the overweight woman, only none stood there. Sure enough, he had been right. A buff IKON, in full uniform and shifter mask, stood before him, holding a shock cane./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Command center A2, this is 24601, reporting from Green Park 12. I have codename Village Idiot. He is down. Will bring to Command center A$$ for placement. Over."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar could hardly move. The exit was not far, he could make it if he sprinted. But the glorious power, the beaming energy from the release of his 'father' into death's welcoming arms had been taken from him, replaced with a paralysis. Jar jar realized in that moment he had no power to begin with, that he had built up an illusion for himself that was unsustainable. It was no different than the oil he would ramble on about in his college essays, no different than the smug knowledge he had constructed in himself that he was holier than everyone because of his intelligence, difference, and perception, that really he was still flesh and blood, living under a giant, faceless system, a microcog in an nearly infinite machine. Even the act of revenge he had undertaken tonight had been a false narrative, an attempt to win back some of the power process that he believed had been robbed from him. His act of violence was not a courageous act of getting what was his, nor a redemptive mark of societal bettering. He was another sad, loathsome piece of the puzzle, and he was about to be tossed aside like trash./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Did anyone see you, 24601? Village idiot is Level 69 clearance. Eliminate anyone present who might ask questions."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON tilted their head up and down, no doubt sizing up jar jar./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emI'm going to die I'm going to die oh god oh god help me god please hear me god help me I haven't been good I can see you mom maybe we too will get to hang out in the great beyond, but I did such an awful thing tonight mother mother the rolling grass what was grass anymore echoing through the halls of the preschool and the fire in the candle on the hearth dancing dancing the red and green lights and the crack of woodflame presents presents present here would be preferred mister binks sorry sir quite alright and the eyes of the chalkboard looking back everything looking the red and green ribbon on her hair never let me go I could have died there the happiest man and then college comes and the endless toil of the mind fuck you dad you cocksucker you fucker you did this to me I could have been normal I could have been someone who didn't kill oh god please god and the sounds of the bells god damn those bells are load my word where did you pick up such language the win cut with a ruler the knife against the skin the woods woods I remember woods the smell of wet leaves and the tubes of the trees baby trees fresh pine smell wafting through the tent mingling with stomachbile and cheap booze the fire was there was it not the sound of laughter hahaha where did it come from and oh god so many hours wasted in front of the tv god god please I have so much to give so much love and so much joy, and and and and and and andanadandandandadnadnadnadnadnadnaddn/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em… beat heart and the shock of time, the glory stand before you to climb…/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;":"No. No one is here."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Roger. Well done 24601."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON nodded as if in responding in person to the message. The warm tears streaming down jar Jar's face stained his jacket. The buzzing of the automated bartender, like a humming of a single tone, soundtracking the scene indifferently./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON pointed to the corners of the room. "All camera's are scrambled. We are alone. We know what you did. Fred Flintstone, in alley 542-D. Poor job, we saw it on at least 4 computer cameras that were pointed out the window. You're lucky Mr. Flintstone was less than dirt. No taxes, no debts to the creditors paid off."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON pointed at Goof./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""IKON you didn't see this. We didn't see you. Go live your life and vote Mickey in the next election. Don't cause trouble and keep your head down in whatever pathetic business you tend to. Understood?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar felt his knees wobble. He lowered himself on to the ground, wanting both to throw up and cry, but incapable of either./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON grabbed Goof's still body and picked him up as if he weighed as a feather did. They exited and Jar Jar was all alone. He curled into a fetal position and held himself still, his heart beating rapidly./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He saw it under the table. The Device. The IKON must not have seen it. Jar Jar crawled and reached for it./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He looked down at it in his hands, cradled delicately as if a baby bird in his grip./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It was at this moment that he felt both clear headed and anxious, unable to get up but without the desire to stay down. He swore to himself that, in that moment looking down, he began to see, ever so faintly, the bulb turning on with the faintest of lights./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar looked down at his hands, and a certain power flooded up his spine. His hands were no longer shaking. Fred's body laid perpendicular to the trash cans in the alley, head covered in the trash from a ripped open bag, sweat beads glimmering like fluid jewelry. Jar Jar waited for something other than eerie calm to flood him, expecting moralistic remorse or a relief from a new found freedom. The neutrality remained, though, and he threw his hands in his hoodie front pocket and turned away from the garbage./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Where was the relief? He had, in one moment of cruel violence, ended over a decade of torment and hatred, ten years of seeing his mother emcry and the blackeye staring back, crooked tooth grin Don't worry, your mom's fine, she just fell down the stairs Yeah listen to your mother kid now get back in your room go play outside and beat it would ya I gotta practice for th bowling tournament and the spider web in the window glistening glistening morning dew drops like tinsel a colorless stained glass the howl of anger from the bannister, goddamn It boy a fist in the face is worth two in the stomach and /emhe felt no better. He left the alley, making sure no one was looking, and began to weave through the urban labyrinth into the street. It was a busy market street, crowds of tourists and homeless alike flooding the sidewalks, one peddling their wares to the other, rows of tents selling knockoff Disney merchandise, false flowers and plants, charicatures of celebrities, and bottles of water, along with Burkin Bags, Supreme jackets and pants, and Gucci belts. The chorus of merch barkers and salesmen cried out from their booths:/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Get your Louis V Mickey Hat! Only 20$! Hurry before they run out!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I've got Burger king crowns! Burger King crowns for sale, just as you remember them from your youth! Come and fold your crown and be a king for a day!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Crucifixes here! Jesus Pieces, studded in diamonds and gold! They say the meek will inherit the earth, but what good is that if the Earth is just a buncha dirt and sand? Look out for number one and manifest your own personal Jesus! Why be like Judas, who sold Christ, when you can BUY him instead?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar ignored their cries, weaving in and out of the crowd. The social smell was noxious, even after years of living in the city he had not gotten used to the contradictory stench of feces, unwashed bodies, expensive cologne and bodywash, and Scent Neutralizer (a once an hour spray, provided by Amazon Public Service Division, that was meant to stifle the suffocating smells of the streets. It was never effective, only instead providing its own uncanny scent of nothing. Groups at the University of New Disneyland, where he attended, had advocated for reformist policy to get rid of the Scent Neutralizers, as they presented a 'problematic approach to the issues of poverty, and only exist to marginalize communities of people who can't do anything about the scent.") Jar Jar made special care to control his breathing and kept his eyes forward. He had already seen some IKONS patrolling the area, both in uniform and Incognito (they always thought they were smart, but Jar Jar had trained himself to spot uncanny or inconsistent physical features in anyone he passed by. Take for example a homeless looking fellow near the Churro and Bulgogi stand, slumped over and drooling. The hairline was off just by a little bit, almonst as if the scalp had been moved an inch back, not to mention the slight dulling of the facial features, almost as if a very thin layer of plastic wrap had been applied. It was faint though, and would be invisible to anyone passing by unless they were, like Jar Jar, looking specifically for these kind of traits. IKON technology had improved greatly even recently, so Jar Jar suspected that the IKON was using facial scrambling mask on either an energy saving mode or even an older model, which could explain why the IKON had chosen to be a homeless person in the first place. Certain IKONS had been reported to be able to scan and read facial cues to determine if people were harboring feelings of guilt./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar shifted his focus to the night sky. A dull, rust red color could faintly been seen between the immense, bulbous designs of characters, products, etc that were erected outside most every building, like giant pop art statues of devotion to consumer goods. He had spent many an hour looking outside the University's window on the top floor of the Empathy Tower looking down at the backside of a nearly three story Kardashian lipstick. The line was always long, and he could see even from a distance the large blobs of the bouncers as they let people one at a time set up their phone tripods and take videos in front of the structure, mostly dancing. Right now he was looking up towards a giant Funco Pop, the features morphing and shifting dynamically with IKON technology. Right now it was a figure of Barack Obama, and it was beginning to shift into either James Baldwin or The Grim Sleeper. He didn't want to stick around to find out./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emDon't let them see me think don't let them see me think don't let them see me breath and the song was playing on the speaker, all American rejects as the sound of the tv downstairs even that couldn't drown out the yelling and screaming. Cmere you fucking kid. You think you own this goddamn house, you put food on the table? Who here works their fingers to the bone to get this shit, you little trash fucker? Yeah how do you like them apples, you trash fuck? Trash fuck, get the hell out of the way, maybe you'd like to feel a bit of the old 'flintstone fever', like your whore mom has you little /embit to the left, said the cameraman. Jar Jar stopped and quickly walked around the man holding his phone and the woman he was shooting, who was dressed up like a beggar. Jar Jar turned around and watched the woman pose sadly to the camera, then quickly take off her crusty looking shirt and reveal a crop top made of sequins and diamonds. She began to stunt, showing off her legs and did a pop-lock dance. emWere they IKONS? Why does she look that way, theres something about the both of them, look at them, are they staring at me? /em Jar Jar swallowed and headed into an alleyway. He wanted to get away from the bodies. It was time to go to the park./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar wove his way through the alleys, stepping over sleeping or dead homeless bodies. Groans almost harmonizing in the bright fluorescent lights that shone at all times. Ever since his presidency Mickey had declared that 'darkness would never be a problem again, for evil always hides in the dark,' and so lights were always on, even in the daytime. It had become much hotter since this mandate. Jar Jar hated it, even more than the social scent. He was careful not to feel too much hatred though. A camera on any of the corners could probably read his facial cues enough to determine if he was feeling hateful, which was a precursor emotion to violence. emI got away with it though, I played my cards right. Drunken fuck didn't know what hit him. No cameras that work in alley 23-A. as long as no IKON sees any violence traces, no scent of fear, no violent urges. Don't let them read you longer than you need./em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar tried to steady his mind. It was no small feat though. Even his normal mode of imaginative philosophical pondering were dulled in his state of false contentment. He had slaughtered a man whom no one would miss, a man who had no loved ones, no friends, and no job. A consummate drunkard and a debt sponge with no plans of paying anyone back. Jar Jar had satisfied his own appetite for revenge, and had rid the world of one more waste of flesh. And yet, he felt nothing toward it. Not even as much as guilt. He was beyond moral objection, as it was clear that it was if anything more morally sound to let someone like Fred out in the real world. He had committed a merciful act if anything. Professor Griffin always made it a point to inject his lectures with what he had a called a 'humanist touch', and spoke against the very mindset that Jar Jar possessed now, "it is our moral duty, we at the top, to provide for and uplift the marginalized, to work to create material harmony among everyone, so that to each what they need. For each man and woman and person is equal and always will be. This is the great lesson of thinkers like MLK, Ghandi, Marx, Obama, and even Mickey." How many hours he had spent arguing with Professor Griffin in his office, how many times did he bring up the will to power, learned helplessness, technological suppression, the works of those like Linkola and Greer, only to be laughed at for bringing up 'pseudo intellectuals', despite being no more pseudo intellectual than Zizek or Butler. He was always astounded by professors like Griffin, who seemed to latch on to moral relativism when it came to state mandated morality, but would always go for broad egalitarianism to justify why each man and woman deserved to live. The right to live. And yet, the right to live was in of itself a contradiction, because it would only be presumed that the right to live existed in the first place at the mercy of institutions or government. On a purely ecological or 'natural' level, no one man had any more right to live than another, yet naturally there existed a harsh utilitarianism, one that relies on what you can bring to the table for survival in a tribe or pack. There was no right to life, only the fight to live. And what should be done about the fred Flintstones of the world? The true scumbags, the ones who leached off weaker individuals? Parasites get poisoned. Professor Griffin would have been horrified by the unspeakable act he had committed, purely because someone like Fred could have the right to live, and that he could verily change his attitudes and methodologies and be a corrected member of society? Academics struck Jar Jar as some of the most oversocialized people he had ever met, people who believed that it merely took a restructuring or remixing of society's values in order to make a healthier, more engaged society, despite the very fundamental problems of society existing still, but with a brighter coat of paint. He didn't hate Professor Griffin, but he felt a sense of pity-loathing towards him, for he would never reflect that the world had dug itself into a moral grave, one that had rejected imagination and skills in favor for pleasure and consumerism./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar had made his way to the park. It was always a nuisance getting into the park, as the throngs of homeless were at a peak here. Standing in line to get in, he kept a clenched hand on his wallet. Pickpockets had been known to rob people blind near the park. The row of IKONS stood around the perimeter of the park, with more patrolling around. Any person, especially if they were homeless, were whacked or beaten, and many more would be carried off towards some unseen or otherwise unknown holding facility. Jar Jar had heard the rumors that the facilities were in the sewers, but he was skeptical of this. He figured it would be in plain sight, what did they have to hide? Everyone knew what they did./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar didn't have to wait too long in line, it was late in the night and many were off in their own homes or shopping in the streets./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ticket. Now," said the Front Desk Machine. Jar Jar paid the machine one ticket (about $20, plus taxes, purchasable at most Amazon Hubs). He entered the park./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"There were a couple of bars and restaurants he could go to, but he wanted to see some of the greenery first. They had put down a new patch of artificial sod throughout, and even the trees looked remodeled. He felt a leaf from a maple tree, the soft, papery green piece of plastic a welcome retreat from the feeling of concrete and brick of the city. It was nice to be in nature./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"A small crowd had gathered, laughing and pointing at a figure on a box. Jar Jar wandered over, less out of curiosity and more to contain his mind (IKONS were always around after all). The crowd, mostly multiethnic men in powdered wigs, were sneering at the man on a soapbox, wearing tattered and worn jeans, turtleneck, and vest. The man was midspeech-/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""and, Gawrsh, it should be clear to anyone living that the current state of the world is not good. We were promised an end to fear, and yes no flying saucers have come, but we've given up so much personal freedom to ensure that we can remain safe. We are not in control of anything anymore. We have turned to social media, to the internet, to try and find some semblance of control. Of power. The flying saucers were a hoax. Designed by the government to appear as an outside, malevolent force we could band together and destroy. It's a narrative that has appeared in all comic books, in all Godzilla movies, in all modern narrative designs! And Lo, the vipers of the age sit in wait and rest comfortably…the chess board is designed, the material is drawn and sitting in wait. We have given up control of our lives, our basic freedoms, liberty too! We let our lives turn into numbers, man! Binary code is now the language of the masses, ones and zeroes, absolutes, yes and no. Cosmic absolutes do not exist, and yet we have allowed ourselves to believe in them so. Material, material, all is material. Don't you feel it? The crippling terror and dread, worthlessness a shadow that we sleep in…tenets of the broken motherboard, picking up silicon and crawling toward the neural pathways…don't you got it in your bones? Do you not want to lurch forth, grab the simulation by it's very fabric, and reveal the magician behind it all? All of us are Mkultra test subjects, all of us lose ourselves in the black sea of information, all data is lost in the servers. Mountains of servers beaming down and we are looking backward, the inescapable, the divine too! Remember the divine gate, the grace of the Gorilla, the terror of CHUKKK! Terror is conjured from the maw of CHUKKK! The grace of the Gorilla can save us…I've read it on the subway walls, bathroom stalls, even in potmarked in the fabric of my dreams. I love to sleep, for I can astral travel into the deepest parts of the universe and stitch together truth among the noise...I have read Marcel's teachings, I have seen the truth! The gorilla can save us, through our faith we can defeat evil and triumph over the sick and twisted world that has been delivered to us by the evils of MIKKK, CHUKKK, and the rest of the fools and philosophers-!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He was stopped by a tomato in the face. One of the men in the powdered wigs had thrown it, and others soon began to follow. Each vegetable that flew at the soapbox man hit with a great force. Despite this, the man did not concede his slouched composure. He simply took the beating./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The loudest of the vegetable men pushed the man off the soapbox and took it for his own. Jar Jar could tell that the man, and maybe the others, were at least drunk if not also on Opiopleasure./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""This buffoon is talking straight gibberish, dawg! Gorillas? Chucks? Get real! Yeah, times are not all sunshine and roses, but this is America we're talking here! A land built by immigrants! Where democracy is king, and every person has a voice and a vote! I think your problem, buddy, is that you think it's all doom and gloom, when everyone knows the sun will come out tomorrow! We have the amazing opportunity to make art, speak our mind, and choose paths of freedom! We get universal basic income, we get free healthcare, we get to live in a world that is like Disneyland, where your wildest dreams can come true! Hold up hold up, I can't just talk about it, Fellas, why don't you do the honors? George, lay down a beat."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"One of the powdered wig men began to beatbox. A couple others joined, providing sounds similar to record scratches, bass, and guitar./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The man on the soapbox jumped off and began to juke and jive, doing a box step while the others circled around him:/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""This is a story about how my life got flipped, turned upside down/br /it's one that won't make you frown, I've lived it down/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I once was cynical, bombastic, a little fanatic/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"A dash of manic, mixed with a splash of frantic!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I thought the gov'ment was a hoax without a boast/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"But I did the research, and I gotta give a toast/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"This is the country to be in!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"This is the country where you can win!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It ain't a sin, don't throw your life in the bin/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Prosperous, gospelous, bulbous and porous/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"We can build it together, just the two of us!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"I went to class, got a degree, felt a lot more free/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Because my knowledge grew, my power grew/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"My faith in my country grew!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Don't be blue, you tool, and get in the groove!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It's time to wiggy wiggy whack and attack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The fools who ain't got the knack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"To be believing in the American dream/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Are, in my humble opinion, extremely whack/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Because they all caught up in the conspiracy scheme!/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Everyone and everything is all right, don't be stressin'/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Drink from the fountain, and receive the blessin'/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Life is good, even when it's bad/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"So get glad!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He continued to rap in the middle of the circle, but Jar Jar had had enough. The useless prattling was beginning to upset him, not so much for the content but the lack of a consistent meter and rythmn. He turned and headed towards one of the bars./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The only open bar was BAR, which was one of his least favorite chain of restaurants. Inside, the confusing hodge podge of designs smacked him in their disorder. The bar had been modeled off of Cheers, but the restaurant part had been based on the Restaurant from Seinfeld, all the while a small gathering spot of couches sat in the middle much like the Central roast from Friends. The walls were shiny, offering a smudgy reflection, which made the joint he seem artificially larger and brighter than it really was. He sat down at one of the screens at the bar, and opened the beer tab. A list of beers, foreign and domestic. He chose Billy Beer, the cheapest. The automated bar tender struggled to fit the glass under a large nozzle in the ceiling. Jar Jar presumed his programming hadn't been updated, and as a result the automated bartender couldn't quite tell where the nozzle began and ended. The liquid that poured out almost entirely missed the glass, and what got in was foamy. The automated bartender slammed the glass two meters away from Jar Jar on the bar. Jar Jar got up and retrieved it./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The soapbox man came into the bar, still red and green stained from the slew of vegetables that had been pitched his way. He plopped down in a booth. Jar Jar watched him from afar. There was an entrancing energy about the soapbox man that Jar Jar couldn't quite articulate. He had seemed crazy, rambling and raving, but beneath the word salad was a truth that Jar Jar at least agreed with on some level. Maybe those who spoke in tongues were divinely inspired after all./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar approached the man, who was slumped in his seat. He was twisting his hat in his hands nervously./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hey, you mind if I sit with you. I'll buy you a beer."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The disheveled man waved a hand in presentation toward the other side. Jar Jar sat down and clicked on the tablet to on the table. The two watched in silence as the automated bartender yet again began to attempt pouring out beer from the nozzle in the ceiling, the hops just barely making its way into the glass, the pool of beer on the floor growing larger. The automated bartender began to make it's way over to the booth where they sat, but halfway stopped, paused, and made its way back to behind the bar, glass still clasped in its specialty designed beer handling claw. It began to move back and forth, back and forth, as if dancing, moving to the point halfway between the bar and the booth and behind the bar, like a man pacing back and forth in confused agony. All the while, the claw which held the beer was shaking slightly, so with each trip to and fro more and more beer began to fly out of the top. Had Jar Jar not gotten up in defeat and retrieved the glass himself, ripping the beer from the clasp of the automated bartender as it reached one end of its cycle, it might have moved back and forth forever./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar slid the half empty and mostly foam glass toward the bum, who took it and lapped it up excitedly. Jar Jar watched the man slurp the cup emDon't think Don't think IKONS reading your heart beats at all time, they are presuming reading always reading this poor bloke has no clue what is going on no clue my crime no clue my power to wield violence as a vengeance tool against the great and powerful evils of my life no clue what the hell is that sound it is/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Gawrsh, thank you kind stranger. How can I repay you?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Think nothing of it. I just find you interesting is all."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum narrowed his eyes and leaned in towards Jar jar in suspicion. "Just what exactly are you getting at? You gonna make fun?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Not at all. I find your ideas subversive. I'm a philosophy and literature student at the University, and I'm interested in subversive ideas, even if I don't necessarily you know agree with them."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""my ideas, they are not subversive though. Subversive means they are untrue, or fringe. I simply speak the facts."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""sure, I don't disagree. Listening to what you were saying, there was a coherent thought schema-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"the bum laughed. 'Listen to yourself, my friend. You talk of ideas as if they were conversational, and yet, they are poised with explosive rhetoric! Society, government, culture- even our reality that we live in- is no different than that of the simulation, no different at all from a movie like the Matrix quadrilogy!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emThis guy is going in. Let him ramble, I'll engage. Don't think of the death, don't think of the murder/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""uh huh. And someone, you were endowed with the knowledge? That sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm just curious where you presume chuck or whatever is running the world."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum's gaze flickered paranoidly around the BAR. No doubt also looking for IKONS. Bums were perhaps the best at spotting and avoiding IKONS, as they had to spend long hours on the street, and the more and more dehumanized one became in the face of giant, immovable systems of economics, politics, and authority, one became more cognizant of the separation of what a living organism and what a derivative or interpretation of a living organism looks like. Plus, the dregs of society (more kindly referred to as 'economically challenged' by the students at the university) were not as inundated with images of screens and images as those in society were, and were therefore more acutely aware of reality. There is nothing that can confirm the hardcore truth of reality like spending your days in the streets fighting to live, surviving, while the media savvy members of society became more and more lost in video games, films, television, video content, and social media./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""my friend…can you keep a secret of a poor soul such as I?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""of course."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I once…I once was a member of an underground group of freedom fighters…religious freedom fighters…we had found the prophet, the living manifestation of the spirit of the Gorilla…Marcel Toing. We would meet in secret, in the alleys of the city, in the underground network of sewers and forgotten metro stops…there we discussed the Truth, the prophecies of Marcel Toing, of the evil of CHUKKK…we were in the presence of a new age gnostic text…powerful stuff…oh, please, by the way, cut me off if I begin to babble, I get quite excitable and my time on the streets alone have made me antisocial."br /br /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Do not fret, my friend. I am here to listen, to perhaps toss in a question or two. Play devil's advocate. I myself am trying to escape the demons of the night."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""what sort of demons?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Never mind that. Continue please."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Well…myself, and a group of five or so, I won't name them for their sake, speaking their name out loud is dangerous…we would gather, and we were planning. You see, there are rumors that evil has entered into the System a long time ago, but…those flying saucer attacks, that was a turning point. The attacks, they were real of course. They destroyed so many lives, I'm not, I'm not saying they didn't. But we saw something. You see, Marcel had begun around that time to prophesize those very flying saucers, but he warned us as well that the punishment came from within, that, gawrsh, what was it that he said? "and the flying saucers will destroy us, but look not to the sky for their entrance, nay, for the evil against man will always come from man's hand, and evil was birthed from CKUKKK". And-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on, you're saying that the flying saucers were an inside job? What about the Martian bases, the bombs we sent to Mars, the pictures of the destroyed crafts? "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ye- yes, yes it was. All those, those pieces of evidence- all doctored. We have yet to find no physical evidence of the crafts having come from Mars, there have never been any piece of technology that has been extracted, despite the fact that one flying saucer did manage to be shot down over Alaska. Why haven't we extracted any?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""didn't it get destroyed over the ocean?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""and yet nothing- in fact, as recent as 5 years ago, the last piece of news you would have heard about it was that it was 'lost to the sea.' A flying saucer! Gigantic in size, nearly the size of a small metropolitan city, and it was lost to the sea? Despite the wonderful president Mickey making promises to do everything they would do to progress our society to that of some supposed Martian society, to spend every last dime extracting the craft. And silence came next. And silence deafend throughout the country, as we all fell into gleeful joy at the idea of more revenge…We, that is our group of thinkers, also came to study the astrological and thelemic energy of Mars, and discovered a strange amount of chaotic energy, an unknown energy…but anyway, we started to work together to expose this fact, but the knowledge of marcel-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on, ok, I need some more contextualization. Explain marcel, Gorilla, chuck. "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Hold on- yeah, you're right, ok- Ok, so where do I start…right, so I guess I should explain the nature of Gorilla and CHUKKK. The two are synonymous to god and satan, but more specifically, it is a god of the natural realm and the god of the technological. I don't mean merely machine and nature…I mean also technology as like control. Nature is chaos, in a lot of ways, but it is still ordered. Technology I mean in this sense is more like imposing a new system of control that is beyond order or chaos, it would be equivalent of taking the yin and yang and painting it over with a single color. Natural vs. human made, do you understand?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I do. I am a big fan of deep ecology thinkers and peak oil philosophers. I think they speak a lot to…"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""No, not quite though. Those guys are still wrapped up in material reality, even if it is 'true'. This is in the spiritual realm. The gorilla and CHUKKK are opposing forces, CHUKKK was created by the Gorilla almost as an experiment, but the experiment backfired…in a similar way to the works of Yakoub, the scientist. Some time ago, they apparently began to make their presence known more and more. People started to see more and more strange visions, more reports of such were posted even in the news. And the Gorilla began to breath his wisdom into a chef in Brazil, Marcel Toing. Marcel had been an early advocate of the Gorilla's teachings of good will and righteousness even before knowledge of the Gorilla had come to be. He began to tell people on the news, in the streets, but had been mocked and chastised. In addition, the flooding of the knowledge into his mind proved to be too great. He left Rio, travelled to Neo Angeles, New Disneyland…I met him after a long and painful departure from my friendship with Mickey, I was lost in the malaise of life-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""So you used to be friends with the president, and then you met a prophet chef and joined his cult?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""laugh and jest all you want, for laughter is the fool's nectar. I know the truth though, I have stared into the prism of truth."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ok, so, what happened to the rest of your group then? Why didn't your teachings of the truth spread like wildfire?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""In fighting abounded. We all became more and more fractured in our stance of what the truth was…much like you, we were wrapped up in philosophy rather than gospel. Marcel became even sicker, his own mystic knowledge proved too much for his mind to handle. I left after we took him to a safe house, it was as though he would die, he looked so bad. I could no longer take it. I left and resigned myself to a life of spreading the truth, and slowly I lost all my material wealth, my possessions. And you know, I never regretted it. No hate in my heart, truly. I have never felt more alive combatting the evils of the today, even if it feels as though I do nothing."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He nodded, a glint in his eye. Jar Jar noticed that he had, even amidst the excitement of talking, had become more relaxed and more at peace, more settled into himself. emDon't tell him don't tell him/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I find all of this very intriguing, but you must forgive my forwardness, I don't believe a lot of it."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""nor would you. It is fantastical, yes. I don't deny that. But, it is the truth. The truth is rarely ever understood fully. Especially when it is not influenced by the material realm."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He suddenly shot up, as if a great amount of adrenaline had rushed into him. He feverishly reached into his pocket on his pants and pulled out a square piece of metal, like a remote control, only no buttons were on it, only the bulb of an extinguished red light./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""you want proof? This here has a divine energy ruminating from within. We called it The Device. It has power beyond your comprehension. Contained within is a collection of Ancient Chemicals-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Ancient chemicals? What's that, old hydrogen or something?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""ancient chemicals are the chemicals, water, the air, you name it, present at the creation of life. Most chemicals found in nature stem from these ancient chemicals, compared to modern chemicals that are born out of air pollution, petroleum, fast food protein strips, you name it. Manufactured chemicals. The ancient chemicals within The Device respond the high frequencies, determined by whether someone is 'touched' by a divine force, or in tune with the infinite."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He placed the Device on the table. For such preamble, it sure looked like nothing out of the ordinary. Stupid even./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""the more someone is in tune with the celestial wavelength, the more able they are to channel their energy, positive or negative, into The Device."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Yeah? And what does it do? "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The vagabond grinned. "Nearly anything you want." He closed his eyes and put his hand on top of The Device. The red light began to glow. He took his hand off and the incandescent ruby went back to sleep./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""that's fine and all, but what could you do, like you. Right now."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""I wouldn't do a thing right now. The president thinks that I have given up the life of the soul. But I haven't. how could I? In the madness of this world he's built, of the rampant materialism and denial of the spirit…no, never. Not once would I give myself to that kind of world…a dark, bleak world this is, but within glows a transcendence that no IKON can ever take away…to a point I suppose…anyway, as long as I am without such a powerful tool, I am a mere bum. But the moment I use it, IKONS will be on us like flies to the carcass. But were I to use it, I would be able to teleport, to fly, my inner strength made physical. Some of the most powerful could, rumor has it, create matter from nothing."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He shook his head, eyes again darting./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""But no one can know. Do you understand, stranger? No one. Not your mother, your father. Not your friends. "/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Excuse me?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The two snapped out of their conversation and looked up. An overweight woman stood above them, with a sickly sweet smile and neon pink hair. Jar Jar cleared his throat./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""can we help you miss?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The woman, still smiling, pointed at the bum. "Oh this fella here, he thought he could sneak his way out of this one. I'm sorry to tell you sir, but you've been talking with a very disturbed man. I work up the road at the Institute of Socially Challenged Individuals, and it brings me no pleasure, really sir it doesn't, but we must bring him back. He is a danger to himself and to others-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""She's lying! She's an IKON!"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Now really, is that necessary, Mr. Goof? Come along now."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar jar scrutinized her appearance. She didn't seem out of the ordinary, he couldn't see any overly textured skin or flat composite facial structure. No voice modulator, no out of the ordinary physical tells. Unless…/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar heard nothing. There were no other patrons in the BAR. Had it always been this quiet? Were they always the only ones in here?/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""sir, please. Don't make me upset, I've had a very long day-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The bum, whom jar jar presumed now was named Goof, began to scramble out of the booth./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""RUN BOY, BEFORE THEY-"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He suddenly went straight as a board, unnaturally so, and fell flat on his face. Jar jar got up slowly, looking down at the stiff body of the bum. He looked at the overweight woman, only none stood there. Sure enough, he had been right. A buff IKON, in full uniform and shifter mask, stood before him, holding a shock cane./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Command center A2, this is 24601, reporting from Green Park 12. I have codename Village Idiot. He is down. Will bring to Command center A$$ for placement. Over."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar could hardly move. The exit was not far, he could make it if he sprinted. But the glorious power, the beaming energy from the release of his 'father' into death's welcoming arms had been taken from him, replaced with a paralysis. Jar jar realized in that moment he had no power to begin with, that he had built up an illusion for himself that was unsustainable. It was no different than the oil he would ramble on about in his college essays, no different than the smug knowledge he had constructed in himself that he was holier than everyone because of his intelligence, difference, and perception, that really he was still flesh and blood, living under a giant, faceless system, a microcog in an nearly infinite machine. Even the act of revenge he had undertaken tonight had been a false narrative, an attempt to win back some of the power process that he believed had been robbed from him. His act of violence was not a courageous act of getting what was his, nor a redemptive mark of societal bettering. He was another sad, loathsome piece of the puzzle, and he was about to be tossed aside like trash./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Did anyone see you, 24601? Village idiot is Level 69 clearance. Eliminate anyone present who might ask questions."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON tilted their head up and down, no doubt sizing up jar jar./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"emI'm going to die I'm going to die oh god oh god help me god please hear me god help me I haven't been good I can see you mom maybe we too will get to hang out in the great beyond, but I did such an awful thing tonight mother mother the rolling grass what was grass anymore echoing through the halls of the preschool and the fire in the candle on the hearth dancing dancing the red and green lights and the crack of woodflame presents presents present here would be preferred mister binks sorry sir quite alright and the eyes of the chalkboard looking back everything looking the red and green ribbon on her hair never let me go I could have died there the happiest man and then college comes and the endless toil of the mind fuck you dad you cocksucker you fucker you did this to me I could have been normal I could have been someone who didn't kill oh god please god and the sounds of the bells god damn those bells are load my word where did you pick up such language the win cut with a ruler the knife against the skin the woods woods I remember woods the smell of wet leaves and the tubes of the trees baby trees fresh pine smell wafting through the tent mingling with stomachbile and cheap booze the fire was there was it not the sound of laughter hahaha where did it come from and oh god so many hours wasted in front of the tv god god please I have so much to give so much love and so much joy, and and and and and and andanadandandandadnadnadnadnadnadnaddn/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em… beat heart and the shock of time, the glory stand before you to climb…/em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"em /em/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;":"No. No one is here."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""Roger. Well done 24601."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON nodded as if in responding in person to the message. The warm tears streaming down jar Jar's face stained his jacket. The buzzing of the automated bartender, like a humming of a single tone, soundtracking the scene indifferently./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON pointed to the corners of the room. "All camera's are scrambled. We are alone. We know what you did. Fred Flintstone, in alley 542-D. Poor job, we saw it on at least 4 computer cameras that were pointed out the window. You're lucky Mr. Flintstone was less than dirt. No taxes, no debts to the creditors paid off."/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON pointed at Goof./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;""IKON you didn't see this. We didn't see you. Go live your life and vote Mickey in the next election. Don't cause trouble and keep your head down in whatever pathetic business you tend to. Understood?"/p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"Jar Jar felt his knees wobble. He lowered himself on to the ground, wanting both to throw up and cry, but incapable of either./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"The IKON grabbed Goof's still body and picked him up as if he weighed as a feather did. They exited and Jar Jar was all alone. He curled into a fetal position and held himself still, his heart beating rapidly./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He saw it under the table. The Device. The IKON must not have seen it. Jar Jar crawled and reached for it./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"He looked down at it in his hands, cradled delicately as if a baby bird in his grip./p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;" /p
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Calibri;"It was at this moment that he felt both clear headed and anxious, unable to get up but without the desire to stay down. He swore to himself that, in that moment looking down, he began to see, ever so faintly, the bulb turning on with the faintest of lights./p