Crucial: The Power of a Propaganda Love
In The Memory of an Exceptional Generation
Chapter Four: Rodents and Sparrows 2/2
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The Sparrow
What a dumb bitch.
She thought a motherfucking professional Sparrow would actually hide in a fucking closet like a senseless kid?!
What a fucking stupid, dumb bitch!
I leave no traces. Throughout all these years I never left a single fucking trace. Not once.
They fucking love me.
Yeah, I know Sasuke-kun is not all that fond of me, but I damn sure know he'd fucking protect me from EKB if it came down to it.
Sparrows are not to be driven by emotions.
Actually sparrows are not to have any feelings in general.
But it's humanly impossible to erase emotions.
So instead of trying to repress them, I thrive on them.
My emotions feed my success, and so currently I am the best fucking sparrow in this fun-house of a state.
I crawl out of the bed as soon as I hear her lock the door.
The floor creaks under my weight inconveniently but suddenly it doesn't matter;
'I'm not fucking staying under the bed they are fucking on.'
I check my surroundings with a critical eye.
I saw her feet near the closet but she didn't hang shit inside. She got scared to see a boogie-man there and ran off like a scaredy-cat she is.
Haruno Sakura is smart.
And I am the dumb bitch here for giving her such an obvious clue. What the fuck was I thinking smoking on his balcony like she'd actually listen to him and withhold from showing up to his place.
Such an amateur I've become.
"Fuck.Fuck..FUCK,FUCK,FUCK!" I chant, or shout, angrily while I'm trying to unzip my boot to look for a spare key Sasuke 'lost' at Naruto's on the get together months ago.
Ever since that day I was a frequent guest here, so much so I found Sakura's presence here annoying.
Not that It would be hard to get inside, I know Sasuke likes his space, but whenever I visit, although begrudgingly, he always holds a door for me and wordlessly starts making coffee the way we like it.
Dark, but sweet.
He'd never hurt me.
He'd never hurt a childhood friend.
Hate drives away the imperfection; it simmers slowly on the heat of cold furry and blends all the unspeakable sins together, so you can't tell which ones belong to you and which don't.
Hate is discipline.
Now love, is often considered a mess. But genuine love is a power.
I order to become a perfect sparrow, you need to know how to sell your personality well inside. And no one likes paying for a fake.
So they believe you love them because you do, they trust you because you trust them, they genuinely like you because so do you, you are their best friend, their family, their neighbor and accept you, because you fucking are what they think you are.
I do consider Naruto my own family.
I did mourn Kushina.
I do like Sakura.
And I indeed am absolutely in love with Sasuke.
I am going to betray them, and so that is why Sasuke-kun always looks at me with disappointment.
Hate drives away the imperfection; it simmers slowly on the heat of cold furry and blends all the unspeakable sins together, so you can't tell which ones belong to you and which don't.
And thus, I take comfort in my dismaying hatred towards myself driving my actions.
As I lock the door behind me silently, I depart through a fire exit and blend in with a crowd.
The Good Citizen
Every Totalitarian regime is run by a government with power issues. But there is absolutely no way any party can last forever.
If you have never had a taste of being a part of a mass not ruled, but controlled, here is a visualization of a totalitarian order;
Imagine a small place.
A good place.
About hundred men, hundred women and let's say eighty kids.
Imagine 30% of the population having a decent job and a house they inherited from their family. They form nice, safe neighborhoods; they live in good buildings where they carefully select people to let inside their little elite circle. They help their children marry in better families and double their wealth. This circle does not consist only of royalty though;
These are just people whose ancestors, after deconstruction of the monarchy, although stripped of their status, remained the owners of lands worth thirty times the income of a regular worker;
Or the people whose ancestors were smart enough to see an opportunity when the monarchy was over to acclaim lands without having a status.
The former monarchs' social class segregation does not disappear.
And when these creams of society take over its clearly visible that equality is an illusion.
After enough time passes and the class separation is more prominent with a clear red line running in the middle of them, they finally feel comfortable enough to give names to each class from the safety of their own zones.
While regular social structure distinguishes lower, middle and upper classes usually dividing farmers, workers, intelligence, merchants, and officials; in The Good Place, everything is more contrasted for it is relatively small and isolated.
So here only two main classes appear; the upper class and the lower class with a very small gradation of the social intelligence in the middle, consisting of scientists, writers, artists, teachers, the university staff, doctors and college students.
Keep in mind that the general population's 75% mostly consists of the lower class.
And the Good Place has grown a lot since the empire fell.
Now, there are no bad or good people in this good place. But there is always a force ready to direct the horrifying wrath of exhausted, starved workers' towards their own target.
And so Socialist party starts to emerge in the circles of regular workers, touching their hearts with public speeches of shared pain and planting a poisonous hope in their minds that somehow the revolution will solve all of their problems.
The revolution does happen and it triggers other places around the good place to take action now that they smell blood.
The revolution wins. The upper and middle class mix so that they can't be distinguished. Everyone has a home. If an official's home consisted of, for example, twelve rooms before, they have to settle for three small rooms for each family and a communal kitchen and bathroom now. They are obligated to work in order to receive their share of resources necessary for survival. Everyone is equal and the workers are currently content.
But there is no time to acclimate to the new system, for a war breaks out and suddenly the good place is flooded with blood.
When the war is over and the good place is dwindling in its numbers, government uses an iron fist to set a regime of equality, and since a lot of the resources are simply gone this decision is welcomed. Soon the good place becomes a peaceful place. Which doesn't last for long.
The government has gained enough trust to spread its tentacles further and soon different organs appear; these organs seem to work in the interests of people, for their security, brighter future, education, and progress.
But what exactly happens is the government is getting ready to crush people with an unbreakable regime, taking advantage while they are still disoriented after the loss caused by war.
The past war is a good excuse to present a hidden danger to the people. They announce that there are spies scattered in the good place like moving mines.
Dangerous and poisonous.
Every spy and their associates are to be severely punished.
The good place is taken over with fear and paranoia.
This is when the intelligence takes action. They see through the whole act and notice the governors' filthy hands clasped around their windpipes ready to crush.
Their whimper of warning sounds as beautiful as uncensored poetry, passionate, forbidden publicist letters, and rebellious songs chanted without care by bleeding young men in a faraway cellar as their own death lullaby.
The beautiful roar of freedom slowly fades into a wounded whisper as the Committee for State Security chokes out their last breath.
Then silence.
The dissidents are easily labeled as traitors, spies, rats… their names forever contaminated.
This serves as a reminder not to fuck with the system.
This method proves helpful with the cases occurring in the next years to regulate any unwanted slipups.
The good place is stable; it is dying an undignified death.
But then, years later, emerges a new generation of not yet intoxicated, loving, devoted children. Ready to take bullets for each other, to protect and even clear their family names, to continue losing until they win. Ready to endlessly throw their lives away to let the echo of that beautiful song be heard eternally.
How is it fair that such a generation exists? This row of snotty kids somehow missing the poison carefully planted throughout the years past.
How is it possible for these off springs of cruelty, fear and despair to turn out so bright and loyal and resilient?
Who took all of their sorrows and doubts away to shield them from the intoxication; who laid all the weight of unspeakable sins on his shoulders urgently so there would be none left for the future. Who gave away their own childhood without any mourning and remorse in order to preserve these slipups?
The good place is actually a good place, for raising one Uchiha Itachi.
Haruno sakura
I was just a little girl so I don't really remember it clearly but I recall this one time when Itachi was observing my childish doodles in Sasuke's notebook on our way back from school.
The younger Uchiha had freaked out in class after finding his notebook in such a condition and though usually he was patient with me, he had suddenly flipped. Which had not really bothered me since I found a blank space in his academic journal to continue doodling. Sasuke started complaining about how I was always so messy, how all my books were usually covered with drawings and after I turned with my nose stuck up in the air with "Stop shouting, I'm a girl" in a calm tone, he took away his stuff proceeding to hide it in his locker wordlessly.
When Itachi came to pick us up, Sasuke showed him his ruined notebook and demanded they leave me behind for such behavior.
'Now, Sasuke, I think this is nice. Someday you will have to pay for something like this.' He said without taking his eyes off the simple drawing of a ladybug with a bonnet; A very girly doodle indeed for a boy's notebook, especially since I stole the manly stickers of cars adorning it before. Again.
'I don't like it.' The younger boy announced.
'Well, I don't like you!'
Sasuke actually gasped.
'Take that back!'
Now that I think about it, we were probably a handful.
When I was a little older, maybe like twelve, Itachi caught me drawing small colorful patterns on Sasuke's old white shoes.
He stopped by the threshold throwing a look at the boys busy with homework on the other side of the room. He looked down at my work.
I looked up at his tall frame and blushed.
'It's fun.' I murmured with a shrug
'It looks like fun.' He nodded a little and smiled that melancholy smile I never understood. That smile of a deadman on a face so young brought a sudden rush of sadness to me.
'I read once,' He started; 'that art can be made or ruined with just three strokes.'
I try not to let the confusion leak into my expression.
'Is it true?'
I nod in a very competent manner looking down to continue with the soft shadowing.
I heard his steps fade away.
'Show off.' I hear Naruto snicker.
I throw a dirty glare his way.
'You SO have absolutely no idea what he's talkin' 'bout.'
'U Zo eve ebsutli No Idia vut iZ folkin about.' I mimicked the blond while making a face.
Three strokes.
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
But now it has become as clear as day.
These three strokes are the strategy of how to relay a concept the way you want it, with no errors or misunderstandings.
A combination of patterns serving a specific purpose.
Humor, creativity and honesty, is my personal formula for my art.
That's what you expect from a good illustrator to create what you wanted. The content that is adequate.
Now when it comes to political propaganda I know the components it requires:
It's Half-humor ('cause you are not making a joke, but you need the public to relate), half-creativity ('cause, yes, they need creative content, but there still are strict lines not to be crossed) and half-honesty (I'm not even going to explain).
As you can see, to make a perfect poster for political propaganda you would need only half an illustrator.
Budget-friendly isn't it?
But it's hard to imagine Love can be somehow illustrated.
Not when even Goya was not able to draw just one picture of the Maja.
According to Francisco Goya you'd need to draw at least two of them to capture the concept.
So is love The Clothed Maja or The Naked Maja?
Or neither.
I don't know enough history of arts to dwell on that, I guess.
I don't know which three strokes you need to illustrate love.
The first ever propaganda illustration I made (because you can't just say no to the fucking Committee for State Security) had words 'North', 'Spies' and 'Free' in bold.
In order to propaganda love you need three perfect strokes.
Fear, radicalism and hope.
The first ever propaganda illustration I made (because you can't just say no to the fucking Committee for fucking State Security) had words 'North', 'Spies' and 'Free' in bold.
Our government presented love as a weapon, as a glue to help us stick together to save the brighter future, and anyone outside of this sick circle of misplaced love would remain loveless. They would live a loveless life in a loveless place. And it was terrifying.
Of course If you scare people too much they start fighting, if you take away too much they will have nothing else to lose, so how do you eradicate protest without compromising?
You give them hope.
Hope keeps them going forward and fear holds them back, and that way you have them right where you want them.
Now if you normalize a little radicalism you could mold anyone into anything.
You could make a child kill. You could make them turn in their own family; all for the sake of radical ideas.
I and my boys were in the same class.
The public school inspector along with the National party representative as a supervisor would often visit us.
They used to enter the class completely unannounced, we would stand up as by the etiquette, they would greet us and let us sit.
Not all of us, though.
'Children of harvests keep on standing.'
And so the kids whose parents were deemed traitors of the state, whose parents were repressed or executed, whose parents did their best, got back up. They could not have been a danger to society with children like Akimichi Chouji, Inuzuka Kiba or Hyuga Neji.
They would continue an intoxicating speech involving the generosity of the state to let these children earn a better future by committing to the interests of the state. They went on disregarding how the figures standing in the classroom full of our old drawings of cars, sunflowers, suns and sea, suffered from the immense humiliation, how they clenched their teeth in anger. How their eyes filled with tears. Completely ignoring their agony over the injustice and ugliness of the situation, they spoke of how this treatment should serve as a precedent to those out there who have ever even thought about betrayal.
A parent betraying their country is not a parent and deserves no love.
All our love should be directed towards the state, the government, the CSS, the EKB.
Then they would proceed with a story so wrong in so many ways, I remember wishing they were made-up.
The famous story of a role model patriot boy who fucking ratted on his own family and thus contributed to the state, the boy declared an oath to eradicate any traitors on his way, and with his family fucking slaughtered, the state would finally grant him a fucking medal of honor.
The inspector proudly added that the boy was just ten.
'I was there to witness Danzo-sama himself pin the medal to the boy's chest'
Sasuke and Naruto were conveniently absent during these meetings most of the time. But when they were not all hell broke loose.
They were constantly in trouble and their punishment was harsh but my boys never stood there willingly listening to some douchbag disrespecting, defaming and degrading their families.
After that one time Sasuke came out of the principal's office with his raw knees bleeding through his pants, no doubt from kneeling on the biting puddle of rice and buckwheat for the past hours, a barbarian punishment for a seventeen-year-old, or anyone for that matter, I finally flipped.
I did not say a word to them, but as soon as the boys walked me to my place and left for their own building, I ran right out to the communal telephone booth and dialed Itachi's office.
It seems the older Uchiha pulled some strings, which I was hoping for, since they left Sasuke and Naruto alone.
Not for long though.
The CSS consisted of fools.
They never knew that the propaganda could be perfectly misinterpreted and used against them if someone put their mind to it.
And just like that, the love that was supposed to be directed towards our filthy leaders' was directed towards each other.
There was more empathy and freedom in our generation than the state would have liked.
Thus, to crush our spirits and repress our will of fire the government came up with a perfect excuse.
The harvests' sons would be sent to north in order to redeem their families' sins. This was presented as a unique opportunity and an act of generosity and kindness.
It was supposed to deliver a message: Don't fuck with us.
Uzumaki Naruto a professional translator having an extraordinary talent to communicate with any foreigner and make them believe in literally anything, decided to degrade the menacing message to: We are fucking scared shitless.
And still it never made Sasuke's departure any easier.
Uchiha Sasuke
As I near the general exit of the station eyes frantically searching for that ridiculous, familiar blond hair, I am suddenly overtaken by fear.
If anyone is after me they can be here.
For a moment I falter in my steps considering if my association with the Uzumaki is marking him an ultimate target.
But then Sakura's voice floats in from somewhere safe.
'We're fine. Come back ASAP. Naruto will meet you at the station today 8:00 PM.
-S.'
'We're fine.'
They are fine.
She's okay.
Haruno Sakura maybe wrong about a lot of things, but she is also annoyingly right.
They are fine.
As I spot Uzumaki Naruto leaning against the cargo of his truck, I know.
They are fine.
If the CSS was on my ass, than they would not plant a rat, they'd rather play a sparrow.
If the CSS wanted me, they would never let me leave the North so freely.
They are fine.
They would call on me during work, and read a list of my faults with a concluding order signed by court to me right in front of the fucking mines.
That shithole would be the last fucking thing I would see.
They are fine.
They would put one bullet in my head and two in my chest.
They would send the receipt for the used bullets to Sakura, who is to be notified if I happen to be caught in an emergency.
And she would learn of my death the same time the taxes arrived.
Letting her know how much she owes to the state for communal water, electricity and the three bullets lodged in the body of a labeled traitor.
A spy.
A harvest's son.
They are fine.
For once Naruto doesn't say a word when he sees me.
I slide into the passenger seat, waiting to hear the door on his side slam shut.
We don't speak on the way home and he lights his first cigarette on the redlight right when I carelessly throw my second one out of the window.
"Fuck." Is the first thing I hear from him as he makes a hit.
The idiot is looking out of the window, and I notice how he is slowly getting a second chin.
He really needs to diet.
"Man, I don't know what she saw."
I feel my hands shake as I light another one frantically.
Did she lie to me?
Did she do it so I wouldn't panic?
Did she see something bad?
Did they threaten her?
"Naruto."
"No, she's okay, she fine. You know sorta jumpy is all."
'What the fuck happened?!'
I realize a little too late that I actually shouted it at him.
The light shifts to green and Naruto continues driving.
"She's okay man." And it's the first time he looks me in the eyes. It's just a short moment but it's enough to reassure me, "I'll take you back to her."
"Every time"
"I promise."
They are fine.
The Rat
Haruno Sakura is ugly.
Our Intel is so close to the target that we got a very detailed characterization about the people surrounding him.
And the way she described Haruno Sakura, made me anticipate our meeting.
After all, who the fuck dies their hair pink.
But as I watch the young Uchiha embrace the small girl to his form in the middle of her living room through a curtain less balcony, crushing her bones to his body.
Kissing her neck in a frantic manner.
Chanting near her ear something I, a meaningless Rat, cannot know but am sure is to sound loving and beautiful.
I find the girl obnoxious. With thin bony arms, her spine not at all straight fingers dirty with some kind of ink, smudging all over the Uchiha's shirt for sure.
Her hair is a shade of pink that will never get anyone to treat her seriously.
Nothing like a confident young woman, who could actually represent some danger.
I'm about to rest my gaze on more deserving occupants of the room, when suddenly I notice her face.
Her doll like face directed at me.
Her forest green eyes are perfectly visible in the sun throwing light on her form.
Her eyes looking in my general direction, not really focused on me, but still aware of my presence, remind me of a predator that is less noticeable or deadly than the lethal arms of a man currently holding her with much care.
She is no shark, or a panther or a fox or even a rat, but is nonetheless still a predator.
She is a White Oleander, loved by the sun and by a strong, dry wind. A beautiful flower that could bloom in unbearable heat, seemingly pure and innocent, ready to spread its poison through even the bees carrying the toxic nectar of oleander and producing sweet honey, golden and deadly.
The sweet tilt of her lovely face makes something start to slowly sizzle in my veins and I suddenly discover that her presence is so utterly disarming I could say the forbidden words of a sinner's confession.
My name is not Sai. I have no name. I left my identity lying next to my beloved brother. A bright soul I ripped out of a young body.
She is the harvest to be removed by the government.
She is ugly and toxic.
Karin was wrong to say her hair was actually pink.
I am sure it is really just an empty white.
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In The Memory of an Exceptional Generation
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