Travel Bug (41 page)

The crowd cheered…

“Freedom is another word for chaos,” said the false prophet of Marx.

There was huge, thunderous applause from the doomed flock who did not question authority at all, ever.

“You see,” he said. “I can count how many people this freedom has helped on one hand. The fascists, the elites, the rich, the wealth, the middle class and the ones who would dissent from the liberty offered by us,” he said. He paused. “That is the hand of the haves; my other hand is those who have not. The day is now, revolution, the people’s government had come to this imperialistic bastard child of Britain like a thief in the night!”

Huge applause and no apparent individual thought in site.

“What a nightmare,” Harold said. “Where is the ACLU now?” the old man asked me.

The folks were starving for answers from their leper messiah.

“Now the sacrifices that you make are the ones that Jesus himself made. No material wealth, putting the needs of others first and turning the other cheek against malice and cruelty against you!”

“Amen,” shouted the crowd.

“No wealth, no want, no more pursuits of selfish, individualist happiness that lead to the fruits of greed and intolerance… not in the new America. I am proud to the pastor of the new church, the one that will lead us from darkness to the light of all.”

One or two radicals, like those who would dump tea into Boston Harbor dared to raise… a voice… a small voice… of dissent… of …

“Get rid of the troublemakers now,” said the enlightened prophet. “The time of not having the same goal, the exact same purpose is now over!”

There was huge applause for the man who asked the secret police to get the protestor or protestors.

“Oh my God, Andrew, this can’t be real.”

“I know, Harold, its way beyond appalling.”

“It’s time, finally time to give up every farthing to repay your rich, wealthy, selfish, imperialistic, racist ways to the one who will redeem you. If you do, then you can receive one of several cash prizes in the afterlife… Heaven…”

This was not Gothic Southern fiction, although I do remain a big fan of that genre. This was not making excuses, dear reader, for the villain of our novel, the woman from Rapture. This was real life. This was the death of millions under Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler and the ever loveable “People’s President” the ultimate narcissist.

“This government will give them death, poverty and starvation and sacrifice their children in wars will make all the previous ones look like a fight in the playground. And they will… be in tears… of gratitude, Andrew.”

“The brainwashing, Harold, that’s all it takes.”

I was wondering, dear reader, at what point do the rebellious become the oppressors? The college professors who in their youth protested Vietnam and I can’t blame them for that, it was clearly unconstitutional, kept pushing it. Their agenda, I mean. Then came a time when PC brainwashing in universities would not allow questions to be answered by the same men who prided themselves on questioning authority. Anyone who disagreed was labeled all kind of nasty names. This led to the lack of free thought in most colleges and universities and was a seed that would bear the fruit of this American Marxist nightmare.

“Please come with us, sir,” said one of policemen.

It was said with such authority and in such a polite tone I almost thought he was either speaking to either my great grandfather or me. Amazingly, I forgot that I was like the Dickens character; I could see but not intervene or be seen. Please, dear God, I prayed do not let this be the Christmas future that’s just ahead of the curve.

The young man was obviously a Christian based upon the cross around his neck. There were no other folks around who wore crosses or crucifixes or stars of David. They wore pictures of their fearless leader.

“I believe I have a right to disagree with what this man is saying. I don’t believe my faith should be represented this way.”

The policeman, dressed in an off black type of thin armor, head to toe shirked a little. The young man was in rags but his tiny, shiny gold cross kind of stood out a bit. One could not see the face of the authority figure. Just like one can’t see the face of the monster known as fascism. The dark helmet hid it all. The young man, maybe late teens looked like he had been through hell. No, he had been through purgatory at best so far at that point. In a bizarre instant, I saw his whole future. First, the cross (it was worth some money, no doubt) was torn from his neck. Then the first thud on his head from the policeman arrived and it was appalling.

“I’ve always hated the police,” Harold said.

“Generally speaking, me, too,” I said.

Instead of being dragged behind closed doors, he was brought right out, cameras rolling, for the beating of his life. He was taken unconscious to a secret prison and tortured mercilessly for two years. Then he was put into a slave labor camp given just enough food to keep technically alive for a year or so. Then, he is almost on the brink of death; they have almost worked the life out of him. Then a glimmer of hope, a man who works directly for the people’s pastor would like to show him the light, so to speak. He informs him that what he did was an outrage of individualistic and selfish attention seeking. The young man was offered bread and fresh fruit if he would sign a confession.

The people’s pastor continued.

“The American dream was actually an American nightmare. All of this greed and imperialism was going nowhere fast. After all, a nation that only had the same chance of a camel going through the eye of the needle to be saved… was surely damned.”

Harold grimaced. He hated how he thought that this was actually a pretty motivating speech for those who thought freedom didn’t deserve to survive.

“Hell is the absence of reason,” I said.

“Then we are in hell,” Harold answered.

The wars of greed are now over forever. No more Vietnam or Iraq wars. The wealthiest country will prove its might by becoming the poorest and that is our goal. Then it can finally be a force for good to the world. From each according to his ability to each according to his need is where Marx and Christ join forces. You must come with the faith of a child to us, the state, the government; we are your father now. The children are you, the collective.”

The man smiled, he was once the small time crook, the pastor of the woman who murdered my parents.

“Andrew, I have a distinct terrifying feeling in my gut that this version of reality will produce the most outrageous bloodshed!”

“Oh…”

“Time is so short and we don’t know what’s even fucking real! Are these things predestined or do humans still have the free will to avoid the path of slavery and genocide?”

“My God, Harold, I honestly don’t have an answer for you.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Harold said.

“Bring your guns, if you don’t have them, then the state will provide you with them!” said the people’s disciple of Christ.

“What?” Harold asked.

“I suppose the end of guns is not always the end of democracy,” I answered him.

“The hell it isn’t,” he said.

Now what I didn’t know was the dark intentions that the new world order had for the men and women who believed in the second amendment. The government did in fact provide good quality guns to its citizens. What I didn’t know at the time was what they were for. Since they suspected anyone who believed that they had the right to arm themselves, big brother put computer chips in every gun they gave out freely to the public. They spied on every aspect of their lives including and especially those who planned to overthrow the new fascist America.

“The sacrifices you make are reminiscent of the one made on the cross. One life will literally make thousands free from extreme poverty for all time. The kingdom is at hand and it cannot, no, it will not ever be established without the sacrifice of the blood of your children!”

Huge applause and mothers holding up their infants, in tears, and hugging one another in a state of rapture and joy…

“No more pointless bickering about where church and state separate because now the state is the church and the church is the state!”

“Monstrous,” Harold mumbled again.

This thing, this government was a million times more evil than the unnamed species…

“God help them,” I said.

“God help us all, this could still happen, Andrew.”

They were captivated by their new leader and happy to be slaves…

“My citizens, you are free to serve and to make sacrifices…”

I recoiled from a vision. The soldiers or police or whatever, were formally, almost all of them from the Civilian Socialist Volunteers. I knew in my mind and heart that the republic was still hanging by a thin thread when these men were brought in to ensure ‘fair elections.’

“Why are you staring at the police?” asked Harold.

“I had this…”

“What?” Harold asked.

“Vision…”

“I see…”

“What of?”

“Ordinary men…”

“What about these men?”

“They were feeling discontent, like their voices did not matter at all. Their government did not pay any attention to them.”

“No, I suppose not, son.”

“Then they were given these fabricated positions…”

“I see… what else in your vision, Andrew?”

“Things were promised…”

“Hope and change, a chance for life to be bearable…”

“An economy that favored the extreme rich and forgot all about the extreme poor and an elitist government without compassion…”

The discontent and class envy that had been slowly brewing in America ever since it was called to force itself to admit its own hypocrisy was now finally boiling over. Vietnam was the beginning. The people rose up and pointed out they did not want this. Americans continued to fight wars without the people’s consent and it was disastrous. It would never be business as usual anymore. The people had spoken and their government did not listen. Now a new regime was rising and it convinced the common man it was on their side. They would be volunteering for their own destruction and not even know t.

The volunteers were little more than suicide bombers but they were delusional enough to think that they were a whole hell of a lot more!

“These volunteers, Harold, received more than they bargained for…”

“Yes, they did” he answered.

“Andrew, I’m watching a country I have loved much longer than you get torn to pieces and resemble societies that we fought and died against. It’s extremely beyond heartbreaking.”

“The first volunteer…”

“What, Andrew?”

“The very first…”

“Of course,” he said.

“She was a nice lady, a truly beautiful lady…”

“Yes,” he said again and almost lovingly.

“Harold, you don’t understand…”

“Understand what?”

“A lovely woman, who volunteered, in our area by the way, went door to door. She wanted to tell people about the sheer greed of the American middle class. The amazing thing was that at the time, the middle class was just about to give up the ghost.

Still, she persisted and went on to tell ordinary folks about how certain leaders from Stalin to Mao had been misrepresented by the right wing media that ranged from TV to talk radio shows.”

“I think you have something. I see it now.”

“You do?”

“Please continue……”

The way college professors made freshmen feel like they were fools if they didn’t receive full political indoctrination, she made ordinary folks feel like fascist for not signing up for this new guy who wanted to provide hope and real…… … change.”

“Who was that, Andrew?”

“Harold, who do you think it was?”

“Andrew, I suppose, I can thank Mr. Ian Flick for this candidate.”

“Well him and a woman from Tennessee who killed my parents.”

The woman was an avid political activist and caught the attention of many folks in the media. Her name was Elizabeth Hawkins and she had become a big deal. The actor Ian Flick knew her intimately and introduced her to many of the Hollywood famous and some genuinely concerned citizens from such groups as the ACLU. She was an outspoken champion of human rights issues such as not torturing or even badgering the freedom fighters many on the right ignorantly referred to as ‘terrorists.’ Other issues were universal preschool and daycare and the right to receive a free education that essentially was paid for by the state for the poor and downtrodden. There were other issues as well such as enabling the government to crack down on offensive and controversial speech as well as choosing the curriculum and schools for the next generation of college educated Americans.

“She’s behind it.”

“Andrew, of course she is.”

“What do we do now?”

“We need to sit back and watch what causes this empire of death, the mountains of skulls that were once filled with the brains of thinking dissenters.”

“Andrew, we need to understand something. Every single future or possible future we see is getting worse. There is a chill that I feel here that I didn’t even have when American was a vicious theocracy, Christian or Muslim.”

“I know, Harold.”

“Rotten apples, Andrew, I can…”

“What, Harold?”

“I can smell them, Andrew.”

“What, Harold?”

“She left them here for us on purpose, these rotten apples. This whole place stinks to high heaven of them, son. The whole atmosphere is anti-Christian… it stinks of…”

“It smells like mercy and forgiveness have been abandoned… A mountain of skulls is what is coming, you know.”

“Harold, I know it.”

So Elizabeth built her base of volunteers and they grew in size over and over and over again. It wasn’t long before they reached out to other ‘people’s governments’ all over the world. The flags would run red and so would the hills and the streets all over the United States of America. Americas, North and South would receive a bloody nose for the arrogance of ever questioning the authority of the extreme left (or right). Oligarchies are Oligarchies.

A mountain of skulls…

Free healthcare…

A mountain of skulls…