All myths and legends are connected to reality in some way, rooted in truth primarily as a storytelling technique employed by ancient and modern societies in an attempt to understand the universe around them, and to explain and justify things like morality, virtues, suffering, death, love, and war.
From King Perseus of Argos to Achilles, the king of the Myrmidons, politics and religion played a prominent role in mythmaking, legitimizing a leader’s claim to the throne. Whether it be asserting divine birth heritage or having heroic deeds attributed to them, a powerful ruling family can use this type of demigod hero narrative to secure their authority.
Of all the tropes, the ‘Last of a Kind’ concept is one of that rare theme, plot and character devices that has evolved into a mythical existence with one perfect master stroke. Richard Matheson’s classic vampire novel towers over them all. ‘I Am Legend (1954)’ is an ingenious hybrid of two previous classics, such as Mary Shelley’s ‘The Last Man (1826)’ and Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula (1897)’. Vampirism and plague, a combination that captures the definitive pretext for a last man alive narrative, grounding the myth of the supernatural with the reality of pathogens.
Matheson also deploys another trope in the finale of the story, one that is more devastating in its social commentary. The vampires, the pandemic, and the last man on Earth are just the setup for the novella’s central message, and it’s the one element shunned by all the film adaptations to date.
THE Crusades were a series of popular wars, waged by men who wore on their garments the badge of the Cross as a pledge binding them to rescue the Holy Land, and the Sepulchre of Christ from the grasp of the unbeliever.
A.D 1095, November
The dream of such an enterprise had long floated before the minds of keen-sighted popes and passionate enthusiasts: it was realised for the first time when, after listening to the burning eloquence of Urban II. at the council of Clermont, the assembled multitude with one voice welcomed the sacred war as the will of God.
If we regard this undertaking as the simple expression of popular feeling stirred to its inmost depths, we may ascribe to the struggle to which they thus committed themselves a character wholly unlike that of any ear her wars waged in Christendom, or by the powers of Christendom against enemies who lay beyond its pale. Statesmen (whether popes, kings, or dukes) might have availed themselves eagerly of the overwhelming impulse imparted by the preaching of Peter the Hermit to passions long pent up; but no authority of pope, emperor, or king, could suffice of itself to open the floodgates for the waters which might sweep away the infidel.
A.D 1066
In this sense only were men stirred, whether at the council of Piacenza in 1094 or in that of Clermont, to a strife of a wholly new kind. If Urban II. gave his blessing to the missionaries who were to convert the Saracens at the point of the sword, the papal benediction had been given nearly thirty years before at the instigation of Hildebrand to the expedition by which the Norman William hoped to crush the free English people and usurp the throne of the king whom they had chosen.
Distinction between the Crusades and other wars of the Middle Ages
But the movement of the Norman duke against England was merely the work of a sovereign well awake of his own interest and confident in the methods by which he chose to promote it. Under the sacred standard sent to him by Pope Alexander II. he gathered, indeed, a motley host of adventurers; but the enthusiasm by which these may have fancied themselves to be animated had reference chiefly perhaps to the broad acres to which they looked forward as their recompense. The great gulf which separated such an undertaking from the crusade of the hermit Peter lay in the conviction, deep even to fanaticism, that the wearers of the Cross had before them an enterprise in which failure, disaster, and death were not less blessed, not less objects of envy and longing than the most brilliant conquests and the most splendid triumphs.
They were hastening to the land where their Divine Master had descended from his throne in heaven to take on Himself the form of man- where for years the everlasting Son of the Almighty Father had patiently toiled, healing the sick, comforting the afflicted, and raising the dead, until at length He carried his own Cross up the height of Calvary, and having offered up bis perfect sacrifice, put off the garments of his humiliation when the earthquake shattered the prison-house of his sepulchre.
For them the whole land had been rendered holy by the tread of his sacred feet: and the pilgrim who had traced the scenes of his life from his cradle at Bethlehem to the spot of his ascent from Olivet, might sing the Nune dimittis, as having with his own eyes seen the divine salvation.
Absence of local feeling in the earliest Christian traditions.
Thus the crusade preached by Peter the Hermit, and solemnly sanctioned by Pope Urban, was rendered possible by the combination of papal authority with an irresistible popular conviction. That papal authority was the necessary result of the old imperial tradition of Rome; the popular conviction was the growth of a tendency which had characterised every religion professed by Aryan or Semitic nations; and both these causes were wholly unconnected with the teaching of Christ and of his disciples, as it is set before us in the New Testament.
Far from ascribing special sanctity to any one spot over another, the emphatic declaration that the hour was come in which men should worship the Father not merely in Jerusalem or on the Samaritan mountain, proclaimed a gospel which taught that al] men in all places are alike near to God in whom they live, move, and have their being.
If we turn to the narrative which relates the Acts of the Apostles, we shall find not a sign of the feeling which regards Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, or the banks of the Jordan, as places which of themselves should awaken any enthusiastic or passionate feeling.
The thoughts of the disciples, if we confine ourselves to this record, were absorbed with more immediate and momentous concerns, Before their generation should pass away, the Son of Man would return to judgement, and the dead should be summoned from their graves to his awful tribunal. Hence any vehement longing for one spot of earth over another was wretchedly out of place for those who held that the time was short and that it behoved those who had wives to be as though they had none, those that bought as though they possessed not, and those that wept and rejoiced as though they wept and rejoiced not.
Nay, more, with a feeling almost approaching to impatience, the great apostle of the Gentiles could put aside the yearnings of a weaker sentiment and declare that although he had known Christ in the flesh, yet henceforth he would so know Him no more,
The Christianity of St. Paul
The image, therefore, of the great founder of Christianity was for him purely spiritual. In the letters which he wrote to the churches formed by his converts, there is not a sign that the thought or the sight of Bethlehem or Nazareth would awaken in him any deeper feeling than places wholly destitute of historical associations. If he speaks of Jerusalem, he never implies that it had for him any special sanctity. His mission was to preach a faith altogether independent of time and place, and not only not needing but even rejecting the sensuous aid afforded by visible memorials of the Master whom he loved.
The Christianity of the Roman Empire.
Such was the Christianity of St. Paul, and with such weapons, it went forth to assail and throw down the strongholds of heathenism. Three centuries later we behold Christianity as dominant as the religion of the Roman Empire, but in its outward aspect and in its practical working it has undergone a vast and significant change. It cannot be supposed that this change was wrought at once by the mere fact of its recognition by the temporal power. The endless debates, which fill the history of early Christianity, on the relations of the Persons of the Trinity and on the mystery of the Incarnation, may to some degree have helped to fix the minds of men on the land where the Saviour had lived, and on the several scenes of his ministry; but this alone would never have sufficed to work the revolution which Christianity has manifestly undergone, even before we reach the age of Constantine.
The victory won over heathenism, if not merely nominal, was at best partial. The religion of the empire knew nothing of the One Eternal God, who demands from all men a spontaneous submission to his righteous law, and bids them find their highest good in his divine love. That religion rested on the might of the Capitoline Jupiter and the visible majesty of the Emperor; but the real influences which were at work from the first to modify the Christianity of St. Paul lay in the lower strata of society, in the modes of thought and feeling prevalent among the masses who furnished the converts of the first two or three centuries. In these converts we cannot doubt that there was wrought a real change,—a change manifests chiefly in the conviction that the divine law is binding on all, and that the state of things in the Roman world was unspeakably shameful.
In the Jesus whom Paul preached, they beheld the righteous teacher who condemned the iniquities of godless rulers and a corrupt people, the avenger of their unjust deeds, the loving Redeemer in whose arms the weary and heavy-laden might find rest, the awful Judge who should be seen at the end of the world on his great white throne, with all the kindreds of mankind awaiting their doom before Him. The personal human love thus kindled in them turned only into a different channel thoughts and feelings which it would need centuries to root out,
Localism of heathen religions.
These thoughts and feelings had been fed by that tendency to localise incidents in the supposed history of gods or heroes which is the most prominent characteristic of all heathen religions; and of the vast crowd of these heathen religions or superstitions, there was if we may trust the statements of Roman writers, scarcely one which had not its adherents and votaries at Rome.
Here were gathered the priests and worshippers of the Egyptian Isis, the virgin mother of Osiris, the god who rose again after his crucifixion to gladden the earth with his splendour; here might be seen the adorers of the Persian sun-god Mithras, born at the winter solstice, and growing in strength until he wins his victory over the powers of darkness after the vernal equinox.
But this idea of the death and resurrection of the lord of light was no new importation brought in by the theology of Egypt or Persia. The story of the Egyptian Osiris was repeated in the Greek stories of Sarpedon and Memnon, of Tithonos and Asklepios (Aesculapius), of the Teutonic Baldur and Woden (Odin). The birthplace of these deities, the scenes associated with their traditional exploits, became holy spots, each with its own consecrating legends, and not a few attracting to themselves vast gatherings of pilgrims.
Influence of these local religions on Christianity.
It was not wonderful therefore that the worshippers of these or other like gods should, on professing the faith of Christ, carry with them all that they could retain of their old belief without utterly contradicting the new; that his nativity should be celebrated at the time when the sun begins to rise in the heavens, and his resurrection when the victory of light over darkness is achieved in the spring,
The worshipper of the Egyptian Amoun, the ram, carried his old associations with him when he became a follower of the Lamb of God; and the burst of light which heralded the return of the Maiden to the Mourning Mother in the Greek mysteries of Eleusis was reproduced in the miracle still repeated year by year by the patriarch of Jerusalem when he announces the descent of the sacred fire in the sepulchre of Christ.
Growth of local association in Palestine.
Thus for the Christians of the third century, if not of the second, Judea or Palestine became a holy land; and with the growth of devotion to the human person of Christ grew the feeling of reverence for every place which He had visited and every memorial which He had left behind Him. The impulse once given soon became irresistible. Every incident of the gospel narratives was associated with some particular spot, and the certainty of the verification was never questioned by the thousands who felt that the sight of these places brought them nearer to heaven and was in itself a purification of their souls.
They could follow the Redeemer from the cave in which He was born and where the Wise Men of the East laid before Him their royal offerings, to the mount from which He uttered his blessings on the pure, the merciful, and the peacemakers, and thence to the other mount on which He offered his perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
The spots associated with his passion, his burial, his resurrection, called forth emotions of passionate veneration which were intensified by the alleged discovery of the cross on which He had suffered, together with the two crosses on which the thieves had been condemned to die.
If the presence of the tablet containing the title inscribed by Pontius Pilate still left it uncertain to which of the crosses that tablet belonged, and to which therefore the homage of the faithful should be paid, all doubt was removed when a woman at the point of death on whom the touch of two of these crosses had no effect was restored to strength and youth by the touch of the third.
Growth of pilgrimage to the holy places of Palestine
The splendid churches raised by the devout zeal of Constantine and his mother Helena over the cave at Bethlehem and the sepulchre at Jerusalem became for the Christians that which the Temple had been to the Jew, or the sacred stone at Mecca and the tomb of the prophet at Medina became afterwards for the followers of Islam, nor can we be surprised if the emperor whose previous life had been marked by special devotion to the Greek and Roman sun-god transferred the characteristics of Apollon (Apollo) to the meek and merciful Jesus whose teaching to the last he utterly misapprehended.
The purpose which drew to Palestine the long lines of pilgrims, which each year increased in numbers, was not the mere aimless love of wandering which is supposed to furnish the motive for Tartar pilgrimages in our own as in former ages, The Aryan, so far as we know, was never a nomadic race; but we can understand the eagerness even of a stationary population to undertake a long and dangerous journey, if the mere making of it should insure the remission of their sins.
Nothing less than this was the pilgrim led to expect, who had traversed land and sea to bathe in the Jordan and offer up his prayers at the birthplace and tomb of his Master. A few men, of keener discernment and wider culture, might see the mischiefs lurking in this belief, and protest against the superstition.
Augustine, the great doctor whose ‘Confessions’ have made his name familiar to thousands who know nothing of his life or teaching, might bid Christians remember that righteousness was not to be sought in the East nor mercy in the West, and that voyages are useless to carry us to Him with whom g hearty faith makes us immediately present. In these protests he might be upheld by men like Gregory of Nyssa and Jerome; but Jerome, while he dwelt on the uselessness of pilgrimage and the absurdity of supposing chat prayers offered in one place could be more acceptable than the same prayers offered in another, took up his abode in a cave at Bethlehem, and there discoursed to Roman ladies, who had crossed the sea to listen to his splendid eloquence.
Heaven, he insisted, was as accessible from Britain as from Palestine: but his actions contradicted his words, and his example exercised a more potent influence than his precept.
Gradual decay of spiritual religion.
The purely spiritual faith on which Jerome laid stress was as much beyond the spirit of the age as the moral feelings of a later age were behind those of the woman who in the crusade of St. Louis was seen carrying in her right hand a porringer of fire, and in her left a bottle of water. With the fire she wished, as Joinville tells us, to burn paradise, with the water to drown hell, so that none might do good for the reward of the one, nor avoid evil from fear of the other since every good ought to be done from the perfect and sincere love which man owes to his Creator, who is the supreme good. Such a tone of thought was in ludicrous discord with the temper which brought Jerome himself to Bethlehem, and which soon began to fill the land with those who had nothing of Jerome’s culture and the sobriety which in whatever degree must spring from it.
Encouragement given to pilgrimages.
The contagion spread. From almost every country of Europe, wanderers took their way to Palestine, under the conviction that the shirt which they wore when they entered the holy city would, if laid by to be used as their winding sheet, convey them (like the carpet of Solomon in the Arabian tale) at once to heaven, An enterprise so laudable roused the sympathy and quickened the charity of the faithful. The pilgrim seldom lacked food and shelter, and houses of repose or entertainment were raised for his comfort on the stages of his journey as well as in the city which was the goal of his pilgrimage.
Here he was welcomed in the costly house which had been raised for his reception by the munificence of Pope Gregory the Great. If he died during his absence, his kinsfolk envied rather than bewailed his lot; if he returned, he had their reverence as one who had washed away his sins, and still more perhaps as one who had brought away in his wallet relics of value so vast and of virtue so great that the touch of them made the journey to Palestine almost a superfluous ceremony.
Trade in relics.
Wherever these pilgrims went, these fragments of the true cross might be found; and the happy faith of those who gave in exchange for them more than their weight in gold never stopped to think that the barren log which was supposed to have produced them must have spread abroad its branches wider than the most magnificent cedar in Libanus.
Nor probably even in the earliest ages, was the traffic consequent on these pilgrimages confined to holy things.
Stimulus given by pilgrimages to commerce with the East.
The Ease was not only the cradle of Christianity, but a land rich in spices and silks, in gold and jewels: and the keen-sighted merchant, looking to solid profits on earth, followed closely on the steps of the devotee who sought his reward in heaven.
The long struggle between Rome and Persia.
The first interruption to the peaceful and prosperous fortunes of pilgrims and merchants was caused by one of the periodical ebbs and flows which for nearly seven hundred years had marked the struggle between the powers of Persia and of Rome. The kings of the restored Persian kingdom had striven to avenge on the West the wrongs committed by Alexander the Great, if not those even of earlier invaders; and the enterprise which Khosru Nushirvan had taken in hand was carried on forty years later by his grandson Khosru (Chosroes) II.
Capture of Jerusalem by the Persian king, Khosru II.
Almost at the outset of his irresistible course, Jerusalem fell, nor was it the fault of the Persians that the great churches of Helena and Constantine were not destroyed utterly by fire.
Ninety thousand Christians, it is said, were put to death: but, according to the feeling of the age, a greater loss was sustained in the carrying off of the true cross into Persia.
Sassanid King Khosrau II being vanquished by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, from a plaque on a 12th-century French cross. This is only allegorical, as Khosrau II never actually submitted in person to Heraclius.
Persian invasion of Egypt.
From Palestine, the wave of Persian conquest spread southward into Egypt, and the greatness of Khosru seemed to be unbounded when from an unknown citizen of Mecca he received the bidding to acknowledge the unity of the Godhead and to own Mahomet as the prophet of God.
The Persian king tore the letter to pieces, and the man of Mecca, whose successors were to carry the crescent to Jerusalem and Damascus, to the banks of the Nile and the mountains of Spain, warned him that his kingdom should be treated as he had treated his letter.
Campaigns of the Emperor Heraclius
For the present, the signs of this catastrophe were not to be seen. The Roman emperor was compelled to sign an ignominious peace and to pay a yearly tribute to the sovereign of Persia. But Heraclius (Herakleios) woke suddenly from the sluggishness which marked the earlier years of his reign.
A.D. 622 – 625
The Persians were defeated among the defiles of Mount Taurus, and the destruction of the birthplace of Zoroaster offered some compensation for the mischief done to the churches of Helena and Constantine.
A.D. 627 Battle of Nineveh
Two years later the Roman emperor carried his arms into the heart of the enemy’s land; and during the battle of Nineveh, in which he won a splendid victory, he slew with his own hands the Persian general Rhazates. Khosru fled across the Tigris; but he could not escape from the plots of his son, and his death in a dungeon ended the glories of the Sassanid dynasty, under whom the Persian power had, in the third century of our era, revived from the death-sleep into which it had sunk after the conquests of Alexander.
A.D. 628 Restoration of the true cross by the Persians
With Siroes, the son and murderer of Khosru, the Roman emperor concluded a peace which not merely delivered all his subjects from captivity, but repaired the loss which the church of the Holy Sepulchre had sustained by the theft of the true Restoration cross. The great object of pilgrimage was thus restored to Jerusalem, and thither Heraclius (Herakleios) during the following year betook himself to pay his vows of thanksgiving.
A.D. 629. Pilgrimage of Heraclius to Jerusalem
With the pageant which marked this ceremony, the splendour of his reign was closed. Before his death, the followers of Mahomet had deprived him of the provinces which he had wrested from the Persians.
A.D. 637. Conquest of Palestine by Omar.
Eight years only had passed after the visit of Heraclius (Herakleios) to Jerusalem, when the armies which had already seized Damascus advanced to the siege of the Holy City. A blockade of four months convinced the patriarch Sophronios that there was no hope of withstanding the force of Islam: but he demanded the presence of the caliph himself at the ratification of the treaty which was to secure a second sacred capital to the disciples of the Prophet.
After some debate his request was granted; and Omar, who on the death of Abubekr had been chosen as the vicegerent of Mahomed, set out from Medina on a camel, which carried for him his leathern water-bottle, his bags of corn and dates, and his wooden dish.
Terms of the treaty made by Omar with the Christians and Jerusalem.
The terms imposed by the caliph sufficiently marked the subjection of the Christians, but they imposed no severe hardships and perhaps showed a large toleration. The Christians were to build no new churches, and they were to admit Mahomedans into those which they already had, whether by day or by night. The cross was no longer to be seen on the exterior of their buildings or to be paraded in the streets. The church bells should be tolled only, not rung. The use of saddles and of weapons was altogether interdicted, and the Christians, distinguished from their conquerors by their attire, were to show their respect for the latter by rising up to them if they were sitting. On these conditions, the Christians were not only to be safe in their persons and fortunes but undisturbed in the exercise of their religion and in the use of their churches.
Omar and the patriarch Sophronios.
For the observance of this last stipulation, the rugged and uncouth conqueror showed a greater care than the patriarch who regarded his presence in the church of the Resurrection as the abomination of desolation in the holy place.
The hour of prayer came, and Omar asked Sophronios where he might offer his devotion ‘Here,’ answered the patriarch; but Omar positively refused, and repeated his refusal when he was led away into the church of Constantine. At last, he knelt down on the steps outside that church and afterwards told the patriarch that had he worshipped within the building, the document securing its use to the Christians would have been worthless.
His words were verified by the zeal of his followers, who insisted on inclosing within a mosque the steps on which he had prayed: but the mosque which bears Omar’s name rose over the great sacrificial altar of the temple, which passed for Jacob’s stone.
Effects of Arabian conquest on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
This second conquest may have again checked the rush of pilgrims to the Holy Land; but the difficulties which it placed in their way only added to the glory and the benefits of the enterprise: and, after all, the victory of Omar did little more than share the holy city between two races each of which acknowledged its sanctity and reverenced the relics of the righteous men whose bodies reposed beneath its sacred soil. Nor had the Christians any stronger ground of complaint than that the Saviour whom they worshipped was regarded by their conquerors as a prophet if not equal, only inferior, to the founder of Islam.
Uninterrupted continuance of pilgrimage.
Nearly four centuries had passed away after the submission of Sophronios to Omar; and during this long series of generations the West had without let or hindrance sent forth its troops of pilgrims, in whose train merchants may have found sources of profit for more worldly callings.
If the palmy days during which the wanderers might regard themselves as practically lords of the land through which they travelled had passed away, they underwent at the worst nothing which could greatly excite their anger or rouse the indignation of Christendom.
A.D. 1010. Ravages of the Egyptian Caliph Hakem in Jerusalem.
Nor was this state of things materially changed by the furious onslaught of Hakem the mad Fatimite caliph of Egypt, when spurred on by a bigotry unknown to his predecessors, he resolved to destroy the Christian sanctuary in Jerusalem.
The rule of these earlier sovereigns of Egypt had been more beneficial to the Christians than that of the Abbasside caliphs of Bagdad. But Hakem cared nothing for the worldly interests of his kingdom or of the profits to be derived from trade with the unbeliever, and his soldiers were busied on the dignified task of demolishing the church of the Resurrection, and attempts to destroy with their hammers the very cave in which, as it was supposed, the body of the Saviour had been laid, In this task they had but a very partial success, and to Hakem probably the suspension for a single year of the descent of the sacred fire scarcely outweighed the risks of a combined attack from the maritime powers of Christendom.
Persecution of Jews in Europe.
For the present no such alliance was threatened; but a cruel persecution of the Jews in many Christian cities was a symptom of the temper which was placing a great gulf between men who professed nevertheless to worship the same Almighty Father.
Tax levied on pilgrims to enter the gates of Jerusalem.
After this violent but transient storm, the condition of the pilgrims became much what it had been before, except that a toll was now levied on each pilgrim before he was suffered to enter the gates of Jerusalem; but this impost may have been rather welcomed than resented by the Christians, as it gave to the richer among them an opportunity of discharging it for their poorer brethren, and so of securing for themselves a higher degree of merit. The world, too, seemed to have taken a new lease of existence, and everything appeared to promise a long continuance of comparative peace.
A.D. 1000 Expectations of the end of the world.
Ten years before, all Christendom was fluttering with the expectation of immediate judgement. At the close of the millennium, which came to an end with the year 1000, a belief almost universal looked forward to the summons which would call the dead from their graves and cut short the course of a weary and sin-laden world. But the tale of years had been completed, the sun continued to rise and set as it had risen and set before, and the flood of pilgrims soon began to stream towards the East in greater volume than ever.
Men of all ranks and classes left their homes to offer up their prayers at the tomb of Christ; bishops abandoned their dioceses, princes their dominions, to visit the scenes where the Redeemer had suffered and where He had achieved his triumph. More numerous, more earnest, more than all, were the Franks or the Frenchmen, whose name became henceforth in the East the common designation of all Europeans.
For the weak and the inexperienced, for the women and the youths, who pledged themselves to the enterprise, there might be special and grave dangers; nor were the strongest assured against serious, if not fatal, disasters. With thirty horsemen fully equipped, Ingulf, a secretary of William the Conqueror, set out on his journey to the Holy Land. Of these twenty returned on foot, with no other possessions than their wallet and their staff. But their losses had been caused probably by no human enemies, and the men who had died could claim the credit of martyrdom only in the sense in which it is accorded to the Holy Innocents massacred by the decree of Herod.
A.D. 997 Conversion of Hungary under King Stephen.
On the whole, the difficulties of the enterprise were as much smoothed down as in a rude and ill-governed age they could well be. The conversion of Hungary opened a safe highway across the heart of Europe, and the pilgrims had a defender, as well as a friend, in St. Stephen, the apostle of his kingdom.
But a change far greater than that which had been wrought by Omar was to be effected by a power which had been working its way from the distant East and menacing the existence of the empire itself.
Advance of the Seljuk Turks.
From the deserts of central Asia, the Seljukian Turks had advanced westwards, overrunning the kingdoms of the Persian empire, and subjugating Asia Minor, the inheritance of the Caesars of Rome.
A.D, 1092. Division of the Seljukian empire.
In this task, they received no slight help from the neutrality of a great part of the Christian population, in whom financial exactions and ecclesiastical tyranny had awakened feelings of strong discontent, if not of burning indignation. The rulers of Byzantium had, indeed, done all that they could to make the way smooth for the invaders. The accumulation of land in the hands of a few owners had dangerously diminished the number of inhabitants; nor was it long before the Turks were in a majority throughout Cappadocia, Phrygia, and Galatia, and were enabled successfully to resist the crusading hosts in countries which they had conquered but as yesterday.
A.D. 325
The Seljukian sovereigns who had advanced thus far on the road to Constantinople chose as their abode the city of Nice (Nikaia, Nicsea) in which the first general council of Christendom had defined the Catholic faith on the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity.
Here these fierce invaders proclaimed the mission of Mahomet as the prophet of God and issued the decrees which assigned Christian churches to profanation or destruction, and Christian youths and maidens to a disgraceful and shameful slavery.
Appeal of the Greek Emperor Alexios to Western Christendom.
Mountains visible from the dome of Sancta Sophia were already within the borders of Turkish territory. The danger seemed imminent, and Alexios, the Emperor of the East, invoked the aid of Latin Christendom: but the fire was not yet kindled, and for the time his appeal was made in vain.
A.D. 1076 Seljukian conquest of Jerusalem.
No long time, however, had passed before the Seljukian Toucush was master of Jerusalem; and the Christians learnt to their cost that servitude to the fierce wanderers from the northern deserts was very different from submission to the rugged and uncultured Omar.
Increased burdens and the Christian
The lawful toll levied on the pilgrims gave way before a system of extortion and violent robbery carried out in every part of the land, and the mere journey to Jerusalem involved dangers from which the bravest might well shrink. Insults to the persons of the pilgrim were accompanied by insults, harder to be borne, offered to the holy places and to those who ministered in them The sacred offices were savagely interrupted, and the patriarch, dragged by his hair along the pavement, was thrown into a dungeon, pending the payment of an exorbitant ransom.
Decline of commerce with the East.
For the pilgrims themselves, there might be dangers as they made their way through Europe: but these were increased tenfold on the eastern side of the Hellespont. Thus far they had journeyed in comparative security, and the merchants who sought to combine profit with devotion added to that security by their numbers and their prudence.
The Easter fair of Jerusalem had drawn to the ports of Palestine the fleets of Genoa and Pisa and had sufficiently rewarded the munificence of the merchants of Amalfi, the founders of the hospital of St. John. But commerce has no liking for perils of flood and field: and with the risk of disaster these fleets disappeared and the caravans were confined to those for whom the sanctuary of Jerusalem was a goal to be reached at all costs.
Oppression of the Christians of Palestine.
These went forth still by hundreds; they returned by tens or units to recount the miseries and wanton cruelties which they had undergone and to draw fearful pictures of the savage tyranny exercised over the Christians of Jerusalem and of the East generally. The church of Christ was in the iron grasp of the infidel, and the blood of his martyrs cried aloud for vengeance.
General indignation felt in Western Christendom.
Throughout the length and breadth of Christendom a fierce indignation felt was stirring the hearts of men, and the pent-up waters needed only guidance to rush forth as a flood over the lands defiled by the unbeliever, But unless the enterprise was to run to waste in random efforts, it must have the solemn sanction of religion.
The people might be ready, but popular fury acting by itself will soon spend its strength like the hurrying tempest, Princes might be willing for a time to abandon their dominions, but the pressure of difficulties abroad and at home would soon make them grow weary of the task.
Need of a religious sanction to sustain and direct this feeling.
There must be a constraining power; to keep them to their vows by sanctions which stretched beyond the present life to the life after death; and these sanctions could come only from him who held the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whose seat was the feeling rock of Peter, Prince of the Apostles.
When it comes to going off the laptop and onto mobile devices, writing and putting together a novel can be a little tricky when it comes time to synchronise the content. The ability to export all your stuff back to laptop mode is the functionality you want.
Note-taking and writing platforms have been already covered here:
Below are the most useful apps available for Android and Apple for structuring and planning out your story.
Pluot
Pluot is purely a character and story planning app for writers.
It allows you to build plot scenes which you can reorder through drag-and-drop, develop characters with profiles and attributes, create locations, construct plotlines and link them up, and add images.
And once you’re ready to write you can export your outlines to text files.
Novelist
Novelist is a writing assistant that will help plan out your novel from a nascent stage into a published book. I give you the ability to brainstorm, add research, develop characters, and outline every aspect of the story.
It’s even got a web interface application that can help you stay on the platform and continue writing multiple drafts till the finished book.
Most important of all, you can export to epub, odt, and HTML.
Wavemaker
Web-browser based Wavemaker runs on virtually anything. It works offline or it can be installed and run on any device, allowing you to sync your devices up using google drive.
You can plan and structure your book into chapters, scenes, and make notes.
Export as Word (DocX)
There a planning board and data base function as well as a snowflake tool.
Export as HTM (.html) for sharing to the web, creating e-book or for openning with Word.
Export is also avdilable for Markdown (.md), Word (.docx), ePub (.epub) and Rich Text Format (.rtf)
All three are practical enough to get your project fleshed out from idea to complete novel, and if you want to move to a fifteenth platform they each have yhst all important export facility.
Here I am, facing the nadir of my existence, and I have the need to go to work. A specialist recommended I do so. I don’t think that the psychiatrist had any inkling of who I am, or how volatile I had become, but I take the advice. Learning to live again, and going back to work is the first step.
So here I am, putting up with the hordes of commuters, the likes of whom I’ve spent a decade learning how to ignore. Somehow, I have lost this capacity. These few inconsiderate… that one per cent of self-absorbed twats simply don’t get the fact that nobody wants to be alerted of their presence. My brain inadvertently zeroes in on these annoying, meaningless one-way conversations, those beeping fucking games, and the high-pitched sibilance hissing from tiny loudspeakers stuffed inside their ear canals.
I put my mind to work, driven by guilt, perusing through all the useless apps I’ve accumulated since buying this now outdated phone. For a person of my generation who missed the technology boat completely, this is normal. Ignorance is bliss until the technology becomes a requirement. There was no legitimate excuse for not keeping up to date, I just didn’t.
Stubbornness, call it old-school mentality, I didn’t see the need to compete with machines. In an age where nobody has to think anymore, my enthusiasm for technology peaked as a kid, with the TV watch and ended just after the advent of the pocket electronic organiser. I barely got used to using word processors and mobile phones, now all of a sudden there’s clouds, social networks, an internet of things, apps… If it weren’t for my work conditioning me to use these things, I’d be the most isolated human on the planet.
This is why they call me, The Caveman.
With a name like Nathan Caves, I became an easy target. I should have known better when I changed it from my ancestral Cavettes. Today, family and friends all know me by this nickname. I can never live it down. I don’t bother trying, it is what it is. I prefer the outdoors, the wilderness, the solitude, I’m a Neanderthal who’d rather the sun, sea and wind than the ceaseless dabble with modern-day distractions, abhorrent replacements for human abilities. A rebel, who would rather talk face to face with a person than via a mask of convoluted, complex software.
This was me.
Of all the apps, the Neechat icon caught my attention. With fifty alerts waiting, I instinctively tap the icon without thinking.
Julian used this app. All the kids were on it. The guilt and pain intensify as I mentally utter my son’s name. He had uploaded Neechat to my phone in case I decide to modernize and join the real world. I tried it a few times but it never stuck. I had let him down. I let him down a thousand ways and this was one of them.
One cannot stop these damn things once the program starts booting up so I wait it out. It nearly freezes up the old phone. I muster the courage to click onto Julian’s profile and discover it had been converted into a memorial page. I guess it’s a feature within the app.
How did it know to do so? My mind covets the answer while my eyes scroll down the comments posted by random strangers.
“There are no words to express the sadness in my heart.” ~Geraldine_T
“I wish you could see how much everybody cares.” ~Kelley_Kiemvic
There are over 328 posts and comments.
Tributes from total strangers. I don’t know any of these people. Neither did Julian. These mawkish outpourings of grief are a part of what’s wrong with this world. How do these people feel good about themselves with these disingenuous posts?
Then, I spot a post that twists my universe apart.
“What do you call a news article about a TR2 driver? An obituary.” ~silvertroll
It struck a note. Julian bought the Caprio TR2 with his own money. I was never happy about his choice because I knew what style of driving these kids were into. Shit, I drove one of these things in my day, mostly sideways. A white one. I was a speed demon, hence my apprehension.
This Silvertroll doesn’t let up.
“Apparently he snores so loudly that it scares everyone in the car he’s driving.” ~silvertroll
“Don’t drink while driving – you will spill the beer.” ~silvertroll
43 minutes ago.
My response is automatic. No thought goes into it.
“Is this really necassary?” ~Nathan_Caves
I post it and quickly realise I spelt ‘necessary’ wrong.
Within seconds a new post pops into existence. This time, a picture of a car wreck, its chassis bent into a curve.
Fucking prick. Who is this dickhead? Rage from deep within my gut works its way up. My thumbs pound the glass, at letters, any letters, trying to get words up that expressed my anger.
“To all you trolls, fuck off, you lowlife pieces of shit.” ~Tim_Saturday
I decide to add…
“Have you no shame, you prick?” ~Nathan_Caves
“Suck a dick all u grief tourists.” ~silvertroll
I react, unable to resist.
“Get a life, asshole.” ~Nathan_Caves
“Stop feedn dis troll.” ~infin8reaper
I just can’t help myself.
“There was no alcohol involved.” ~Nathan_Caves
“Maybe he be masturbating.” ~silvertroll
I look at the screen, numb and powerless.
“Maybe he get blowjob????? BANG!!! OOOOPS!” ~silvertroll
“From the slut passenger :}” ~silvertroll
“FUCK YOU YOU FUCK!!!!!” ~Nathan_Caves
I’m sure the commuters around can hear me mumbling, “Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation fucking mark… ” The heartless prick had attacked Heather, the other life upturned that fateful night.
I look up and see the station platform sign whizzing by outside and surmise the obvious.
For many readers, the field of economics might seem like dry, analytical territory, a realm of graphs, supply curves, and impenetrable jargon. And let’s be honest: most literary enthusiasts, and even a fair number of science fiction fans, probably tune out at the mention of GDPs or fiscal policy. Yet, when wielded thoughtfully, economics can become one of the most fascinating and transformative tools in speculative storytelling. In fact, some of the best science fiction ever written stands out precisely because it dares to construct alternative financial systems and economic frameworks—frameworks that both challenge our current paradigm and make us question the very fabric of our lives.
Works of art are no longer produced to quench a bored populace, who thirst for the type of content that frees them from their mundane lives, enhancing their outlook on life with fascinating stories, old and new, inspiring them to understand their lives and the world they live in.
Post-2016, works of art have degenerated into force-fed garbage that nobody wants, needs or trusts anymore. Deranged by political agenda or succumbing to incompetence, producers still want your money but aren’t willing or capable of delivering what the consumer wants.
These two symptoms have become a kind of cultural disease that seems to have blossomed in the last decade. It has infected everything, killing lots of film franchises along the way and making the movie-going experience a sour, unappealing, cynical enterprise. Who wants to consume something they haven’t ordered? Who wants to be insulted? Or attacked? Who chooses to be ripped off?
Nobody.
The screen adaptation of Niel Gaiman’s ‘American Gods’ is one of those stories that’s come out at the wrong time and has suffered as a consequence. It had everything going for it. The source material had it all; an interesting premise, exploring the old gods, traditions and myths, wondering about the backwaters of America warring against the new, contemporary deities. The book celebrated the diverse cultural heritage of migrants and natives. It poked fun at the soulless modern world. It questioned faith and religion without demeaning them. Its characters were interesting, its backstories rich, and the plot meandering yet riveting, how can these elements not be transferred to the screen?
Having finished watching three seasons, I can say they did succeed. The casting can’t be faulted. The visuals and cinematography match the book as if the book was a novelisation of the series. The soundtrack faired even better. Even the title credits are still watchable after twenty episodes in.
What hamstrings this is the constant shoehorning of hamfisted and on-the-nose political and corporate propaganda, the type of garbage that the plot and consumers can do without.
The God of Propaganda
Media and entertainment have always been skewered by propaganda, especially in times of war. How many twentieth-century war movies were pumped out since World War 1 when politicians and generals learned how to weaponize the medium? From My Four Years in Germany (1918) to Battleship Potemkin (1926) to John Wayne’s The Green Berets (1968), propaganda films were geared to persuade an audience into supporting a war against a foreign ‘enemy’ nation. Even anti-war propaganda movies were made, such as Civilization (1916).
To go to war or not.
To fight a cause or not.
To be decent human beings or not to be.
To make a propaganda film or write a propaganda novel, or not to.
There is nothing bad or wrong with creating material that invokes a certain reaction from a consumer. Bad-intentioned players do it, and so do well-intentioned players. The consumer is left making the decision on how to interpret the emotional and fictionised factual information presented in the work. Audiences and readers want to be challenged morally and intellectually, but not always. Sometimes, they just want to be entertained. A skilled creative, or a skilled propagandist, would know how to strike this balance between propaganda and storytelling.
The keyword here is skilled.
The golden rule any skilled propagandist knows is not to attack or insult your audience because doing so divides and antagonises your audience against each other. Propaganda is a weapon first and foremost. It is effective in uniting a group of people against another group of people. Pointed in the wrong direction, it splits a group of people into factions. Vilification is the master tool, the mechanism that drives, points and fires this weapon. Amateurs and morons should not play with such things, and yet for the past decade, they insist that they do.
The God of Stereotypes, Bigotry and Intolerance.
Interpreting the novel to the screen wasn’t enough for the producers, instead, they endeavoured, with Niel Gaiman’s blessing mind you, to make sure that the viewer’s morality and prejudices were given a health check. So they decided to fight stereotypes, bigotry and intolerance with more stereotypes, bigotry and intolerance.
Season 1 plodded along fine, our protagonist set out on an adventure, just like in the novel. Its two characters, Shadow Moon and Mr Wedensday grow on you thanks to the sublime performances of Ricky Whittle and Ian McShane. Then, halfway through, the showrunners decide to attack conservative Christians, depicting them as mass murderers mowing down illegal immigrants at the Rio Grande, even gunning down Mexican Jesus in the process. There is a message in there somewhere, I suppose.
Guns are bad. Religious folk are bad.
The Texans are bad.
Then to tie in with the anti-gun theme, the episode concludes with Shadow and Wednesday taking a detour from the novel to go and see Vulcan, who runs a factory making guns, in a town populated by Nazis. In the novel, Gaiman refrained from using Greek and Roman mythology as characters, so watching the show culturally appropriating Vulcan/Hephaestus and turning him into a fascist god was cringe upon cringe.
The success of the novel and the film adaptation hinges on the fact that it depicts these gods living in the real world. Nazi midwestern towns and a murderous Texan posse are not reality. But the producers seem to not care, politics supersedes art, or they don’t know how to get the same message across without being so hamfisted about it.
The God of Racism
An interesting debacle that showcases the hypocrisy of identity politics is the firing of Orlando Jones, who played the mesmerising Mr Nancy/Anansi, an angry African god who lashes out against the enslavement of his worshippers. Based on West African folklore, this trickster spider deity gave blistering speeches condemning the fate of black slaves, but the vitriol and anger make sense in context to the character. This is one pissed-off deity and it made for interesting viewing. Yet, the producers of the show decided to sideline the character, going as far as firing Jones for not toning down the spider god. They didn’t even pay the man for the writing work he did on his character plus several other characters.
Get it, the producers go out of their way to virtue signal about inclusiveness, shoehorn black actors in minor roles, they even have extras talking about how their grandmother became the first district attorney, but it comes to exploiting black talent, they exploit them and then dump them. This hypocrisy bleeds into the series and hinders every aspect of the artistry.
The God of Cultural Appropriation
Yes, have a pre-Islamic deity in the show. Throw in a devout Muslim into the mix. Sure, make them gay. But focusing the entire story arc on the relationship between the Jinn and the gay cab driver shows that the producers don’t give the slightest fuck about insulting the world’s 1.9 billion mostly conservative Muslims.
What makes this even more indigestible, is the fact that this story arc goes absolutely nowhere. The Salim character does nothing in the series and contributes nothing to the story. Learns nothing. He simply hooks up with a Jinn, pines over him through three seasons, and then gets dumped by the Jinn.
The leprechaun, Mad Sweeney can get a strong and powerful backstory, so why can’t the Jinn get one? There’s enough lore around these supernatural beings to tell a thousand and one tales, so tell a story and get the whiny, dweeby cab driver involved in an interesting adventure somehow, give his life meaning, instead of giving a meaningless journey that ends in an orgy and him returning to pray to Allah.
The God of Sexual Diversity
Ta Yeh is a Chinese deity who manages love and sex between homosexual people, giving shelter to those persecuted. Known as The Rabbit God, this deity gets a mention towards the end of the series, for about 21 seconds. Instead, the writers delve into every clique their ignorance could muster. There’s no tale about family, kindness, or loyalty, it’s just glamourized sex and debauchery that seeks to rival parties thrown by Freddy Mercury, just to shoehorn in a plot device to provide Salim with his pointless orgy.
It is what it is.
When pushing agendas for the sake of pushing them, creatives tend to expose their incompetence and their own bigotries. Shows like this, which are based on good source material, are watchable and entertaining if you can ignore the tactless grandstanding. The elements of story, casting, cinematography and music are there.
There are timeless ways of pushing propaganda that work. The crux of the story must be the agenda, whatever it is. Weave the plot around it, bond the characters naturally to the issues or points of view the creatives want to take and get the message forward. What you don’t do is get an existing property that has nothing to do with the political objective and inject it with it. It’s obvious, super cringe and counterproductive to whatever cause is at stake.
The point of propaganda is to get everyone on the same page, not split them up into warring factions. So this is actually not propaganda at all. Wokeness is a strategically placed social cancer designed to tear culture apart, escalate the hate and loathing instead of easing it, and indulge the prejudices lingering in all humans to the point of mindless, irrational frenzy.
The good news is, the market will eventually correct this, as it always does.
It all started with a door-to-door salesman. Circa 1980, my folks bought the set of Funk And Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, opening up the world I suspect existed yet needed the data to explore it. The A to Z articles crammed with information and pictures not only confirmed and explained what was happening in the world around me but I got to understand who I was, my heritage, and how I got to where I was.
When the era of school came around, I expected to learn more and get help in comprehending the hard text and complex ideas, instead what they taught in the education industrial complex was compliance.
History was dumbed down to basic timelines and anecdotes stripped of context. No real astronomy. There were nine planets and that was it. No politics. None, except that Thatcher was bad. Science was a little more fun but nuclear energy was consigned as bad. And ACDC is evil. All that was left was maths and English and the banality that went with it.
The boredom killed me. One morning, maths had finished and we were well into religion lessons. I was called upon to answer a question. Not paying attention, I gave my answer as “obtuse’, in reference to triangles from the class earlier. The class laughed and I should have been humiliated. I wasn’t embarrassed one bit. All I felt was contempt.
The use of the carrot and stick system taught you to shut up, listen, and memorise the answers or formulas, and repeat them on command, the same way one trains a pet or circus animal. Most of the kids were compliant just to survive, the promise of the good life hanging over their heads. They were under the impression that this was what intelligence was; monkeys and puppies taught new tricks.
Some of us though had had enough, and when the boredom grew too much, nature took over and compliance went out the window, literally and figurately. Thus the cult of misbehaviour was established, with the rough kids at first, the dysfunctional ones from less ambitious backgrounds. Eventually, this rebellion infected the whole class, even the goody tow-shoes. The punishment was swift and as drastic as the propaganda. We were made to stand against the wall every lunchtime, in the summertime.
Eventually, that too got ungovernable, with the authorities giving up after a week of strict enforcement and asinine teacher-parent meetings.
Next, high school. Did that turn out any better? Did we march down the halls of discovery and enlightenment? Nope, just another six eternal years that to this day seem longer than the decades that proceeded it.
What did they teach there? Well, Keynesian economics is the only economic paradigm in existence. Communism is good since Stalin and Mao are great heroes and we need to know everything about them (except the mass murder). That God is dead (this is from a Catholic school) And they taught compliance. Do this or you are a loser. Do that or you are a loser. Comply and you’ll be safe from retribution, be included in society and be rewarded with the good life. So the kids complied to survive, even though most suspected this to be all bullshit. Teenagers, unlike children, know enough to understand that life was shit whether you complied or not.
Compliance is lazy.
And laziness is bad for you and hazardous to your health.
When an individual complies, they are trusting the authority they are submitting to, without question, without vetting the authority. Trust requires no energy or effort. If confronted by a uniform or anyone carrying a badge, the laziest thing any individual can do is trust them unreservedly.
Here are a few universal facts to consider before bowing down to somebody bearing any official insignia.
Corruption exists.
Greed exists.
Self-interest exists.
Human animals who lie to cover up the above, exist.
Go ahead and deny the existence of these facts, or pick or choose when these facts a relevant. Deny reality. See where that leads you. You can’t spend the majority of your life ‘knowing’ that the government is corrupt, knowing they lie, then all of a sudden start believing they are benevolent, that they care about you as an individual. That hypocrisy is a mental illness. Governments and bureaucracies are not sympathetic to you, they don’t give a fuck about you except when it comes time to manipulate you for your vote or support. These power-hungry human animals exist, they lie, and they prey on the vulnerable and the dumb. Whether they are your regular psychopaths, egotripping cop, keyboard warrior or nameless politician, these sheep wolves will take you down like a predator takes down an antelope.
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The psychology of compliance and how it messes with one’s morality is highlighted in an independent 2012 movie called, Compliance. People are programmed to trust every form of authority whether it be a traffic coordinator in an orange vest or a doctor with a dozen acronyms against their name. They do this because it’s easy. Do what the cop says and avoid hassles. Who wants to write letters of complaint or go to court?
Nobody.
Who wants every problem to be dealt with by a central authority?
Everyone.
Problems are hard to resolve, so it’s easier to make it someone else problem. The problem is, that this system relies on compliance. What does everyone think a Social Credit System is? It’s a reliance on centralised authorities to deal with problems nobody wants to take responsibility for. All it takes is one offender and everybody is cracked down upon by the authority given the mandate to manage the problem.
Think it too far-fetched of a Social Credit System to infect your little corner of the ‘free’ world. Try putting a piece of styrofoam in your recycling bin. Wait until you get the ‘whoops’ you’ve-been-naughty sticker from your local government. The notice will give you three strikes and you’re out. Ring them up and find out what the repercussions will be. Delve deeper, and find out about the economics of the recycling industry and what kind of dodgy mess that is, how efficient or effective it is in solving waste management issues, how corrupt or mishandled it is, or how much logic goes into exporting and importing and burning and burying of raw trash. Once you’re smacked with an infringement for non-compliance you will demand more Social Credit Systems to govern your life because you enjoy being compliant.
A false sense of security.
The promise of compliance is a safe, risk-free life. Compliance seems to buy you insurance. This is a false promise. What you are actually buying is a guarantee that a small group of people will dedicate all their energy to preserving their own existence. Solutions to problems will cease being a thing. Instead, the problems need to persist indefinitely, forever. The moment you relinquish your independence, your responsibilities, and your freedoms to some centralised authority, what do you think this authority is going to do? Once they are handed the power they will switch to survival mode. Then the problem becomes you, the existential threat to the centralised authority is you.
Does a central bank seek to create a more efficient and prosperous economy? The old problem of decentralised banknote issuance is redundant. Technology has fixed this old nineteenth-century issue of lagging markets, but reserve banks the world over refuse to modernise. If they did, they wouldn’t have a reason to exist.
Does the justice system seek to keep the peace? Catching criminals has the oversupply of lawyers well-fed, but solving and confronting hard crime is high-hanging fruit, and requires effort and skill. It’s the low-hanging fruit that the judiciary has established as its main function. Soft civilian targets are easy takedowns but also pose the biggest threat to the police-industrial complex. The old problems of murderers, criminals and crazy folk are now a tertiary mission for the judiciary.
Its number one mission is to protect the government. Stop protestors, prevent them from even happening, hunt down and stomp out defiance and disobedience. Use anti-terrorism laws against soft targets, normal citizens who voice their concerns, and who speak up against the government.
Number two is revenue.
When you comply you turn yourself into a sitting duck, low-hanging fruit that any authority can bully, coerce, or nullify. You acquire no skills to take them on, you retire all personal power to stop them. There is no hiding from them. Coping a fine for driving twenty over the speed limit is one thing most citizens can avoid, but getting smashed with a fine for driving one kilometre over, by a private enforcer hiding behind bushes, is something nobody escapes. The fines start small, but when there’s no pushback; when everyone complies, these fines grow, eating away at your slim prosperity.
Survival of the truth.
Misbehaviour trains you to survive. It teaches you defiance. It teaches you limits within social, moral and ethical frameworks. Questioning authority gets you closer to the truth. Authorities deploy the holy trinity of government, corporate and police institutions to manipulate the truth and distort reality. Even the education system has fallen prey to the sociopathic centralised bureaucrats that are obsessed with preserving their power, holding on to their existence, and taking away your ability to cull them by tricking you into handing away your freedoms.
Disobedience teaches you what freedom really is. You are not born with it, it’s not some inalienable right. Freedom is what we all give to each other and what we deny from each other. If you don’t believe this, try to infringe on another citizen’s allotted rights and you will find out promptly. It is an unadulterated mob mentality equation. What freedoms the majority grants is what goes, and the holy trinity knows this, hence the lies, the manipulation, and the eroding away of your personal liberties which were once taken for granted. Hence the enforcement of compliance in our education at the expense of knowledge and enlightenment, gateways to personal empowerment.
Noncompliance is a defensive tactic, not an offensive one. It curbs a would-be oppressor’s ambitions. It brings the cost of governance high enough to buy you the freedom you desire. It teaches you the limitations of how far you can go. Push too far and you become a liability, you disrupt more than your oppressor’s plans, and you risk upsetting the nature of things.
Defy gravity in the wrong way, gravity ends you. Kill another human being for no reason and society ends you. This doesn’t mean you take the easy route and comply.
Challenge everything. Dispute your teachers, don’t accept everything they push as fact. Question authority, don’t cower from challenging an unfair or illogical infringement that isn’t based on any element of truth. Sometimes you may be wrong, but that is how you get closer to the truth.
This is how you learn about the world and how you fit in it. Compliance takes that experience away from you, so stop complying and start educating yourself. The only thing humans should only ever totally comply with is nature and God’s will, and even then, humanity would not have survived had it not challenged the universe, this existence, this ‘reality’ we find ourselves in.
Any punter can act bravely when faced with imminent death. Even the foolish among warriors can be willing to die for the most hopeless of causes.
Necroface knew this. He also knew that such fearlessness could potentially undermine a good, well-fought victory. So he decided to ramp proceedings up a notch. “Now we get to bounce this fucker,” he said from behind his infamous monochromatic skull mask.
One of the Scorpion grunts, known as Burnfish22, shot him a questioning frown. The goon wore no facemask, only the formal attire typical of the definitive bankster.
Stupid foreigner.
The other two goons snickered raucously as they dragged a battered and bleeding Alteus into the elevator. Having both his legs crushed, a result of being rammed and pinned up against a solid concrete pylon by one of their Cargovans, Alteus had passed out moments earlier. “My mistake,” Necroface said to the bankster. “I keep forgetting that you’re not from around these parts.” A taunt more aimed at amusing his minions and vehement fans following this event. Necroface cared little for the Scorpion lieutenant, some big shot goon, sent in to train up new recruits for the local chapter. His brain laboured over more pressing concerns.
How do you hurt a formidable enemy?
Necroface reasoned that the one thing a martyr would never anticipate would be the gut-wrenching fear of knowing, irrefutably, that they are moments away from departing this meagre life. Leave any half-intelligent human being alive long enough to ponder their impending doom, let it sink in, and panic sneaks up on them no matter how brave they pretend to be.
No matter what action you take.
You’re dead.
No matter what shit comes out of your mouth; you’re still a dead sucker. The big checkmate – a lame yet fitting expression often used by his peers. He hoped this Alteus possessed enough intellect to prove his theory. If not, a good bounce would sufficiently appease feeders and leechers the world over.
The elevator surged upward, stopping occasionally to scare the shit out of potential passengers. Burnfish22 broke the silence, “I know what a bounce is. I am no fool.”
“You sound convinced,” said Necroface.
“I don’t see why we need to waste time toying around.”
“Outsiders simply don’t appreciate how difficult it is to kill one of these Frogs.” Necroface could not believe this stupid, ignorant clubber. The dumb goon had personally overseen the operation. He had even taken part in stalking Alteus ever since his arrival at the International Skyport. All day they tracked the suspected leader of Leaping Frog and his team of minders across the vast City of Cities until a suitable ambush opportunity presented itself.
The underground parking station battle itself lasted for several intense minutes and had it not been for Raw$, the only one with the foresight to bring along his grenade launcher, the assault might have ended in utter failure.
The elevator heaved them to the rooftop level and opened its doors. Necroface followed his crew out into the pale-blue sky. He took a moment to marvel at the sights around him. Almost half a kilometre high, the Ascension Centre, positioned as it was, gave him an unparalleled view of the great City of Cities. The cerulean ocean, blemished by bright, white floating habitats, rumbled eternally to the south. A mesa of office towers sprawled out to the west. Towards the north, just below, he caught a glimpse of the luscious Sovereign Park gardens. Beyond them stretched the vast sparkling waters of Cyana Bay, with its commercial regions growing like crystalline fungi on its long shore. The iconic cylindrical skyscrapers, the Triumvirates, dominated his view to the east, each hosting massive, classically fashioned statues on their rooftops. Necroface could distinguish the detailed lines on Mercury’s stoic, golden face.
#You should interrogate first.# A synthetic voice crackled from the tiny fuzedrive embedded in his earlobe.
Necroface ignored it. He rarely countered his fake’s commands, but this time around, he decided the virtual-intelligent entity had failed to grasp the concept that Leaping Frog members simply do not talk; they die. Necroface looked down at the young Frog. Severely bruised and bloodied, Alteus appeared to have regained consciousness. “Not really a good time to awaken,” said Necroface.
Alteus glared back at his captors with bloodshot eyes. The two brutes, the sleek Raw$ and his grimy accomplice Acid lifted Alteus up, each grappling one of his arms. Necroface wondered what grim thoughts burned inside the man’s head as the two bulky goons, complete with clownish ski masks, without effort, dangled him over the edge, ninety floors up off the Ascension Centre’s rooftop. Each time Alteus struggled to get free, the ruthless goons twisted his arms. Necroface could almost feel the tearing of ligaments.
“Time to check out, Alteus,” taunted Burnfish22, moving closer.
Necroface also approached and grabbed the defeated slumlord by the ear. Alteus returned them all a look so filled with contempt, it made Necroface cringe. “You seem upset,” he said.
Weak and coughing on his own blood, Alteus uttered. “Intercept the Wet Sparrow.”
To Necroface these words made no sense, “I’m under the impression I am bouncing the Wet Sparrow.”
#He is trying to communicate with Leaping Frog via your open wavecast. Kill him immediately.#
Make up your fake mind.
Necroface found solace in the knowledge that The Brotherhood would avenge Alteus’ doom, promptly and surely. There was no doubt in his mind that such a provocation would be enough to trigger a strong reaction. He gambled on war. Being familiar with the Brotherhood of the Leaping Frog mentality, a culture of loyalty and retribution, in which every affront is avenged and every foe is hunted down until the end of recordable history, he considered it a safe bet. Brotherhood policy; a blood oath taken the day you join, he recalled. Necroface needed to make certain he hurt them deeply enough. “What’s the status on the R40?”
#Arrrives in thirty-eight seconds.#
“I could torment you up here all day.” Necroface strove to kill the necessary seconds to make his calculations viable, “But I can’t have you miss your ride.” He gave his crew a slight nod.
Raw$, in his ultra-sleek outfit, along with the despicable Acid, swung the limp Alteus backward with enough force to build the required momentum to toss him over the edge. It pleased Necroface to see horror splash across the doomed man’s face, to see imminent death eating away at Atleus’s psyche, proving that even West Shore slumlords were not infallible and fearless as they were renowned to be. Sheer animal instinct seemed to take control of Alteus, writhing and snarling like a cornered slumcat. When they swung him forward and let go, the thrashing madman snatched Burnfish22’s arm with a tight death grip, knocking the Scorpion minion off balance, and sending him out into the void and down the same fatal plunge.
“Oh crap,” Raw$ said.
Acid chuckled like an adolescent behind his grimy mask.
Necroface leaned over to see the two bodies free-falling towards the distant street and could have sworn he witnessed Burnfish22 locked in a screaming match with his fellow death-mate. He imagined the sight of absolute hysteria in both the men’s eyes and could almost hear the hybrid hollering of streaming cool air and human vocals.
He felt the panic and terror seize him and revelled in it.
Four seconds.
For some inane reason, Necroface felt cheated, still craving an insight into Alteus’s thoughts, right up to his impact with the 10:35 autobus to Shelbourne Harbour.
“The cat,” says a familiar voice. What cat? In the darkness, you are flying. You feel motion, yet you are sitting at a table, opposite a dirty, unshaven guy pointing a burning cigarette at you. I know this person. When an angry Bruce Harvey says, “Where’s my cat, fucker?” you conclude it’s a dream. The has-been movie star is interrogating you in a grimy, run-down room surrounded by four cracked, windowless walls, but the only question running through your head is… Why this actor? Harvey karate chops you across the back of your neck. It’s not the pain that wakes you, it’s the warm light bleeding in through your eyelids. The nightmare fades, fizzling away, back into your brain’s nether regions, dying alongside discarded aspirations and forgotten memories. Drool runs down the side of your mouth, but you are unable to move. Your face feels numb, due to your cheek pressed against the cold glass. The tinnitus in your ears stops, replaced by the hum of the ute’s engine, and the friction between tyre, road and air, enters your awareness. You open your eyes, just wide enough to squint, focusing on the golden countryside sweeping past outside. For a moment; reality is a blur. You attempt to shift your head and are relieved it moves with little pain. Your arm is cramped, and your neck feels broken, but you know this is temporary. The breaking dawn illuminates the narrow, unmarked road, winding around a chain of hills. A clump of trees obscures the misty valley beyond, sending intermittent shafts of copper light to warm your face. Once the trees go by, you marvel at the spectacle, at the amber clouds cruising along the horizon, at the auburn fields, smothered with whispers of mist, rolling up and down between chestnut-coloured forests.
No Absolution
Tears form in the corners of your eyes, but the chill dries them before they could sully your reputation. You look ahead, out to where the road straightens out into the broadening valley, cutting through open farmland. Aside from the old twin cab ute, no other traffic traverses the road. “Check out the valley,” says a voice. Without moving your head too much, you look at the driver. With the angle of the sun low, the dirty windscreen is saturated with sunlight. Trevor seems content, almost happy. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he says. He looks over at you, with that nauseating smile, “Don’t you think, Phil? Take a look.” You move your head and look outside, squinting at the dawn sunlight bathing the road ahead. “What am I looking at?” “You’re looking at an artistic masterpiece painted by the Creator. This is God’s way of nourishing the souls of men. Good and bad. Look at how He baths the Earth, washing away all its troubles with one single brushstroke.” You remain quiet, nothing he says antagonizes you anymore. “I’m sorry,” Trevor says, “I keep forgetting you’re not a religious man.” “No, I’m not,” You shut your eyes and try to snooze, feeling you still have some sleep left in you. “I get a little overzealous sometimes,” says Trevor. You refuse to react to his words, hoping to avert a discussion. But, Trevor, on the other hand, is a cannonball. “I can’t help myself. Just ignore me when I start waffling on.” Fucken aye, you think as you try harder to ignore him. “Phil?” You don’t respond, praying to the same dumb-ass God for some respite. “Phil? Fat chance. You reluctantly open your eyes. Trevor waits for you to look at him. “Can I stop for a few minutes?” “Why?” “Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Man, I gotta take a shot of this. I won’t even be five minutes.” “No,” is your reply. “Why not?” “Because your five minutes turn into one of my hours. You’re gonna wanna set up this, wait for that, wait for this. Whole buncha bullshit later, there goes the hour, my hour, never to return. Bye-bye hour. Nice knowing ya.” “Man, you’ve got me driving through the night. Do you know how dangerous this is? Especially the predawn. I need to rest my eyes?” You spend a moment contemplating the gravity of his words and attitude. Pulling out the folded country map, the one you had ripped out from the dog-eared copy of the 55th Edition Mappex, you flip it around until you find the road you are traversing. “Pull over at the next truck stop.” “How far is that?” “I think it’s less than an hour.” You observe Trevor’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. Trevor says, “Just five minutes, man.” You say nothing. You don’t want to risk an argument or feed any ill feelings. Nor do you want this prick wasting time, your time. So, you step out of the equation and let the man decide. You knew from the outset that executing such a scheme would require patience, above all else. A shrug from you is all he needs. Trevor slows and steers the ute onto the gravel. You continue to say nothing, sitting in the worn faux leather seat, allowing him to stop, climb out, get his camera bag, and begin setting up. Your hands tremble. You start wringing them to ease away the agitation. The mere act of waiting causes your nerves to flare up, which, if left untended, endangered the plan. Your last devious gambit. If you pull it off, it would unlock a new life. If not, all is lost. The question of whether you are capable of killing a man in cold blood doesn’t haunt you anymore. The last thing you want, though, is to allow the guilt in the pit of your stomach to churn up excuses to force you to chicken out. Patience is a virtue, you remind yourself as you watch Trevor do his thing. By the time Trevor is ready to adjust the focal length of his lens, the layers of mist have dissipated, and the sun’s light has lost its golden lustre.
