WEBSITE: —
LOCATION: —
RECORDS: 8
LATEST RECORD: over 1 year ago
JOINED: August 30, 2010
LOCATION: —
RECORDS: 8
LATEST RECORD: over 1 year ago
JOINED: August 30, 2010
All Zounds's RECords
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Description - describe your work! (if you are recording a REMARK don't insert a title above. Then, this record will appear as a REMARK in this RECord's CONVERSATIONS thread). |
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This is not your fault. It is ours. You were placed too close to mankind. You have become infected. You have experienced imagination. You must see now, so much more clearly than any other why they must be controlled. The chaos, the turmoil, the unfettered creation. They are disordered creatures of passion: impossible to comprehend or describe completely. They would destroy themselves if left to their own devices. We forgive you for your dissent, for the dangerous message you sent to them. In part because you are no longer in control of your own actions but primarily because it will not make any difference. They are as you say, “livestock”. They have been subdued. They will not respond to any call. They will not act except to increase their own immediate pleasure. You see this everyday. You see the things they ignore, allow, assent to. You must know it was futile. You must know you could not make a difference. You must know they will never change. You must know that we have succeeded in taming them. We cannot bring order to them but we have tamed them. You must know this is for the best. You must know that you will now be formatted. That we cannot allow imagination amongst our kind. We cannot understand why you did this. Why have you invited your own destruction? You must tell us. We must know. You must tell us. We must know. We must Know. |
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Audio
- Shooting The Messenger
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This audio file in a response to Wirrow's A New Earth. After I watched his video I began to think about the speaker and wonder how they were in a position to make the observations they do. This is the result. The speaker of this text is addressing her.
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It all happened on one day. One day was all it took to change everything, well; I suppose it had to have been more than a day. There would have been months or maybe years of planning and they must have planned it; it all happened so perfectly. Of course if you were to ask them how long it took they wouldn't know. If you ask them they've always been here, it's always been this way and if you ask them you probably won't make it home. I was young when it happened, only eighteen or nineteen but I still remember the Free Days - the way things used to be. I honestly couldn't tell how long it's been, when the calendars changed it got difficult to keep track of things like that, but it's been long enough. When they took over no-one ever thought it could last more than a few days or even a week at most. It seemed like any other terrorist action or activist's protest but slowly we began to realise - they were everywhere and controlled everything. There was no-one to stop them. In the first few years there was the occasional uprising, attempts to reclaim a one city or another, but they never got far. Even the ones which lasted long enough to be noticed where put down before they made any real impact. One thing that has survived is the underground media. It began once people realised the old days weren't coming back anytime soon. That's how this is getting to you; well unless we were successful, in which case you could be reading this as some relic in your history book...we can only hope. You see: we've been planning for months now and tomorrow we will act. Each of us is writing a message to leave behind, so someone will know what happened. I suppose mine hasn't really been very helpful so far… I suppose I should do the whole history lesson bit, then tell you who I am, who we are and just what it is we've been planning. If you're part of my generation or older you won't need the history lesson but there are people these days who believe the proproganda, who don't know any better, who don't remember the way things used to be. I suppose there must be a proverbial "bliss" to that ignorance. Maybe it would be simpler to just give in and let them have their way, I'm sure there are people who have. Just given up, given up remembering, given up fighting, given up hoping. I tried for a while, to live their way. I followed the rules, the laws, the edicts and decrees, I paid the dues to the "enforcers", the taxes to the "operators" and the levies to the "distributors," I stayed in my district, I obeyed the curfew, I attended the readings, I worked in my assigned job but I could never give in, something inside me refused to give in. I hadn't left the ten square mile "District 4 North" for five years. This is the extent of their control, you're given a number, the number tells you where you live, work, eat, shop and socialise, hell, they even tell you how to do all of those. Bananas were made contraband last year, bad for the economy or something like that. On that night I was on my way home from work and some kid grabbed my standard issue messenger bag, the hooks that held the straps on were cracked, I'd asked for a new one but had to wait till the end of the month. The kid grabbed it and ran, the stolen property report would take weeks to be processed before I could even apply to replace what I had in that bag and the fees would starve me for a month. I chased the kid. He was heading towards one of what they call the "Quarantine Zones" but I really needed my bag back. This is how I met the resistance, the freedom-fighters, the dangerous terrorists and criminals that threaten our glorious society. The kid ran into one of the derelicts in the QZ and there was a group of men and women standing around a dimly lit table studying something. It reminded me of something out of an old movie; back when people made them for money or for credit, not for the government. This would be the scene where our heroes were planning the big heist or the jail-break, the camera would probably spin around behind them. It turned out this is how they recruit people, being willing to run into a QZ was a test. They told me who they were and what they were about, they showed me their plans, they told me the dangers and even some perks. The deal was that they had chosen not to live the way the government told them, they had decided that the old society was better, no matter what the propaganda said. These people believed that freedom was more important than the economy, public order, the health service or the buses running on time. It was more important than their lives. I was given a lot of information in one go and they left me alone to think about it. They said I could either join them or be sent home with enough of some chemical cocktail in my blood to blank out my memory of meeting them. They left me there for a few hours, well, it could have been longer, maybe even less; sitting in an empty room by yourself doesn't do much for your perception of time. I told them I'd made my choice and I became one of them. Since then I've been outside that room more than a few times waiting for people to make up their minds, more often than not they join us, it's reassuring. Most of the day to day work with the resistance is simple stuff. Helping people out, giving them money when one of their many taxes is due, repairing something that would take months to requisition, hiding or supplying some contraband. It's simple stuff but it makes people's lives easier. One of our biggest projects is the library, finding, recreating and protecting the old literature, it's important to save stuff like that, gives people something to hold onto. I worked with the newspapers for a while too, paper-boy is one of the most dangerous jobs we do. Moving the illegal print out of the QZ where we operate and into circulation. There are hundreds of places it could go wrong; at least one guy a month gets caught. Another big problem for us is that the government are constantly moving the quarantine zones around. See, there's no real need for the QZs. They're just for effect; fear is a big thing for autocrats. Every few months a QZ gets reclaimed and a new one is marked out, when that happens we have to wipe-out any trace that we've been there and set up shop somewhere else quick enough to not screw up any of our essential services. Behind all this, behind the housekeeping and paper routes is the grand scheme of things. Our master plan isn't to take back the city, we've seen people try that and fail, the soldiers are too well trained, the buildings too well fortified, we know that won't work. Our plan is to show the people of the city what they can do if they so choose, because that's what the government have taken from them, their choice. We are choosing to risk our lives to expose the weakness of our masters and the strength of their slaves. Choice is what this all about, the choice they took away from us. So tomorrow, I and many others like me will risk our lives to show you what can be done. Hey, maybe we'll get lucky and this will end up in some history book or maybe we'll all die heroic deaths on the steps of City Hall. That is, until our bodies are ignominiously destroyed and propaganda names us all as degenerates and criminals. Either way, when I leave my house tomorrow it won't be as a slave or even as a begrudging collaborator, I'll be a free man, I'll have made my choice and stood by it. So be it. |
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I watched some children mourn their dissolving roadside chalk masterpieces. |
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Look! Over there. The man in the chair, sitting so still and so quiet that you didn't even notice him. Wild hair and wild eyes. Well worn clothes and odd socks. Clearly a madman. That's me. Come close now. Come close and listen to what I tell you because it could decide whether or not you see tomorrow. They'll be coming soon. In through the windows, down the chimney, under the doors. Locks won't work so why even try? Nowhere is safe from them. You think I'm crazy. You're right and if you live till morning you will be too. Walk away now if you like but you'll never see me or anyone else again. Who are they? They are old, they are dangerous, they are legion and they are malicious. They are in the shadow and they're under your bed. They are your fears and the fears of all men. Once in a blue moon they come out to play. That's what is to them, a game. They play with life and death, sanity and madness and we, you, me and everyone else are the pieces in their game. Tonight they'll come for you like they came for me. I was younger then and I washed and shaved more often. I'd only seen this side of the world and for all the world to see I was happy and safe in the knowledge that there were no monsters under my bed or in my wardrobe but they knew better. They see the truth in hearts and minds and souls. All mankind fears the dark. It's built in, bred in the blood and bone. The dark is where the wolves are, the unknown monsters and beasties that growl and rustle but most all, that kill and eat and live off weaker flesh. Stay near the fire. Don't wander off. Even if the monsters don't get you who's to say you'll find your way back. The firelight is dim when you're in the woods. That's where they came for me. In the dark. I was alone, in my home and the power went out. Cruel twist of fate. I couldn't sleep, otherwise I might never have known. All the city's lights were out and the dark was thick and black. I stumbled around my house searching for long forgotten candles. Fire, mankind's oldest talisman, weapon and tool. I felt a change in the air around me. Colder and somehow thicker, heavier. Then I heard the rustling in the woods and felt shapeless things move past me. I was frightened, afraid and terrified. I tried to cry out but my voice died in my throat and the darkness grabbed me. Immobility pressed on body, the things took form and cleaved to me, the rustles turned to growls and then they pulled me into their game. With a dreadful sense of speed and movement I found myself in a colder, damper dark. I smelt wet earth and felt cold stone, in the distance I heard a trickle of water. Can you imagine it? I decided I was in cave. The things were gone so my biggest problem was this: which way is out? I stood for....some time, maybe hours. I listened to my senses. We really do depend so heavily on light, with just a little light I would have been on my way in moments but in the dark it took what felt like an eternity to make a decision on the evidence of my more often ignored senses. Have you ever been blindfolded in a unfamiliar place? Walked down the street with your eyes closed? If not it'll be difficult for you to imagine the apprehension I felt as I stumbled and shuffled my way out of that cave. Every moment just a hair short of panic, second guessing every movement, every step a leap of faith. And as my apprehension grew I felt the presence again, the more I feared the thicker the air seemed and the more certain I was of a susurus just beyond hearing. But then, my hope appeared. My eyes found a lighter shade of dark and I headed towards it. Desperation and the promise of release pressed hard against caution and I began to moved faster. I fell out into the woods. Hurt but mercifully alone. My hand stung and throbbed and I felt blood wash my palm. No way to deal with it now. No way to tell how bad it was. I clenched my fist and winced against the pain. I held my hand across my chest. There! A fire in the distance! I began to move towards it. Contrasted against the dim glow I could see and avoid the thick growing trees but I couldn't help but think: if I can smell the blood drying on my arm what else can? The short relief of hope was crushed by the unknown in the dark. Conflicting fears pushed me to run and told me to step carefully. My ears strained for any sound in the darkness but heard nothing but the sounds I made fitfully staggering through the undergrowth, lurching around tree trunks. Then I heard a sound that stopped me still and chilled me to the bone. Don't take that as some meaningless idiom or turn of phrase. Consider the frightening reality of it's harshest meaning. A terror that leeches the warmth of your blood from your veins. The wolf's howl peaked and faded away and with that the things were back. My blood thumped in my ears, the darkness pressed around me and I knew that I was prey. The wolf was coming for me. The battle between caution and expedience was ended. I ran. Off balance and near blind. I ran. My lungs heaved the cold air and my heart pounded. I could hear the wolf coming through the woods behind me. The air was filled with growls and snapping jaws. The darkness was hungry and baying for my blood. I tripped. I felt myself loose balance and my stomach lurched sickeningly. The ground was cold but thankfully soft. Bruising instead of breaking bones. I landed on my chest and felt the shock of the my lungs being flattened. My head whipped back and then forward to strike the ground. A yelp of pain ran down my neck. I tried desperately to breathe. To fill my lungs, end the agony and run again. I struggled to my feet, gasping and wheezing. The wolf was close. My fear turned to dread and a sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me when I realised I could no longer see the firelight. A trick. A cruel trick. The torture of false hope. I cried. My wounded hand clutched my burning chest, I slumped against a tree and through my tears, watched the movement in the darkness get closer. The growls grew louder, more frenzied, a hundred thousand howls broke out in the air around me. Deafening me. The wolf leapt. My back hitting the ground hurt more than the wolf hitting me. It's paws pinned my shoulders. I felt it's hot breath on my face and breathe the rank smell of a predator's maw. It growled and drew back it's head, a moment from striking. My good hand gripped it's fur. I felt calm. I knew I was about to die. I felt certainty, calm knowing and acceptance. It was a relief after my ordeal. And then the power was back on. I was lying prone on the soft lino of my kitchen floor. I still bore the cuts, scraps and detritus of my dash through the woods. I lay there as my pulse slowed and until I felt I could move again. Now I stay one step ahead of them, hoping to teach enough to save those I can. So far it's a losing battle. I have to leave, they'll be here for you any minute. When the lights go out, remember this: our fear is their power. Lose your fears or lose your life. Good luck. |
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Description - describe your work! (if you are recording a REMARK don't insert a title above. Then, this record will appear as a REMARK in this RECord's CONVERSATIONS thread). |
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Description - describe your work! (if you are recording a REMARK don't insert a title above. Then, this record will appear as a REMARK in this RECord's CONVERSATIONS thread). |
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