...and didn’t win. I didn’t cry (well, maybe a little bit) because something was pulled out of me. A story like no other that I could have imagined. I’m still working out the how, why, and what happens next, but it’s mostly done in my head. There is a lot of world building I have to do, an entire culture to be created in fact. The story is about planetary invasion and conquest from a race so far advanced from our own, scientifically, socially, and mentally. I don’t have all of the specifics worked out yet, but I do have a taste of the antagonist’s thoughts, a sort of soliloquy. I hope you enjoy it, and please make as many comments on it as you like. I’m trying to make it better, but I can’t unless I hear some harsh criticism from you, the reader. So please, enjoy, something i call…
Margret’s Lament
Lo, that I, and thus we, the human race, all of humanity, everywhere, we have become nothing in an instant. We have been reduced to cattle. Nay, not cattle, for we are not worth eating. Less even than pack animals, we are kept. Property to be used as tools, otherwise left to the farms where we’re exercised daily, lest we grow fat and lazy. On every continent, in every country, no culture, no race, no lifestyle or tribe, no one was spared being kept. And those that fought against them were killed immediately. There was no chance for an offensive, they dominated in every arena. Police, armies, navies, air forces, world wide, dashed upon the hard rocks of the new reality. As for the civilians, those that could not work, the sick, the old, the feeble, the mentally challenged, were killed, immediately and without malice. My charges, my patients, killed without contempt. Culled from the livestock of the human race, now called Terrans. The planet is theirs, we are theirs, all that we knew and would aspire to, all of our greatnesses and strengths, weaknesses and fears, our hopes, our desires, now dictated to us under their instruction. The invaders took all and left nothing but our lives, which aren’t our lives but theirs.
To exist in this duality, to be and not be, how doth one emerge with senses intact? We are subjugated, they would say acquired. We are subdued, they would say monitored for evaluation. We lost all, they would say it was never ours. They are patient with us, but will dispatch those who would cause dissent or disruption. No one was spared, not the CEO, not the criminal. We spend nights in great tents with rapists, stock brokers, murderers, iron smiths, barristers, artisans, land lords, pastors, perverts, doctors, mobsters, nurses, killers, activists. We fear those Terrans that would cause us harm, yet we fear more for them, for all is monitored, and those that cause trouble are immediately dispatched to the next realm of existence, quickly, and painlessly, and still without malice. Our beds are warm, the shower shared, the food is functional, the clothing adequate, all that we could ask, and yet not want. We are free to foster friendships and keep family ties, yet cliques are forbidden. We live simpler lives, free from worry and debt, lives best left to children, or those who are kept like children. Lives that are granted, but not truly lived. From this we hold onto our selves, yet feel the teeth of insanity nipping behind our necks.
Yes, we are kept. Yes, we are conquered. Yes, I say we, for it is we who live under our new masters. but I must say they, though it causes me great misery. To be separate from those who, through the duality of the new existence, to suffer and suffer not, those who must find their way but have few avenues. Simply by circumstance I exist not with the throngs, but as a lord, or master, or Dame as they would put it. I live in luxury, catered to by Terrans, supported by the invaders, made a co-conspirator without my knowledge or my approval, sided with the invaders on their acquisition of Earth, made into a traitor to my people. The Terrans see me as a loathsome beast; I want to say to them it was not I who brought us to this turn. I want to cry along with them, rail against the invaders, turn my hands, my arms, into a loving embrace for all.
But for my husband, that bastard. Lo, to be culled like the rest of humanity, reduced to nothing, and in being reduced, excised from all guilt and blame. Or to be kept, like the rest of humanity, made to sew clothes or work in the mills, to work the farms or build the new structures, to be used as a tool to do work alongside my fellow Terrans. But that is not my fate. I live as a queen, but do not feel queenly. I am catered to by Terrans, but hate the necessity of their toil. I am instructed in how to comport myself by the other Dames, but feel not worthy of the place I am given. But for my husband, I must endure this charade of being more than I am. I am as much a prisoner as all of humanity, just in a prettier dress.
But for my husband. He, who would side with the invaders. Through luck he managed to be a part of the invasion, and in doing so has dragged me along with this traitorous act. He promised me so many things before that day, that he had plans for us, that he would make it big, that he loved me with all of his heart. He would share his dream of our future, of me never having to work any longer. Of the house he would build for me. Of the land we would live on. Of the many children we would have. In truth he has done just that. I now live in a house many times in size of our old apartment building. I have amenities to last an eternity. I have wealth to satisfy even the most miserly of capitalists. I have more than I could ever dream possible.
But not this way. I have a knife, cold and steely, long and slender, hidden in my boudoir. I look at it at times, wondering how it would feel between my ribs. Or how quickly it could find the vein running through my wrist. Would it hurt? Would the pain last? Was I a coward for not taking this route? Should I take this route? Would it make me as much a coward as my cowardly husband? I contemplate the last more often than my other thoughts. I once was a nurse, disposed to helping life last. Yet to end my own in such a disgusting way, made disgusting by my trade and my beliefs, felt as traitorous as my husband’s actions.
Nay, I would say unto myself. I must hold to mine own. I must endure, if, for any other consideration, to find a way to reverse what was done. If there’s a trick, perhaps the same luck that found my husband, I could free humanity from this new reality. As a Dame I had access to many things, and places, and people. I must bide my time. I owe it to those who would see me as a cretin. Perhaps they would see me as their savior, a title I can’t with all modesty accept. Modesty and shame, for being as one with my husband has tainted me. But still, I must bide my time, and pray that knife doesn’t beckon too hard.
Arid Testimony 