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THE LOCKET AND THE BOOK

by Corey Lipow

By Corey LipowPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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THE LOCKET AND THE BOOK

He curled his fingers around the silver locket: it was heart-shaped. It was the only vestige of a time well past, that he currently had. That locket contained untold memories, untold years of life before the great crooning.

The great crooning: it was what they all called it. But whether it was caressing by nature, whether it was a movement that actually had the mollifying effect the big leaders claimed it did, was another story. A story Brian thought well about from time to time, even though he knew he shouldn’t, even though even calling to mind a doubt upon the great crooning could be considered treasonous. But he allowed himself to entertain the doubt; he allowed himself that much; and he was unique among his fellow countrymen in that he had the intelligence to even allow himself to entertain that doubt.

For the great crooning was the big onslaught against the evil liberal media. The great crooning was an extirpation of liberal thought, a removal of anything that appeared to transgress their carefully-guarded rights. Their rights to be selfish; their rights to defy restrictions even if it meant excessive harm to others; their rights to be stupid and limit progress and protect freedom. Their rights!

But the chant; the refrain: “Their rights!” had a hollow sound now; had a vague and hollow sound. The air was black and filled with soot. The streets were full of marauders and attackers; people wore tattered clothes. The great crooning which extirpated liberal thought had resulted in a hackneyed and ungraceful world; in which theft and indecency prevailed, in which the climate and human incompetence smote the sky and the buildings and the lakes. In which a murky blackness suffered all; and darkness reigned supreme.

And it had all come about because a few key leaders directed the masses to extirpate said thought. It had all come about, vaguely, he knew, although Brian was much too young at the time to recall any of it; it had all come about, at the mere suggestion that their stupidity or their lack of thinking shouldn’t be allowed its vast boundlessness; should be curtailed upon in any way; it came about, in short, because people didn’t want to think and be challenged.

And these great leaders which directed the masses so easily, by turning them against each other, by driving fear into their eyes, by encouraging them to take part and parcel with easy thoughts and easy doings, rather than confront the difficult problems; these leaders, stole from them their profit, stole from them their wage, and kept them down; these leaders, kept the money for themselves, fed the masses lies to keep their power.

It was a sordid world, Brian thought. It had all happened at the beginning of his life. And when these leaders sought to wage war against the liberal media, and the people who think and try to understand, and when they gained power, and fed lies, rampant lies, that built upon themselves and then built upon the building to become a great bounding monarchical structure, so massive and heaping no one could find any truth in it anymore; when these leaders sought these extraordinary things, the fabric of society had collapsed; the thieves and liars had won; all actions were boundless; all actions knew no restraint; the only rule was that no one could question or attack your selfishness; and if they did, if they appeared to question your free speech or your free actions, it was the guillotine for them, so to speak, in some way, shape, or form.

And when Brian reflected on this; and when he reflected on the old society, he was reminded of the way things stood today. He was reminded that you could not question the vast selfishness; he was reminded that you could not lift a finger to produce any innovative idea, without it being decried an onslaught to “our rights!”. And he was reminded, again, of the fact that even entertaining a doubt on this miserable society was treason; and that he was trapped in mind control. And he thought about all this, while holding the locket in his hand, while turning it over, while fires fumed outside, while people shrieking in the streets bled on his ears, while soot filled the chimney and wafted into the house and made it hard to breathe.

He reflected; he sorrowfully reflected. But still they called out: “Our rights!” “Everything for OUR rights!” And he turned over the locket in his hand, and thought about his grandmother, his grandmother from the old time, the former heir of the locket; who had given it to him, perhaps absent-mindedly at the time; and how it was so important to him now; a vestige; a symbol; a relic.

They were even driving love out of society. They were driving love out of society now. After they had extirpated all the thought, all the liberal thought, all the innovative ideas, all the attempts at understanding, after they had extirpated all of that; next it became indecent to profess any positive emotions, any soft emotions, any endearing emotions. After they had extirpated the thought, they set about extirpating the emotions. Love was seen as liberal; love was seen as unnecessary; love was seen as a question to their unthinking ways, as progressive. Love was a threat to the state and unmanly; so it was deemed that it should be driven out of society too.

And thus the great leaders perpetrated their mind control; thus they shut down thought; and controlled the masses. The misery wasn’t enough for them; the absolute misery of their situation wasn’t enough to turn the masses against the great leaders and start to build a better world again. They were comfortable in their carelessness and in their thievery. They set to the streets, and marauded, and cut each other’s throats, in the name of their rights. They did just what they wanted.

Brian thought about all of that; holding the locket. He thought about that, and turned over the locket, and realized how important it was. He thought about that, and he thought about the old book too, the one surviving old book which he had on his mantle, the mantle of his decrepitated house, the mantle of his dirty and besmirched house, the mantle of his collapsing domicile.

And if anyone came over; he hid the book. But no one came over now, and he kept it there, to look at it, to consult with, to read from, when the opportunity took him. It was a book written about the time when everything was shutting down, it was a book that decried the propaganda, the lies; it was a book that attempted to set history to rights before history was rewritten. It was how, in short, Brian knew so much about what had happened in the earlier time, it was how he had felt his doubt encouraged; it was the water sprayed on the seed of his doubt, his thinking.

It was an old book now: some thirty years old. He still read it. He felt the fear in the writer’s shaking hand, as they wrote the pages, or typed it on a computer; he felt the fear in their eyes, trying to decry the madness that was setting up around them. He knew not what happened with the writers.

He took a look at the book, held it in his hand; besmirched by soot. He cried. There was a better world, he thought: a long time ago; there was a better world where ideas were not the enemy, where thinking was not assaulted. He hid in his tattered coat, put his head down, and cried. His body shook and heaved. Outside were the screams. A gun and metal rod lay to his right, in case the marauders entered his home to deal with him.

And as he cried the tears slid down his face and melded with the book, effectively blurring its pages, effectively wiping out the last remaining vestiges of a time well past, that dealt with things in an accurate manner. His tears wiped it out.

humanity
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