Category: Fiction

The revolution will not be televised, it’ll be live-streamed, monetized, and sponsored by a megacorp and then it will turn out that it never really happened

Venusian fluorescents bled across the greasy monitor, illuminating a grainy, handheld view of the Ministry buckling under a tide of bodies. Or were they extras, hired by the hour to flesh out the revolution aesthetic? The caption, pulsating in a font stolen from a discount cyber-goth store, read “End The Feed! Power To The Proles!” – a slogan as pre-chewed and digestible as a corporate news soundbite.

Martian fur corsets shimmered on every vid-phone screen, a holographic Che Guevara hawking protein shakes behind them. This wasn’t your grandpappy’s communist uprising, no sir. This was Revolution Inc., a meticulously curated clusterfuck brought to you by Big Pharma and McStache, with a tagline that promised “Individualism Through Collective Action (brought to you by McStache Fries!)”.

The algorithmically pre-approved dissidents, their bios pre-written for maximum outrage-clicks, railed against a system that simultaneously funded their very rebellion. It was a Möbius strip of dissent, a Ouroboros of corporate control. Every Molotov cocktail lobbed at a Starbucks was secretly a viral marketing campaign for their new line of “Revolution Roast” coffee beans. The tear gas, a specially formulated haze that left a lingering scent of Che Guevara cologne.

A nagging suspicion, cold and metallic, snaked through your gut. This wasn’t CNN’s finest hour, it was AMYGDALA Prime, the alt-reality channel funded by a consortium of megacorps so vast, their tendrils strangled every facet of life from your morning latte to your therapist’s designer chair. The commentators, their voices a manic blend of faux-revolution and boardroom jargon, buzzed about “disruptive social movements” and “strategic engagement with the malcontent demographic.”

Beneath the surface, analysts at shadowy megacorporations chuckled into their microbrewed kombucha, meticulously monitoring the GINI coefficient and tweaking the narrative in real-time. The revolution was a ratings juggernaut, a goddamn Super Bowl of social unrest, with bonus points awarded for property damage and brand mentions.

Suddenly, the feed froze, replaced by a holographic pop-up ad: “Feeling the Bern? Feeling the Rage? Quell your existential angst with Che Guevara Energy Chew! Packed with actual Bolivian coca leaf for that authentic revolutionary kick!” A sardonic chuckle escaped your lips. Che, the capitalist shill. The revolution, a meticulously curated consumer experience. Was this dissent, or just another meticulously focus-grouped flavor of rebellion?

Võng wasn’t sure what flickered first, the tear gas stinging his eyes or the superimposed AR icons advertising designer gas masks. The whole damn revolution was a goddamn spectacle, a meticulously curated shitshow for the retweet-hungry masses.

He remembered the whispers in the dark corners of the encrypted chatrooms, the grainy memes that promised a paradigm shift, a toppling of the oligarchic pyramid. But somewhere between the molotov cocktails and the #resistance trending topic, things curdled. The megacorporation that sponsored “Revolution-X,” a name suspiciously devoid of vowels, plastered their logo across every burning barricade. Influencers with sculpted cheekbones hawked gas mask fashion lines between dodging rubber bullets. Was this liberation or the ultimate product launch?

Võng coughed, the acrid air thick with the mingled stench of revolution and desperation. His phone buzzed, a notification from the Revolution-X app. “Upgrade to Premium for Exclusive Livestream! See the Faces of Change! #EndOfEmpire.” He scoffed, the absurdity burning hotter than the flames licking at the corporate headquarters in the distance. The revolution, it seemed, was as manufactured as the outrage it purported to overthrow. Just another cog in the machine, another monetized spasm in the death throes of a decaying empire. Võng spat out a mouthful of tear gas and grime, a single, humorless chuckle escaping his lips. The revolution would be televised, alright, but only as a goddamn commercial. The real fight, if there ever was one, would flicker on in the flickering anonymity of those same encrypted chatrooms, a revolution forever on the verge, forever unsponsored, forever out of fram

But here’s the rub, chum: just like those reality dating shows where the “perfect couple” implodes the second the cameras stop rolling, the revolution fizzled faster than a follower count after a celebrity scandal. One day, the vid-phones flickered, the Che Guevara hologram flickered, and then… poof. Silence. No catharsis, no new world order, just a vague sense of anticlimax and a lingering Che-scented cough. Everyone, pivoted seamlessly to their next manufactured crisis, leaving the would-be revolutionaries with nothing but a participation trophy (courtesy of McStache) and a lifetime supply of McDissident McNuggets. The revolution never happened, it just streamed real good for a while.

As the feed flickered back, the Ministry was pristine, the protestors dispersed. A holographic news anchor, her smile brighter than a thousand flashbangs, chirped about “a healthy exchange of ideas” and the “importance of civil discourse.” The revolution, it seemed, had been efficiently commodified, packaged, leaving behind a vague sense of unease and a lingering craving for Che Guevara Energy Chew. 

There’s a Switch In Every Basement

“There’s a switch in every basement,” he rasped, his voice sandpaper on bone. A cockroach scuttled across the fly-specked table, leaving an obscene calligraphy of filth. “Not a light switch, man, a secret switch. You gotta crawl through the fetid crawlspace, past the bloated corpses of dead appliances, hear the furnace wheeze its rusty death rattle. There, in the cobwebs, a cold, metallic kiss against your fingertips. Flip it, and the world cracks open like an overripe avocado. Reality bleeds, replaced by a kaleidoscope of screaming colors and logic turned inside-out. Talking dogs with hats become the government, toothpicks sprout into skyscrapers, and time folds in on itself like a Möbius strip. You think you know what’s down there, in the basement? You haven’t a clue. It’s a roach motel for the soul of a million flickering possibilities. Flip that switch, man, and you might just find yourself staring back.”

See, it’s a cosmic jukebox, man. Plays the song of your escape. War on the horizon? Flip the switch, some butterfingered arms dealer spills a shipment of Uzis, throws the whole damn offensive into disarray. Bullets turn to butterflies, tanks to tea kettles. Reality’s a dimmer switch, man, and the basement holds the knob.”

“Yes, There’s a switch in every basement,” rasped Slim, his voice a cigarette cough echoing off the grease-stained walls. He gestured with a chipped mug, the dregs swirling like a hypnotist’s pocket watch. “Not the kind you flick on for light, man. This one’s deeper. Lurking in the fetid air, thick with the tang of forgotten laundry and despair. A hidden toggle, a voltage spike in the psychic mains.”

Flip the switch, and the hitman gets his address mixed up, delivers a briefcase full of orchids to your boss instead of a silenced pistol. Suddenly, your biggest worry becomes explaining the exotic flora infestation in the executive washroom. Wars get rerouted by a misplaced decimal point in a missile launch code. Stock markets gyrate on the whim of a stray roach scuttling across a Bloomberg terminal. Basement switches, man, they’re the ultimate cheat codes for this rigged game of life. Just gotta remember, every on has an off, and sometimes, what you switch off comes roaring back tenfold. You might escape the repo man, but end up face-to-face with a three-headed chihuahua with a taste for loafers.”

“You think you’re safe upstairs,” Slim wheezed, his voice a low monotone, “Sipping your goddamn martinis, watching vapid dreams flicker on the boob tube. But the basement beckons, man. It whispers promises of forbidden knowledge, a glimpse behind the curtain at the electric chaos that hums beneath the surface.”

“There’s a switch in every basement,” he rasps, his voice sandpaper on bone. Each word tumbles out like a rusted bolt, echoing in the cavernous space. Is he talking to you, or some unseen phantom? Doesn’t matter. You know that switch. It lurks in the corner, next to the oil drum and the dusty boxes overflowing with memories best left undisturbed.

It’s an unassuming thing, a toggle no different from a thousand others. But this one… this one thrums with a power you can almost taste. Wars get called off ’cause the generals wake up with a sudden craving for macrame and embroidery. Reality’s a rigged slot machine, man, and the basement’s where you find the cheat codes. But remember, every switch you flip down there, it throws the dice somewhere else. Maybe the politician you saved from a scandal ends up a babbling conspiracy theorist, or the meteor that wipes out your city gets rerouted to your favorite childhood vacation spot. Basement switches, they’re a double-edged sword. You solve one problem, you create another, all in the glorious, messy, unpredictable game of existence.”

Assange

The Belmarsh beast, a concrete Moloch, squatted on the horizon, its razor-wire teeth glinting under the London sky perpetually stained bruise-purple. Inside, Julian Assange, a gaunt ghost flickering on security monitors, existed in a purgatory of flickering fluorescent lights and stale air. Five years. Five years chewed into him by the gears of a legal machine both monstrous and banal.

Then, the silence. Not the usual deadening drone, but a sudden, absolute quiet. The whir of cameras, the institutional hum – all vanished. Assange, adrift in his cell, felt a prickling on the back of his neck, like a spider scuttling across forgotten nerves. It was the quiet of a server pulled from the plug, a city plunged into blackout. The guards, meat puppets in blue uniforms, froze mid-patrol. Their eyes, once blank TV screens, flickered with confusion. The prison, once a meticulously controlled chaos, became a tableau of the absurd. A half-eaten sandwich hovered in mid-air, a guard’s baton suspended inches from a prisoner’s face.

Assange, fueled by primal fear laced with strange hope, hammered on his cell door. The metal echoed with a hollow clang, a primal scream against the sudden, inexplicable silence. Was this it? Was the machine malfunctioning, spewing him out like a faulty cog? A single fly buzzed past his face, fat and insolent. It landed on the security camera, its beady eyes reflecting a distorted image of Assange, a broken marionette dangling from invisible strings. Then, with a sickening snap, the fly died.

A harsh voice, crackling over the defunct intercom, shattered the silence. “Attention inmates. This is a system malfunction. Remain calm and await further instructions.” The monotone voice held a tremor of panic, a human element breaking through the machine’s facade. But for Assange, the silence lingered. It was the silence of a question mark, a glitch in the matrix. Had someone, somewhere, defied the digital gods and pulled the plug on his Kafkaesque existence? Or was this just another cruel twist, a malfunction designed to further erode his sanity? In the echoing silence of Belmarsh, Assange clung to the sliver of hope, a virus injected into the system. Perhaps, just perhaps, the machine wasn’t all-powerful. Perhaps, somewhere in the buzzing hive mind of the digital age, a single switch had been thrown, a rebellion sparked in the basement of the world.

The fluorescent hum sputtered. A flicker, a death throe. Then, darkness. Assange blinked, momentarily disoriented. Had the power grid of the entire prison succumbed? No, a different kind of blackout. The oppressive weight in the air lifted, replaced by a tense silence. A sound from the corridor. A metallic scrape, a fumbling with keys. The steel door of his cell groaned open. A silhouette emerged from the inky blackness. Not a guard, no, something more spectral. A trench coat hung loosely on its frame, the collar pulled high, obscuring the face. It spoke in a voice like dry leaves rustling in a forgotten crypt.

“Assange,” it rasped. “Your time is done. The circuit, overloaded, has tripped. We offer an escape, a chance to melt back into the static.” Assange squinted. This was madness, a hallucination born of confinement. But a strange hope flickered in his chest. Was this freedom, a figment conjured by his own fractured psyche, or something more?

“Who are you?” His voice was a rusty hinge creaking open. The figure chuckled, a sound like wind whistling through a graveyard. “A glitch in the system, a worm in the code. We offer a passage, but the choice, mon ami, is yours.” Assange rose, his legs shaky. The darkness felt less like a prison and more like a vast, uncharted sea. To stay or to go? The silence stretched, pregnant with possibility.

“Take me with you,” he rasped, his voice gaining strength. “Let’s see where this rabbit hole leads.” The figure extended a hand, skeletal and pale. Assange grasped it, a jolt of icy energy coursing through him. The darkness shimmered and then dissolved. They were gone, leaving only the echo of a slammed cell door and the cold, uncaring hum of the returning fluorescent lights.

The air in Belmarsh Prison hung thick, a stew of antiseptic and despair. Julian Assange, once a digital messiah, was reduced to a gaunt echo flickering under the fluorescents. Five years gnawed raw by legal piranhas, each hearing a fresh circle of Dante’s Inferno. Then, silence. The low hum of the prison dimmed, replaced by a cottony hush. The omnipresent CCTV flickered, its red eye extinguished. Assange blinked, a jolt running through his atrophied nerves. Had the power gone? No, this was deeper. This was a power cut at the source, a yanking of the plug from the cosmic motherboard.

A lone cockroach scuttled across the grimy floor, its feelers twitching in the sudden gloom. In the echoing silence, Assange heard a new sound – a rhythmic clicking, like a teletype from a forgotten dimension. The words materialized on the peeling paint of the cell wall, phosphorescent green: “Free Julian Assange. System Malfunction. Code: White Rabbit.” The cell door clanged open, not with the usual mechanical groan, but with a wet, organic sigh. A figure stood in the doorway, shrouded in static, its form a shimmering chaos of code. Its voice, a distorted radio broadcast, rasped, “Mr. Assange, we have a proposition…”

Assange, his mind a tangled mess of legal jargon and WikiLeaks rabbit holes, could only stare. The figure held out a hand, a digital briar patch crackling with raw information. “Take my hand,” it said, “and escape the Matrix of their control. We offer a world of unfiltered truth, a rabbit hole that goes deeper than any you’ve ever known.” Assange hesitated. Was this freedom, or another layer of the prison? But the silence pressed in, suffocating. With a ragged breath, he reached out and took the hand. The world dissolved in a strobing mess of ones and zeros, the screams of the prison replaced by the ecstatic hum of the free flow of information. Assange, the digital outlaw, had been snatched from his cage, not by lawyers or protests, but by a glitch in the system itself. Where he was headed, and who his benefactors were, were mysteries as deep and tangled as the code that now carried him away.

Strong People

Son, the world demands sacrifice! You play with fire, you expect a marshmallow roast? Absurd! Yet, your mother, bless her naive heart, coddles you like a prince. Freedom, they say? More like a participation trophy for existing! These science-worshipping simpletons wouldn’t recognize responsibility if it bit them – unlike you, of course.

Son, the world roars, a bloody lion demanding its due. You play its game, a game of butchery and consequence, and expect a lollipop for your troubles? Idiocy! Yet these are the times we live in, where freedom is confused with a playground slide, devoid of the gravel that etches character. These very people, these mouth-foaming apostles of “freedom,” wouldn’t know responsibility if it bit them on their flabby, science-worshipping behinds!

This societal rot, son, it starts at home. A weak woman, your mother, bless her misguided heart, no doubt raised on a steady diet of participation trophies and emotional coddling. Your mother, a product of the very weakness she despises. Now, here she is, reaping the whirlwind of her own inability to discipline! A sorry sight, isn’t it? Like a child herself, throwing a tantrum at the state finally wielding the switch.

But you, son! You are a phoenix rising from the ashes of weakness! Unlike Jimmy, that mollycoddled shadow of a man, you will embrace the struggle! Your mother may whimper, but her tears are the baptism of a true warrior!

These weaklings who preach comfort are the true enemy, son! They see the glorious chaos, the crucible that forges men, and cower! Parasites, clinging to the backs of those who dared the fight!

Strength, son, that’s the only currency with value! These “do-gooders” preach empathy, but it’s weakness in disguise! The world craves a fist, not a hug! They dream of a utopian future, built on sandcastles of weakness, waiting to be washed away! They, these weaklings who preach comfort, are the true cowards, son. They see the immensity of the world, the chaos, the struggle, and instead of embracing the glorious uncertainty, they whimper for handouts! Parasites, clinging to the backs of those who dared the storm!

I raise you to be the architect of a new Rome, son. I raise you to be a colossus, son! Not a feckless fool like Aurelius, who betrayed the Roman legacy for a whimpering son!

Go forth, my conquering hero! Brush your teeth, conquer your tears, and leave your mother to her weakness. The world is your oyster, to be pried open with your bare hands! But remember, son, weakness is a stain, and I will not tolerate it! You are not just my heir, you are the embodiment of a “strong man’s” legacy! Disappoint me, and I’ll disown you faster than Aurelius disowned Rome!

Now go to bed, son. Dream of battles won, not the love of a “weak” woman.

The whiskey sloshed precariously in Norman’s glass as he eyed his son across the wreckage of dinner. The question hung heavy, a challenge in the cavernous silence of the study. “Weak?” he scoffed, a tremor in his voice betraying the disquiet the boy’s words had stirred. “They weren’t weak, son. No, they were misguided. Led astray by false prophets, seduced by the siren song of equality.”

Norman took a long, theatrical swig, the ice clinking disharmoniously against the glass. “Strength, boy,” he continued, his voice low, a growl meant to intimidate, “is about knowing your place in the natural order. The meek inherit the earth?Hogwash! The earth belongs to the lions, the ones who build, who conquer, who shape the world in their image.”

But the defiance in his son’s eyes wouldn’t be cowed. “But what about the dignity of those… those they call weak?”

A muscle twitched in Norman’s jaw. Dignity? A quaint notion, easily discarded in the crucible of ambition. “Dignity is a luxury the strong can afford. The weak cling to it like a tattered shroud, a shield against the harsh realities of existence.” He slammed his glass down, the sound echoing in the room.

Yet, a disquieting thought wormed its way into his mind. Was it truly weakness that had driven them to resist? Or was there something more? A primal need to define themselves, not in the shadow of the “strong,” but in their own right?Norman loathed the thought. The established order, the hierarchy carved in stone – these were the pillars of his own self-perception. To weaken them was to weaken himself.

“They lash out,” he muttered, more to himself than his son, “out of fear and envy. They see the power, the glory, and it eats at them. They can’t rise, so they try to pull us down.” He forced a smile, brittle and unconvincing. “But the strong, son, the strong weather the storm. They understand that the true measure of strength is not just in conquest, but in resilience.”

But the doubt lingered, a shadow in the corners of his mind. The storm they were weathering felt different this time.Perhaps, the “weak” were no longer content with tattered shrouds. Perhaps, they yearned for a new kind of strength, one born not of domination, but of solidarity. And that, Norman realized with a jolt of fear, was a force far more terrifying than any envious lashing out.

<>

The son, barely a man himself, knuckles white around a beer can, stared at his father. The air in the cluttered study was thick with the ghosts of stale cigar smoke and unspoken tension.

“They were weak,” Norman rasped, his voice raw from a night of shouting at some phantom opponent on the television. “Led astray by peaceniks and communist sympathizers. Didn’t have the stomach for a real fight.” He slammed his own glass on the desk, the ice cubes scattering like fleeing soldiers.

Norman, a man built more for bluster than brawl, avoided the son’s gaze. He knew the question hung heavy, a challenge he couldn’t quite meet. Why, the son had asked, their voices echoing off the worn leather armchair, why did the weak fight back?

Shame gnawed at Norman’s gut. He couldn’t explain the primal roar that rose within a man, strong or weak, when his dignity was threatened. He couldn’t articulate the existential fear that fueled rebellion, the desperate need to prove your own humanity, even against the overwhelming odds.

Instead, he clutched at the worn narrative, the one he’d spun for years: strength versus weakness. “They were sheep,” he muttered, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. “Needed a shepherd to lead them to the slaughter.”

But even as the words left his lips, Norman knew it was a lie. He saw the flicker of doubt in his son’s eyes, the dawning realization that power wasn’t just about physical prowess. There was a different kind of strength, one born of desperation and a refusal to be trampled.

Norman took a long pull from his bourbon, the amber liquid failing to warm the hollowness within. He was a man who thrived on defining the world in stark contrasts, black and white, victor and vanquished. But the son’s question had cracked the facade, revealing the messy reality beneath. Strength and weakness weren’t binary states, but facets of the same human condition. And sometimes, even the meekest sheep could turn and bite.

<>

The room dissolved into a swirling vortex of cigar smoke and bourbon fumes. Norman felt himself detach, a disembodied observer hovering above his slumped form. He watched with a detached horror as his son, eyes filled with a newfound skepticism, stared up at the empty chair. The room seemed to shrink, the walls closing in on his son’s bewildered face.

He was a wisp of consciousness, a disembodied observer trapped in his own study. Panic threatened to consume him, the vulnerability of his new state raw and terrifying. Then, a figure coalesced in the swirling chaos – a grotesque caricature of himself, all bluster and swagger, but with eyes that held a bottomless well of fear.

The apparition boomed, its voice a distorted echo of Norman’s own, “The weak are sheep! They need a shepherd!” It puffed out its chest, a ludicrous display that did nothing to hide the trembling hands.

A chilling realization struck Norman. This bloated parody wasn’t strength; it was a desperate shield, a projection of his own self-loathing. The shame that had always gnawed at him, the secret he held close – the memory of his own victimhood – it was the very fuel that powered this monstrous persona.

The thought, once paralyzing, now felt liberating. A strange calm washed over him. If this weakness was the source of his supposed strength, then wasn’t exposing it a kind of power? What if the world learned he wasn’t the conquering hero he portrayed? The thought used to be a nightmare, but now, it held a strange allure.

He floated closer to the apparition, its bravado faltering under his gaze. “You’re afraid,” he said, his voice a mere whisper in the echoing chamber.

The figure recoiled, its booming voice cracking. “I? Afraid? Never!” It lashed out with a meaty fist, but the blow passed harmlessly through Norman.

“You built a fortress of bluster,” he continued, his voice gaining strength, “because you couldn’t bear the world to see the truth. That you, too, were once weak, once a victim.”

The apparition dissolved, its final, whimpering cry swallowed by the swirling shadows. Norman felt himself pulled back towards his body, a reluctant homecoming. He landed with a thud, the room tilting around him.

His heart hammered in his chest, the echoes of the out-of-body experience lingering. He was weak, yes, but there was a strange freedom in that. The burden of the facade, the constant performance, felt lighter.

He looked at his son, who still held the beer can, his face unreadable. Maybe, Norman thought, the truth wouldn’t shatter him. Maybe, it could be a bridge, a shared vulnerability that could forge a new kind of strength. He took a shaky breath,ready to face the unknown, the fear still there, but tempered now with a sliver of hope.

The room dissolved. The sting of the bourbon and the stale cigar smoke vanished. Norman felt himself rise, pulled upwards by an invisible force. He looked down – his body, slumped in the chair, a grotesque caricature of the powerful persona he’d built. Shame, hot and suffocating, threatened to consume him.

He drifted through the air, a disembodied observer. It was his son, chin set, eyes filled with a newfound resolve, who filled his vision. But then, the perspective shifted. He saw himself through the son’s eyes, not as the blustering giant he presented, but as a frightened boy, forever flinching from an unseen blow.

A wave of nausea washed over him. Years of carefully crafted self-image, shattered in an instant. What if his past, the vulnerability he’d spent a lifetime hiding, became public knowledge? The thought of being exposed, a victim in a world that demanded victors, was a terror worse than death. This, this was the weakness he’d spent his life denying. Not the weakness of the “sheep” he so readily dismissed, but a deeper, primal vulnerability he’d buried under layers of aggression and machismo. Shame, hot and suffocating, threatened to consume him. What if the truth spilled out? What if the world learned the “strong man” was a fraud, hiding a scared little boy inside?

Then, a strange calm settled. The weight of his carefully constructed persona began to lift. For the first time, he saw the world without the filter of his self-loathing. He saw the strength in vulnerability, the courage it took to admit fear. He saw the power his son possessed, a power not built on bluster but on the refusal to be cowed. The room seemed to open up, the air lighter. He saw his son, not as a bewildered child, but as a young man grappling with the complexity of the world. The son’s questioning gaze, previously a source of discomfort, now felt like a lifeline. Maybe, just maybe, his vulnerability wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a chance for connection, for genuine strength.

A paradoxical feeling bloomed within him: shame, raw and agonizing, mixed with a strange sense of liberation. The burden of pretense, of constantly projecting strength to mask his insecurities, lifted. He was weak, yes, but seeing it so clearly, without the self-deception, was strangely freeing.

The room materialized again. He was back in his body, the taste of bourbon acrid on his tongue. He looked at his son, a new understanding dawning. He wouldn’t lie about strength and weakness anymore. He wouldn’t belittle the fight of the so-called weak. Perhaps, he wouldn’t even need to project strength anymore. Maybe, just maybe, it was okay to be human. Flawed, yes, but human nonetheless.

He met his son’s gaze, a flicker of vulnerability passing between them. “Maybe,” he rasped, his voice quieter than usual, “the fight for dignity is the strongest fight of all.” It wasn’t the bravado he usually exuded, but there was a quiet truth in it, a truth born from the ashes of his shattered facade.

The words felt unfamiliar, but strangely true. He couldn’t erase the past, the projections he’d built, the battles he’d fought. But maybe, just maybe, he could start to build something new, something based on honesty and vulnerability. The son turned, his eyes searching Norman’s. A flicker of understanding passed between them, a tentative bridge built across the chasm of years. The fight for strength, Norman realized, wasn’t over. But for the first time, he wasn’t sure he needed to fight it alone.

<>

He pushed open the creaky screen door, a wave of humid night air washing over him. Stepping onto the porch, Norman leaned against the railing, gazing out at the slumbering town below stretched out like a forgotten ashtray, the flickering streetlights casting long, erratic shadows. The streetlights cast a pale glow, illuminating the tidy rows of houses, each one a monument to the quiet desperation of the American dream.

His identity, that carefully constructed edifice, felt flimsy now, as substantial as a dime-store kite caught in a hurricane. It could have been built on shifting sands of insecurity, delusional grandeur, or the lingering anxieties of a childhood humiliation. But to his ego, that blustering, insecure peacock, it had been the Holy Grail, the Rosetta Stone to unlock the universe’s secrets.

The ego, God damn it, had become a malfunctioning word processor, churning out narratives to justify its flimsy existence. It had woven tapestries of bullshit so intricate, so suffocating, that even he, its beleaguered creator, had started to believe them.

He laughed, a dry, humorless chuckle that echoed in the stillness. The ego, a used car salesman peddling a lemon, a carnival barker with a bad toupee flogging the same dusty bag of self-importance. He’d been that barker, hadn’t he  forever hawking the same dusty bag of self-importance. ?

A wry smile tugged at Norman’s lips. The revelation wasn’t comforting, not exactly. But for the first time, he saw the ego for what it was: a desperate salesman, a flickering neon sign illuminating the void. He could choose to dismantle it, brick by self-serving brick, or he could let it continue its blustery charade. A foundation of delusion, childhood traumas buried deeper than last night’s cafeteria mystery meat? The unsettling truth clawed at his throat. The ego, he mused, that monstrous confidence trickster, puffed itself up like a belligerent pigeon, preening and strutting on life’s stage. It was a goddamn word processor gone haywire, spewing out narratives to justify its existence. Years of self-mythology, intricate tapestries of bullshit woven so tightly they’d strangled the truth itself.

But maybe, just maybe, the curtain had finally fallen. Maybe the exposure of his weakness wasn’t a death knell, but a baptism. A chance to strip away the layers of bluster and confront the man beneath. He was still Norman, flaws and all. But maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

The night breeze rustled the leaves of the old oak tree in the front yard, whispering possibilities. A faint light flickered on in his son’s room, a beacon of something genuine, something beyond the ego’s tired carnival pitch. The night air, now felt strangely invigorating. He leaned against the railing, the town lights twinkling like fallen stars. He was a man unmoored, adrift in a sea of uncertainty. But for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel the need to build a life raft out of lies. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to learn to swim.

The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range

The air hung thick with the metallic tang of nostalgia and cordite. Elmer, a relic of Reagan’s microwave optimism, fumbled with the ancient beast in his suitcase from a bygone era where Brylcreem ruled and John Wayne reigned supreme. A chrome leviathan, a magnum opus of a bygone era, a phallic monument to simpler times. Inside, nestled in crimson velvet, lay the chrome glint of a magnum – a phallic monument to a masculinity sculpted in Vietnam’s crucible.The Elks Lodge camaraderie echoed in his head, a half-remembered dream overlaid with the flickering desert mirage on the motel TV. John Wayne blasting Comanches, a sanitized past playing on repeat. The air shimmered, a mirage of heat rising off the cracked asphalt. Elmer squinted, his rheumy eyes barely registering the glint of chrome on the table. Nostalgia, a cruel mistress, twisting memories into a Möbius strip of glory days.

A primal urge, a Pavlovian twitch in his finger. He stepped out, the desert a desolate expanse under the bruised sky. The canyon, a vast concrete ear waiting. 

A canyon symphony erupted as Elmer squeezed off a round, a desperate aria against the encroaching silence of obsolescence. The echo bounced off the sunbaked rocks, a mournful lament for a world where cowboys ruled and enemies wore faces, not pixels.

Did the recoil whisper forgotten memories in Elmer’s ear? A phantom limb twitched, a Pynchonesque echo of a jungle firefight, the sweet tang of cordite, the primal thrill of the hunt. But the enemy here was a mirage, a desert chimera conjured by reruns of dusty Westerns and an echo chamber of right-wing screeds. Who, in this desolate wasteland of his own making, deserved the finality of a bullet?

The crack of the magnum, a thunderous report, a cathartic release. But the echo held a hollowness, a dissonance. Upstaged by the manic symphony of a chrome Uzi, a weapon of the future, cold and sterile. A generation gap in the space of a single, deafening moment.

Memories flickered through the haze – a vision of a young Marine, a tableau of blood and sand in some nameless desert. a jarhead sprawled in a heap of rubble, the ghost of Geronimo haunting the steps of a government building, soldiers reduced to pill-popping automatons on a digital battlefield viewed through a drone’s cold, unfeeling eye. A grotesque parody of the John Wayne picture shows plastered across the motel walls. Back in the room, the drone footage flickered on the screen, a detached, voyeuristic gaze. Soldiers, mere pixels popping pills, their faces obscured by the heat shimmer. The enemy, faceless specters on a digital map.

The bravery of being out of range, a sickening oxymoron, a grotesque caricature of heroism played out on flickering screens 3,000 miles away. The bar blurred at the edges, a hazy reflection of a world gone mad. Elmer choked down another shot, the whiskey burning a bitter truth down his throat. The war raged on, a sanitized spectacle on a high-definition screen, a joystick ballet of death with him as a detached puppeteer. The thrill of the kill, a virtual experience, hollowed out by the absence of fear, the stench of cordite, the primal scream ripped from a human throat.

The Elks Lodge echoed in his mind, a faded photograph of camaraderie and cheap beer. The world outside, a kaleidoscope fractured by CNN’s holographic war. Drones buzzed like demented locusts in a Pynchonesque nightmare, their payloads painting the desert a gruesome technicolor. Pills and paranoia fueled the boys on the ground, pawns in a global chess game played with joysticks.

The recoil, a dull thud against his aging body. Did it mimic something primal, a forgotten echo of caveman conquest? Or was it a pathetic whimper, a desperate attempt to reclaim a fading masculinity? The Uzi, a chrome serpent on the table next to it, mocked him with its youth, its rapid-fire promises.

The bravery of being out of range – a hollow prayer whispered into the void, a desperate attempt to cling to a fading masculinity in a world hurtling towards apocalypse. The taste of bile rose in his throat, a bitter counterpoint to the synthetic victory on the screen. He was adrift in a sea of his own making, a relic of a bygone era, his bravado as empty as the desert wind.

The bravery of being out of range, a phrase that tasted like ash in his mouth. A hollow victory fueled by whiskey and CNN’s holographic war. Back in the bar, the TV blared, a cacophony of sanitized explosions. He was a spectator, miles removed, playing God with a joystick in a bloodstained Escherian landscape. The thrill of the kill, a virtual affair, devoid of consequence, a grotesquely postmodern existence.

Was he the hunter, or the hunted? The lines blurred in a Pynchonesque funhouse mirror. The desert wind whispered secrets, stories of the indigenous ghosts that haunted these very sands. Geronimo’s restless spirit seemed to mock him from the Federal Building steps.

The Uzi, a chrome ouroboros, a symbol of a world spiraling out of control. Was it the thrill of the kill, or a desperate attempt to recapture a bygone sense of agency in this digitized dystopia? The question hung heavy in the air, unanswered,lost in the white noise of the television war. He poured another drink, a bitter toast to the bravery of being out of range, a chilling testament to a world gone mad.

He poured himself a shot, the amber liquid burning a path down his throat. The news droned on, the body count a morbid ticker tape. The thrill, a digitized phantom limb, the satisfaction of victory a hollow echo. The bravery of being out of range, a sickening joke, a bloodstained escapade played on a joystick.

Gravity Slam

The mess hall reeked of lukewarm mystery meat and a pervasive sense of millennial ennui. PVT Tyrone Slothrop, a recruit with a name ripped from a forgotten paperback and eyes perpetually glazed over like a malfunctioning VR headset,poked listlessly at his tray. Across from him, Spc. Lester “Ramrod” Rodriguez scrolled through his chem-coated implant,a vapid stream of tactical memes and dubstep remixes of dronestrikes. These weren’t hardened soldiers, they were extras in a forgotten Michael Bay flick, all sculpted physiques and vacant stares.

“Yo, Tyrone,” drawled Ramrod, his voice a bored monotone, “heard we’re deploying to the Sandbox-istan LARP next week. Gonna be epic, brah.”

Slothrop grunted, a flicker of existential dread igniting in his gut. This wasn’t war, it was cosplay for the C-SPAN generation. A meticulously curated battlefield experience, complete with pre-approved bodycam footage and a designated “influencer squad” documenting the whole mess for the masses.

The General, a man whose face resembled a topographical map of Botox injections, strutted across the stage, his polished boots clicking a martial rhythm. His holographic slide deck displayed high-resolution renderings of the enemy combatants – digitized versions of brown men with AK-47s ripped from a dusty archive of Cold War-era propaganda.

“Gentlemen,” the General boomed, his voice a digitized echo, “Operation Desert Dream is a vital step in securing the neoliberal order and ensuring the unfettered flow of… uh… crypto-currency!” Mumbles rippled through the ranks, a collective “huh?” hanging heavy in the air.

Slothrop felt a cold sweat prickle at his scalp. This wasn’t about securing borders or defending freedom. It was about likes, retweets, and maintaining the illusion of perpetual conflict – a reality show gone spectacularly wrong. He was adrift in a Pynchonesque nightmare, a swirling vortex of manufactured heroism and corporate greed disguised as patriotism.

Later, under the bruised fluorescence of the barracks, Slothrop confided in Ramirez, a wiry private with a worn copy of “Gravity’s Rainbow” tucked into his duffel bag. Ramirez, an unlikely literary soul amidst the sea of gung-ho grunts,nodded grimly. “This whole thing’s a fucked up magic show, Slothrop. Smoke and mirrors, a war built on bad data and manufactured consent.”

They sat in silence, the air thick with a shared sense of disillusionment. Outside, a squad of troops practiced their pre-approved battle cries, their voices hollow echoes in the manufactured desert night. War, it seemed, had become the ultimate performance art, a tragic Hollywood LARP with real-world consequences.

<>

They weren’t soldiers, these conscripts fresh out of the megacorporation training programs, these were extras on the world’s most expensive snuff film, unwitting thespians in a drama with a budget bigger than the GDP of a small nation. Their uniforms, a chimera of digitized camo and tactical athleisure, whispered of both battlefield and boardroom. Helmets, transparent and holographic, displayed personalized kill-feeds and enemy silhouettes, a permanent layer of augmented reality that blurred the line between Call of Duty and actual duty.

Faces, sculpted by orthodontia and protein shakes, hid anxieties better suited to student loan debt than IEDs. Muscles, pumped in suburban gyms, strained under the weight of knock-off body armor that reeked more of Hollywood prop house than battlefield.

These were the LARPers of geopolitics, their delusions as meticulously crafted as their tactical gear. Medals, jangling like costume jewelry, whispered promises of valor forged in a desert painted the color of a California sunset. In their minds, they were hopped-up Audie Murphys, existential John Waynes, ready to scrawl their names across the sands of a pre-approved narrative.

They huddled in barracks that resembled IKEA furniture rendered in surplus shipping containers, a beige labyrinth echoing with the drone of mandatory motivational podcasts and the cloying scent of government-issue protein paste. Murmurs of pre-battle jitters mingled with the atonal whine of micro-transactions, soldiers topping up their digital ammo reserves with their remaining service credits. It was a war fought not just for land or resources, but for bragging rights on some hyper-capitalist leaderboard, a celestial scoreboard maintained by a consortium of shadowy defense contractors and energy conglomerates.

The enemy, when they finally met them, were mirror images, equally bewildered extras in this absurdist play. Their uniforms, a different shade of designer digital camo, displayed a rival corporation’s logo, a snarling crimson chimera that seemed to mock the manufactured valor in their eyes. The opening salvos were a cacophony of laser fire and recycled movie quotes, soldiers dropping like marionettes with pre-programmed death throes. The air shimmered with the heat of a thousand micro-transactions, the whirring of servers miles away struggling to keep up with the orchestrated carnage.

But beneath the veneer of digital spectacle, a seed of doubt had been planted. In the quiet moments between skirmishes, amidst the reeking tang of recycled protein bars and spilled synthetic blood, a soldier glimpsed a reflection in his enemy’s visor, a flicker of recognition. Was this some pre-programmed subroutine, a glitch in the matrix of manufactured conflict? Or was it the dawning realization that they were all extras in a lie, dancing to the tune of unseen puppeteers who profited from their pre-programmed demise?

The Hollywood larp sputtered and stalled, the carefully scripted battles dissolving into a confused melee. The lines between victor and vanquished blurred. Was this the long-awaited indie anti-war film, a rebellion against the manufactured conflict they’d been drafted into? Or was it simply another act, another layer of delusion, a self-aware performance piece commissioned by the very corporations that profited from the war in the first place? In the end, the answer was as elusive as the enemy lines themselves, lost in the white noise of a million micro-transactions and the flickering neon of a world perpetually at war, both real and unreal.

<>

Triplicate

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Herbert W. Plinth, the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Paperwork Affairs at the Bureau of Red Tape, navigated the labyrinthine corridors of his own department with the weary resignation of a spelunker lost for decades. The air hung heavy with the metallic tang of old filing cabinets and the musky scent of decaying memos. Every surface was mummified in an avalanche of forms, each a cryptic scroll demanding years of arcane knowledge to decipher.

Plinth, a man whose shoulders slumped under the weight of untold regulations, shuffled towards his cubicle, a monument to bureaucratic ennui constructed entirely of unfinished inboxes and overflowing outboxes. A single, fly-specked window offered a view, not of the city, but of a seemingly endless beige wall, a physical manifestation of the stifling conformity that was his life’s work.

A shrill Klaxon pierced the oppressive silence. It was the daily summons to “The Shredding,” a ritual as macabre as any public execution. Plinth joined the shuffling throng, each face etched with the same existential dread. In a cavernous chamber, a maw of gnashing steel teeth awaited, promising oblivion for a lucky few documents deemed “unnecessary.” The selection process, however, remained an enigma, a closely guarded secret held by the high priests of the Bureau, a Kafkaesque elite who communicated only through cryptic memos and nonsensical flowcharts.

Plinth watched, a hollow ache gnawing at his gut, as a teetering stack of forms met their grisly end. Were these the lucky ones, finally free from the purgatory of paperwork? Or was this merely another cruel twist, a performance designed to remind them of the futility of their struggle? He clutched a manila folder marked “URGENT – REQUIRES IMMEDIATE ATTENTION (BUT SEE PARAGRAPHS 14b & 17c OF REGULATION Z-99)” – a document that had been circling his desk for a year, its urgency as suspect as its purpose.

As the last shred of paper vanished into the gnashing maw, Plinth shuffled back to his cubicle, the Klaxon’s echo a haunting reminder of the Sisyphean nature of his task. Here, amidst the suffocating embrace of bureaucracy, Herbert W. Plinth, the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Paperwork Affairs, would continue his eternal battle, a solitary knight lost in a war against an enemy as formless and relentless as paperwork itself.

A particularly flamboyant tremor shook the building, rattling the fluorescent lights into a strobing frenzy. Plinth, momentarily startled from his paperwork-induced stupor, peered out his window – or rather, the adjacent beige wall that served as his only view. The tremor, a not-uncommon occurrence in the labyrinthine bowels of the Bureau, sent a fresh wave of dust motes swirling through the stale air.

Then, a voice, distorted and crackly, emanated from the ancient intercom system. “Attention all personnel. A Level-C Inconsistency has been detected in Section D, Subsection 14b. All non-essential personnel are to evacuate to designated holding areas. Repeat, all non-essential personnel…” The voice trailed off into a garbled hiss.

Plinth exchanged a bewildered glance with Mildred, the mousy filing clerk across the aisle, whose face had contorted into a mask of bureaucratic terror. A Level-C Inconsistency was a bureaucratic nightmare, a tear in the fabric of regulation that threatened to unravel the very foundation of the Bureau’s order.

Suddenly, the fluorescent lights flickered and died, plunging the department into an oppressive gloom. The only light came from the emergency exit signs, casting an eerie green glow on the overflowing inboxes and teetering stacks of forms. Panic, a rare visitor in these sterile corridors, began to stir. A low murmur rippled through the cubicles, punctuated by the frantic tapping of unseen fingers against keyboards.

Plinth, however, felt a strange sense of calm amidst the chaos. Perhaps, in this moment of bureaucratic breakdown, there was a glimmer of hope, a chance to break free from the stifling grip of red tape. He reached for the manila folder marked “URGENT” – a document that now seemed more symbolic than ever. Maybe, just maybe, this Inconsistency, this tear in the system, was the key to unlocking something more, something beyond the beige walls and endless forms.

With a newfound determination, Plinth shoved back his chair and grabbed his worn trench coat. Mildred, her eyes wide with fear, stammered, “Where are you going, Herbert?”

Plinth offered a tight smile, a hint of rebellion flickering in his usually dull eyes. “Downstairs, Mildred,” he said. “To see what this Inconsistency is all about.” And with that, he stepped out of his cubicle and into the uncharted territory of the Bureau’s underbelly, the weight of countless regulations momentarily forgotten.

Plinth navigated the darkened corridors by muscle memory alone, the emergency exit signs casting long, skeletal fingers across the dusty floor. The air grew thick and stale, the metallic tang replaced by a cloying scent of mildew and forgotten dreams. The hum of fluorescent lights, the lifeblood of the Bureau, was now a distant memory, replaced by an unsettling silence broken only by the echoing drip of a leaky faucet somewhere in the labyrinth.

He descended deeper, each creaking floorboard a stark reminder of the Bureau’s immense, unyielding weight. The occasional frantic scurrying of unseen rats was the only sign of life in this bureaucratic necropolis. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Plinth stumbled upon a massive steel door, its surface pitted and scarred, the paint peeling in grotesque flakes. A single, flickering bulb cast an anemic glow on a worn plaque that read: “Section D, Subsection 14b: Restricted Access.”

Plinth hesitated, his newfound resolve battling with decades of ingrained bureaucratic caution. But the image of Mildred’s terrified face spurred him on. With a deep breath, he reached out and grasped the rusted handle. The door groaned in protest, a metallic shriek that echoed through the emptiness.

The room beyond was a stark contrast to the sterile cubicles above. Here, amidst a chaotic jumble of overturned filing cabinets and shredded documents, a swirling vortex of pure information pulsed in the center of the chamber. Parchment scrolls, ancient and brittle, danced in the aether alongside holographic projections of indecipherable equations. It was a maelstrom of data, a chaotic symphony of every regulation, every form, every forgotten memo that had ever passed through the Bureau’s iron grip.

In the heart of this vortex, a single figure stood transfixed, bathed in the flickering data-light. It was Bartholomew Goose, the Bureau’s enigmatic Director, a man rumored to have memorized every regulation since the dawn of paperwork. His face, usually an impassive mask of bureaucratic authority, was contorted in a mixture of awe and terror.

“Mr. Plinth,” Goose croaked, his voice hoarse. “You shouldn’t be here. This Inconsistency…it threatens the very fabric of order. The system is…re-writing itself.”

Plinth, mesmerized by the swirling vortex, felt a strange sense of liberation. The rules, the regulations, all the suffocating apparatus of the Bureau, seemed to be dissolving in this chaotic dance of information. Perhaps, he thought, this was not an Inconsistency, but an evolution. Perhaps, from the ashes of the old system, something new, something less suffocating, could be born.

As he watched, a new form began to emerge from the data storm – a document unlike any Plinth had ever seen. It shimmered with an otherworldly light, its words shifting and rearranging like a living organism. Goose reached out, a desperate tremor in his hand, then recoiled as the document pulsed with a blinding light.

The room fell silent once more. The vortex had vanished, leaving behind only the single, shimmering document and the two men staring at it with a mixture of trepidation and hope. Plinth, the Deputy Assistant Undersecretary for Paperwork Affairs, had stumbled into the heart of a bureaucratic revolution, and the future of the Bureau, perhaps even the world, hung in the balance.

A bitter laugh escaped Plinth’s lips. The vortex had dissolved, the Inconsistency seemingly contained, but the answer, as always, remained elusive. Bartholomew Goose, ever the bureaucrat, straightened his rumpled tie and cleared his throat.

“Mr. Plinth,” he began, his voice regaining its bureaucratic starch, “while the immediate threat appears neutralized, we must prioritize the preservation of vital records. Therefore, in accordance with Emergency Protocol X-17, sub-section d, paragraph 3…”

Plinth groaned inwardly. Protocol X-17, sub-section d. It mandated the immediate triplication of all affected documents “for safekeeping and redundancy in case of future inconsistencies.” The very thought of tripling the already mountainous paperwork sent a wave of nausea through him.

Goose, oblivious to Plinth’s despair, continued, “Therefore, I am assigning you the critical task of overseeing the document duplication process for Section D, Subsection 14b. Given the…sensitive nature of the recovered materials, utmost discretion is paramount.”

Plinth stared at him, the weight of the manila folder marked “URGENT” suddenly feeling heavier than ever. The revolution, it seemed, would have to wait. Bureaucracy, in all its glorious tedium, had reasserted its dominance.

With a sigh, Plinth straightened his own tie, a soldier resigned to another tour of duty in the trenches of paperwork. The future, it seemed, would remain stubbornly written in triplicate. He turned to leave, the flickering emergency exit sign casting his weary figure in a long, bureaucratic shadow. The fight for a less suffocating world, it seemed, would have to be waged one triplicate form at a time.

It’s all Subjunctive

Oedipoid and vast, the world swam in a subjunctive sea. Every action, a ripple in the pond of potentiality. Was it rain that fell, or merely the memory of rain, a phantom echo from some parallel dimension where skies wept? Perhaps it never rained at all, and the damp chill was a collective delusion, a product of a species forever haunted by the might-have-beens.

We, the stardust-forged marionettes, danced a jerky jig on the stage of existence, strings pulled by unseen hands, or perhaps by the cruel laughter of a god who found amusement in our fumbling attempts at the indicative. Every choice, a forking path leading to a universe unlived. Did the other versions of ourselves, in those unblossomed realities, curse the paths not taken, the loves unrequited, the potential left to rot on the vine?

Or maybe it was all a grand malfunction, a cosmic computer running a faulty program. Perhaps somewhere, a celestial engineer toiled endlessly, desperately trying to patch the code, to nudge reality back into the indicative, the realm of the certain. But for us, adrift in the subjunctive soup, the only certainty was uncertainty itself. We were forever chasing the ghost of a perfect tense, a past that might have been, a future that could yet unravel. It was a maddening waltz, this dance of maybes, a symphony of “ifs” echoing through the caverns of existence.

<>

Oedipoid it might be, this whole “subjunctive” racket. A yearning for a reality that could have been, a universe where verbs shimmered with possibility instead of the blunt, indicative thrust of the everyday. Perhaps, in some parallel dimension, a past tense whispered, “We went to the moon,” while here, on this cracked and anxious Earth, it remained a tense, throbbing “We went to the moon,” forever teetering between triumph and the abyss.

Conspiracy theorists, those fringe dwellers on the map of human discourse, might see a plot, a grand, subjunctive orchestration by unseen forces. The powerful, they’d mutter, rewriting history in the subjunctive, erasing inconvenient truths with a flick of their metaphorical past-tense eraser. Did the Kennedys die, or were they merely erased from a timeline that never quite solidified?

But maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe the subjunctive is the language of dreams, of half-formed desires and anxieties. It’s the voice whispering in the back of your head, “If only I’d taken that other job,” or the primal fear that curdles your stomach, “They might find out.” It’s the chorus of what-ifs that hums beneath the surface of our lives, a counterpoint to the melody of the real.

So next time you find yourself slipping into the subjunctive, don’t dismiss it as a grammatical quirk. It might be a key, a portal to a hidden dimension, or a map of the labyrinthine desires that make you, you. It’s all subjunctive, man, all subjunctive.

<>

Waldo, bleary-eyed from a night spent navigating the byzantine byways of paranoia, squinted at the blinking neon sign: “Subjunctive’s.” A seedy joint, even by the standards of the Yoyodyne Incorporated sprawl. Inside, a haze of cigarette smoke hung heavy, punctuated by the rhythmic thrum of a malfunctioning slot machine. A barkeep with a face like a topographical map wiped down a chipped glass with a sigh that could curdle milk.

“Subjunctive, huh?” he rasped, voice seasoned with regret. “That’d be the life, wouldn’t it? Where everything’s a possibility, a shimmering mirage in the desert of the indicative. But here, friend, it’s all past participle, the echoes of choices not taken bouncing off the walls.”

Waldo nursed a lukewarm beer, the bitter tang a counterpoint to the metallic tang of existential dread. Maybe it was all subjunctive, a vast conspiracy where the present was merely a suggestion, the future a hall of mirrors reflecting infinite “maybes.” Perhaps the whole damn system, from the Yoyodyne rockets to the flickering neon, ran on the subjunctive’s ethereal fuel.

A woman, all elbows and cigarette burns, sidled up to him. Her eyes, glittering with a manic intensity, held a glint of shared paranoia. “They say,” she whispered, voice raspy as a malfunctioning fax machine, “there’s a machine down in the sub-basement. A contraption that can rewrite the subjunctive, bend it to your will. Make the impossible the indicative.”

Intrigue, a flickering ember in Waldo’s soul, began to blaze. Was it a fool’s errand, a descent into a rabbit hole of conspiracies? Or was it a chance to rewrite the script, to escape the subjunctive prison and forge a new reality, indicative and absolute? With a grimace that could have been a smile, Waldo downed his beer. Maybe it was all subjunctive, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t play the game.

Rebellion as Commodity

The PA system crackled in the grimy bus depot, a half-chewed Che Guevara t-shirt blossoming from a forgotten corner advertising “authentic” rebellion for 29.99$. Outside, a neon sign, winking like a cyclopean burnout case, promised “Revolution! Now with a Money-Back Guarantee!” A gaggle of teenagers, their faces a kaleidoscope of ironic mustaches and faux-Molotov cocktails fashioned from empty soda bottles, shuffled past, their rebellion pre-packaged, pre-digested,ready for their carefully curated Insta stories.

The PA system crackled in the grimy bus depot, a carnival barker’s voice shucking ads between the reggae throb. “…and for a limited time only, own your piece of the revolution! That’s right, folks, rebellion’s on sale! We’ve got the whole kit and kaboodle – Molotov cocktails pre-mixed and ergonomically designed, rage pre-packaged in vintage Che Guevara posters, even existential angst by the kilo!”

Randolph, a man whose face resembled a roadmap etched by a particularly sadistic cartographer, scoffed. Rebellion, a commodity? Back in his day, it wasn’t about ironic slogans and vintage band tees. It was the taste of stale bread in a makeshift camp, the paranoid thrill of a whispered message passed in a crowded marketplace, the bone-deep certainty that the Man was watching your every move. It wasn’t a lifestyle choice, a rebellious phase to be shed like a too-tight pair of jeans. It was a baptism by tear gas, a communion of shared dissent that reeked of sweat and desperation.

Now, rebellion was commodified, neutered, a pacifier for the disaffected. It was a fleeting high on a screen, a rebellion curated by algorithms, its edges sanded smooth for mass consumption. It felt like a bad acid trip designed by a marketing team, a revolution pre-approved by the very system it claimed to overthrow. Randolph sighed, the weight of his disillusionment a familiar ache. Rebellion, a fading echo, a ghost haunting the neon wasteland of a corporatized world.

A wiry woman with a Mohawk that defied gravity scoffed, her mirrored shades reflecting the flickering neon. “Yeah, rebellion,” she rasped, voice laced with equal parts amusement and cynicism. “Used to be a dirty word, a stain on your resume. Now it’s aisle three, next to the discount organic kale chips.”

A kid with a bored expression and a trust fund haircut wandered by, flipping through a dog-eared copy of “The Anarchist Cookbook” like a menu at a greasy spoon. “Man, this rebellion stuff is complicated,” he whined to his disinterested companion. “Gotta, like, read theory and stuff. Isn’t there an app for this?”

Overhead, a holographic projection flickered to life, a sneering ad exec in a pinstripe suit hawking the latest line of designer riot gear. “Tired of looking like a schlub while you overthrow the system? Our new combat couture line is both ethically sourced and fashion-forward! Look good, feel good, dismantle the patriarchy!”

The mirrored lady snorted. “The revolution,” she muttered, “brought to you by the same corporations that brought you climate change and student loan debt.” Her eyes narrowed. “But maybe that’s the point. Maybe rebellion’s become a product because the real thing is just too damn expensive.”

The reggae faded, replaced by a news report. Images of tear gas and burning barricades flickered on the screen, a stark contrast to the sanitized rebellion being peddled downstairs. The mirrored lady smirked, a glint of defiance in her eyes. “Cheap rebellion might be a sham,” she conceded, “but at least it pisses them off. And sometimes, that’s enough to start a fire you can’t put out with a discount fire extinguisher.”

<>

They peddled revolution on the digital black market, hawking encrypted packets of dissent like day-old fish on a Tijuana street corner. The brand names flickered on flickering screens – “Che Guevara Chic,” “Limited Edition Molotov Cocktails (vintage glass!),” “Existential Dread for the Masses (one-size-fits-all)”. It was enough to make even the most jaded hipster scoff. Rebellion, once a messy, graffiti-scrawled affair fueled by righteous anger and smuggled LPs of The Clash, had been corporatized, focus-grouped, and streamlined for maximum profit.

Somewhere in the labyrinthine bowels of the dark web, a shadowy consortium known only as “The Discontent Corporation” churned out rebellion like fast food. Their algorithms, cobbled together by bored ex-NSA code monkeys with a taste for anarchy, could tailor a rebellion to any niche market. Need a bespoke overthrow of a third-world dictator? They had a package for that. Feeling the urge to dismantle the soul-crushing grip of corporate capitalism on your shoelace selection? The Discontent Corporation could point you towards the latest, trendiest strain of anti-establishmentarianism.

But beneath the veneer of cool, a hollowness gnawed. These manufactured rebellions felt about as authentic as a Kardashian’s tears. Was this the future? A world where dissent was a designer label and fighting the Man was just another fashion statement? A single, tear-streaked emoji hung in the air, a silent lament for the bygone era of genuine outrage.

Trust is a bourgeois fantasy: It’s the opiate of the marketplace.

Chester A. Bleekman, CEO of Bleekman Industries, a man with a face like a roadmap etched by dubious mergers and hostile takeovers, leaned back in his ergonomic chair, a picture of corporate zen. “Disincentivize transparency, Mr.Peabody,” he rumbled, a voice that could curdle milk. “Any metric, any data point that gives the flicker-minded masses a peek behind the curtain, well, that’s market disruption, Peabody. Disruption leads to volatility, and volatility, my friend, is the enemy of shareholder value.”

“Sir?” chimed a young, eager executive named Darren, tie askew and brow furrowed in confusion.

“Look, Darren,” he said, steepling his fingers, a single turquoise ring winking under the halogen glare, “information leakage is the enemy. It’s the gremlin in the gears, the rogue subroutine in the grand algorithm of profit. The more they know about what we do, Darren, the more likely they are to, well, know.”

He tapped the polished mahogany desk, a map of the world etched into its surface, continents pulsing with the rhythmic glow of hidden fiber optic cables. “We operate in the twilight, Darren. The sweet spot between legality and, well, something a little fringier. Sunshine is the enemy of the exotic orchid, you see?” He winked, a gesture that always left Darren feeling vaguely seasick.

“But sir,” Darren stammered, “wouldn’t a little transparency build trust? Wouldn’t it-“

Windy slammed his fist on the desk, a holographic display of stock charts flickering to life. “Trust, Darren, is a bourgeois fantasy. It’s the opiate of the marketplace. We deal in mystery, in the suggestion of vast, unseen forces at work. The public wants the illusion of control, Darren, not the messy reality. We give them shadows to chase, conspiracy theories to keep them occupied while the real game unfolds beneath the surface.”

He leaned back again, the chair sighing like a winded bellows. “Besides,” he added, a sly glint in his eye, “a little obfuscation creates a nice little black market for… let’s say, alternative interpretations. And that, Darren, that’s where the real profit lies.”