The man continued pounding on the illuminated surface like some frustrated maniac on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. “I just want a leader who likes anime!” he wailed. By his manner, I was entirely certain he wasn’t talking to me, and continued on my way.
With a quick, practiced motion, I popped open the lid of a tiny yellow container in my pocket, and slid two red pills into my mouth. That should settle me down, I reasoned.
Another 250 Citizen Spending Credits out of the way as well, I reflected. Thanks Disney, you smarmy, psychotic rodent.
This whole distorted scene was getting to be too much, and for a brief moment I considered fleeing; turning tail and running like a whipped cur—too proud to yield, too stupid to fall in line.
I felt a sudden overwhelming urge to do something—anything. Even the smallest mad gesture would suffice to express my extreme disgust for the things I’d seen. For the life of me though, I couldn’t imagine what sort of obscene act I could ever come up with to stand out amidst this horrendous carnival of the complacent.
“Many citizens prefer their jeans 18% more faded. You can get a brand new pair at the News-Corp Solicitations Table.” A tiny painted camera was scanning my jeans with flickering red lights. That was it, I needed a drink.
Elbowing my way through the sedated crowd, I made my way into a drink line, kindly provided by G&E.
What could one man do? All around me, the logos of the Big Six were painted, projected, or proudly worn on shirts, hats, and pendants. In 7 days, there would be some new idiot posing as the popular representative of the people’s will. Inevitably, he would remind us that growth of corporate profit margins was the paramount goal. Environmental issues, education, family structure, freedom of speech—all of these were secondary concerns.
It was the fundamental tenet of a society which had confused Capitalism with the fetishization of wealth, and even this was done at the end of the most dangerous barrel in history; the joint effort of media moguls who could buy and sell the world’s population 3 times over.
What gesture could possibly provoke such an entrenched tyranny?
I couldn’t say, and it depressed me to an immeasurable degree.
Over the last four years, I’d heard countless rumours of opposition—some enlightened pockets of people rising up to turn the tides and take back control. It was this very idea which had given me the courage to set foot in this confounded town in the first place. But I’d touched down late last night, and went straight to sleep. The shuttle to the United Corporate Global Election Center this morning had taken me from the Commuter Station outside my hotel directly into the event without ever tasting fresh air, and I stood here now with no evidence that such people even existed.
I remembered my youth, when the internet felt like a way for the entire world to gather in a public forum, sharing their thoughts and opinions as if they might eventually manage to reach some grand public consensus. Then it would all be over; people would agree on the basic rights of all to freedom and choice, and the liberty to pursue whatever the hell made one man happy without hurting another.
But net neutrality had perished in an omnibus bill 3 years before the Corporate Suffrage Bill had come to the table, and in the blink of an eye 9 billion earnest voices had been reduced to faint echoes, incapable of achieving coherence over the amplified volume of corporate idealism.
Now, a citizen had pitifully few avenues for self-expression. If they wanted to meet even the most basic human needs, they had to rely on at least one of the Big Six. With that came unintelligible user agreements and endless legal caveats.
Dissent amounted to little more than a nervous smile on the streets; a desperate flash of the eyes on a corner before a glance up to the ‘Citizen Safety Cameras’ sent both parties scampering on their way.
“Welcome to the G&E Solicitations Table, where you’ll find good things at work,” said a woman in a blue and white shirt as she smiled mechanically. “How can I improve your experience today?”
“2 Jameson’s, neat if you please.” I answered, as cordially as I could manage.
“Certainly,” she replied, tapping a few buttons on the automated dispenser. LED screens all around her displayed countless electronic devices capable of replicating any and all human functions. “At G&E, our…”
“Make those doubles.” I commanded, turning my back on the ceaseless and unsolicited rhetoric.
The pretty young lady scanned my Citizen Spending Registration Card, pressed a button, and the drinks sprayed into their cups with an eager hiss.
She handed me the first, and I lifted it to my lips, anxious for the temporary relief it would afford me from the nausea-inducing madness all around.
Still my mind raced, frantically searching for any possible means of writing off this whole sorry affair in some grand and inevitably deplorable swoop.
The second drink stopped pouring mid-way through, and a sudden glow of red light illuminated the girl’s pretty features. “I’m sorry sir,” she announced, handing me the glass—half full to only the most ardent optimist. “It seems you’ve reached the limit of your Citizen Spending Credits, goodbye.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but a sudden hand around my neck shut it fast and hard. A pair of muscle bound goons in G&E shirts took me by the arms and began dragging me towards the nearest exit.
“Get off me, you goddamn animals!” I exclaimed.
A camera flash shut off my vision for a moment. When it returned, I saw that a crowd had gathered around me.
“Let me go you sons of bitches!” I struggled against them to no avail. Seldom does the power of one scared and desperate man overcome the certainty of a security force entrenched in its own sense of justice.
The camera flashes continued as I was unceremoniously hauled away, kicking and screaming like a rabid animal the entire way. Some people clapped, and from some direction or another, I heard a song taken up. “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey…”
Fuck those oblivious pricks, I thought, tossing a quick elbow into the jaw of one of my beefy oppressors.
It was answered by two quick shots to my ribs, and my legs gave out beneath me. Dragging them loosely, I flailed my arms, jockeying side to side like an unsecured trailer as I shouted incoherent slander at anyone who would listen.
Just beside me, I saw a man braying loudly, his fat round face nearly split in half by his self-involved grin. In his hand was a deep fried turkey leg wrapped in paper bearing the Nike ‘Swoosh’. His wife stood beside him, tapping the screen of her Personal Communicator Device and wearing a white shirt emblazoned with the Starbucks Logo and a plain text font reading ‘I Voted’.
The brutes dragged me through a set of small metal doors and down a long, empty cement hallway. They didn’t speak a word the entire time. I more than made up for their silence.
I cannot claim that I’m proud of my actions. Indeed, I looked like a raving lunatic, kicking and screaming like a false prophet being hauled through the forum in disgrace until they finally shoved me out through another set of steel doors.
I landed hard on my stomach, the impact of the sidewalk stealing my breath and scraping my arms. Lying still and defeated, I felt the sun burning my neck. The air was cool and clean; a refreshing taste of the real world so rarely achieved in a city of shuttle transports and LED shelters.
“Take my hand,” a voice came from above me. I groaned, forcing myself up onto one elbow and glaring into the blinding rays of the midday sun.
The two security guards had vanished back inside, no doubt happy to be relieved of their distasteful cargo. All around me however, people were gathered en masse. They were pressed tightly together, their ranks stretching off as far as I could see.
Some held placards, others shouted out the wares they had available for free trade. On a billboard to my right was the gleaming white outline of a Mickey Mouse head, its vandalized ears elongated into curving horns, and red coals were painted in place of its eyes.
r /> “C’mon, you’re alright,” the voice came again. I took the outstretched hand and used it to climb to my knees. My arm was bleeding, and I was utterly exhausted. All around me however, signs besought the toppling of the corporate state, and people stood in the dirty streets singing songs of unity.
These brilliant, shining bastards had never bothered to venture inside, I realized. They were smarter than I. They’d been beyond the false idolatry of that elaborate pageant. Quieting my mind for a moment, I was overwhelmed by the poignancy of the signs and depth of the conversations I heard all around me.
Intrinsically, I understood that I’d come here today only to confirm my fears that the world was as entirely lost as I’d expected. Within the first moments, I’d felt this was accomplished, and could have walked out satisfied in my bleak suspicions before ever scanning my Citizen Spending Registration Card. But now, as I rubbed my bleeding arm and rose shakily to my feet, I realized I’d found something far greater. Beyond my wildest expectations, I felt liberated—like a sailor lost upon the waves, who in desperation turns his eyes at last towards the starry sky.
###
*This Story is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and to all those with the clarity of vision to see the truth, and the courage to speak it in times of doubt.
**This statement, and the story attached to it, is not necessarily