To the People of Now [prose]

by Timong Lightbringer

  - Hm. Let us leave these pompous speeches, - and the man has smiled. - After all, we are not going to amuse our vanity as politicians of the past, are we? - And he looked over the hall of people with a smile. Let's name it … let's name it the way our planet is called … let’s call it the uniform state of the Earth …

  When the sun will rise

  Heavy-heavy eyelids. Slowly opening eyes. A cloudy sight. A haggard sick face.

  A man, lying on a bed. Dimmed light. Curtained by something dark windows. The setting sun …

  A fluttering crimson haze before the eyes – the body is not felt at all, some rubbish is still spinning in a head …unclear semiwhistle-semirurstle, poured in a premise.

  An effort – and he hardly managed to open his eyes.

  A face in a white surgical coat, bend over him … a calm sight. The face attentively studies him, looks in his eyes – as if looking in soul – and gradually departs.

  There are no more powers to keep looking … he has closed his eyes again. It’s now possible to listen to … only to try to understand and remember – to remember and realize yourself. He must do it … he did not remember even why, actually, he have to, but only one thing – must.

  A quiet-quiet conversation very-very nearby – that man in a white coat was engaged into unhurried dialog with someone another. He spoke very faintly – didn’t want to be overheard.

  He must hear it, he have to ! Must understand, where is he and what’s with him. He has strain oneself greatly, trying to decipher habitual human words in flying sounds.

  - … to do.

  - But we cannot allow it. After all … … living. He … a human.

  - … a choice ?

  - … always is !

  - He has … symptoms … Virtual ski…is…i syndrome … he is not long for this word … a day or two at most.

  - … but they are. We cannot … allow … to die.

  - … State-of-the-art capabilities … do not allow … irreversible change … cells … of a brain … Horrific weapon … monster … virtual reality … physical influence of virtual world … Electrochemical stimulation … cells … altered … brain impulses … mental waves … almost like alive … no way !

  - Really … he … no hope ?

  - You … his medical record.

  - … have brought yesterday. And just the next day … should die ?

  - … so, unfortunately … no means.

  - … My God ! … dies … ble … death … cannot aid !

  - … regret it very much.

  - …….

  - Go, make arrangements … to make asleep … last … long dream. … Capsule … life-support … two hundred years.

  - … I shall do.

  - … go.

  A noise of door, softly closed by automatics after the left person. The same man in a white surgical coat has approached him once again. Smoothly bend head, a penetrating glance … confusion and pain on a face – pain and hope. His words, addressed to him …

  - … forgive … Have to … to make … for you to survive … have to survive … no other way possible … not now. Impossible … Until mankind realizes, what it creates … until denies … virtual substitutes of life … Festering abscess … on a mankind’s body … must get rid themselves … choose life themselves … real … living … life … until … no … most advanced medicine … will never be a … ure … Understand … cure … in strength of spirit … to make … right choice … again … forgive us … cannot do other way … Put asleep … two hundred years … When the sun will rise … will revive … when … real life … not … pitiful glitches in a brain … only then.

  A whistle and noise again.

  Opened doors … entering people – lots of people in white surgical coats. Life … life … real life … he has just now started to feel its taste … in that condition in which he was … only now … before this … A headache – the wild pain which has cut through a brain – darkness before his eyes … no ! Hands, shaking him … he must regain consciousness, he is alive – they have understood it. They will fulfill their duties.

  A longest dream. Several centuries … he will regain consciousness when the night will come to an end … and the sun will rise … rise over mankind. Maybe he will once see this world again.

  Bend faces … grief on them. The approaching mechanics …

  And words, words, which rushed into his ears like a wild roar of sea waves – “Meet this time … be happy … in real life … Farewell !”.

  Pain. And the oblivion…

  When a veil falls

  He was the president of the country.

  A large technologically developed state. Military technology, natural resources – everything was in plenty. The newest bacteriological weapon, keeping in awe all neighbors – he has even published a decree of its “authorized” usage in the begun war with frontline democratic “state”.

  Democratic … damned fools ! Pathetic liberals, benefactors of people ! No, they simply didn’t know the force of absolute power. Total dictatorship, complete control over every word and even thought of each inhabitant of your country … a feast for a whim ! All scientific minds, mobilized into development of even more frightening and horrific types of arms … Single-handed decision-making, a will to execute and pardon … Daily hymns, sung to you in each house, each apartment … of course ! – because the punishment for those found guilty is death – instant and painful death under the concentrated plasma stream.

  There were no dissatisfied ones … or at least those, trying to openly declare it … Psychogenerators, scattered near borders of this country, did their job right – now he is free to force people think how he desires. Mental waves of total variety, last invention of psychophysics – and human is under your full control. Cause either elation, either hysterics, either unlimited aggression in which, being armed with newest “gizmos” of military technology, human became almost universal machine of destruction …

  He could do everything. And he enjoyed it.

  Has drowned in blood the revolt in the frontline island state. Has left lifeless desert on southern suburbs of his country, where hordes of enemy have dared to intrude – the same whitish desert remained in all territory of the attacking state. Threatened to throw off the newest modification of psychoneutron bomb on the neighbor, who was unwilling to yield convenient trade routes, having destroyed all mental potential of the pigheaded one – he gave up very quickly, having become the witness of demonstration of its possibilities in small scales …

  He possessed all. Everything was below him – he was above everything. He was the president of the state …

  * * *

  Mechanics peep. Red measured words on the X-display screen – “Your account is empty. Please replenish your balance”. Damn ! The end …

  Slowly unhooked from a body sensors and controls, the nejro-pulse helmet, removed from his head. That’s all. Game over …

  A lonely thought, spinning in the head : “eat”. So … where is a food here ? He has turned his head around. Oh, here … just near the terminal. A needle, inserted into a vein … very soon nutritious liquor will be soaked up and carried by blood through the organism – it should suffice for some days. Should suffice … a shrill sound signal … done. He has pulled out a needle.

  So …. he has rummaged around his pockets. Twenty credits … not enough … only for sixty-seventy hours … heck … no matter.

  A helmet, being dressed again. Heaps of wires and connections, fitted to a body. A token, put into a machine, which has greedily grasped it… Satisfied mechanics peep.

  Start. The virtual world never waits.

  * * *

  City streets, lightened with lanterns. A signboard over one of many buildings – “Salon of virtual findings”. Hundreds of terminals over the walls. People, sitting in them.

  Next terminal … a twitching man, braided by mechanics. A stream of saliva, slowly flowing down on a floor … The face is not visible – it’s
being covered by a small helmet. Peeps of equipment …

  He was the head of the largest mafia organization …

  When the Sleeper awakes

  - Mister Coordinator, when the Sleeper will awake at the long last ?

  - Do you ask about that me, Admiral ? As I have suspected, it’s better for you to know.

  - The free will, mister Coordinator, the free will … Perhaps, we have committed an error, after all ?

  - I will remind you that it was our joint project. There are no mistakes, only statistical errors and percentage probability.

  - And now you are speaking mathematician’s tongue.

  - And what else should we do right now ? We can only observe.

  - Observe his agony ? He is dying directly before our eyes, dying painfully and unstoppable.

  - So he has chosen. The Majority-s, you know, sometimes outweighs.

  - And what about the Awakened ?

  - He’s still a baby. He has yet to grow up.

  - Beautiful little one, isn’t he ?

  - Certainly.

  - I am so glad about him.

  - So do I.

  - Tell please, what forms of curing medicine have been applied to the Sleeping one up to today ?

  - Initially – numerous enzymes of prophetical nature, sort of. Two thousands of parsecs ago the strongest possible antibiotic has been injected.

  - Which has been successfully removed by organism in the first vomit reflex.

  - Approximately so. I tell you – he’s almost hopeless.

  - And what about methods of shock therapy ?

  - Yet to be applied. Already soon.

  - Have been the patient informed in advance ?

  - Two thousand of parsecs ago, when disease signs were already on his face.

  - They are already on the face ?

  - Now it’s terrible even to look at him. I will not advise you doing so.

  - And what about the newest local antibiotics of unique type ? I mean these, you know, returnees from non-existence.

  - A part of them has been already injected, some have not been made yet.

  - Do you believe that will help ?

  - Such probability too cannot be neglected.

  - Will they be injected simultaneously with the beginning of shock therapy ?

  - Shortly before that.

  - And then ?

  - It’s for him to decide.

  - Do you think he is still capable ?

  - I hope so.

  - Well, and how does Awakened one fare ?

  - He has already learnt to read thoughts and gained the vision of the future. I believe he’ll grow into a nice one.

  - I am too very happy with him. Even though he is a blood brother of the Sleeper.

  - By the way, you have given me an excellent idea. As soon as this little one will grow up and be ready to read souls, it will be possible to send him to help, so to say, his elder brother to, so to say, move him away from the unjust path. Certainly, we will protect the Awakened one in all ways accessible to us. Minority, well, you know, is counting on our support.

  - Perhaps we should delay a little the begging on this shock therapy ? Wait, until little one will grow up a bit ? This Awakened has already expressed desire to help the brother, as far as I know.

  - I will consider your option, mister Admiral. I will consider it …

  God's Dream

  Devoted to the Living God …

  A Newborn God was sitting over the shade of a tall mighty tree, which have not yet been given a name, and was dreaming. He has just created the Earth, and had yet to make a couple of easier worlds in the nearby star systems.

  A smile was playing on the God’s lips. He rejoiced at the result of his latest work – the Earth has turned out to be extremely wonderful. There was a great variety of climates, which you would practically never find in any of the worlds, created earlier. There were mountains, rising into the heavens, and sea hollows, leading into infinity. There were giant trees, similar to the one, He was sitting underneath, and smallest, indiscernible for an eye of future inhabitants, leaves and blades of grass of unknown plants. There were an incredible variety of living semireasonable beings, beginning from some small insects, playfully creeping in a grass, and finishing with sea and terrestrial giants. In other words, this was a fine created world – possibly, one of pearls of His Creation.

  It seemed that He enclosed something immensely-imperceptible into this process of Creativity. As if He has given to the Earth a part of Himself. And that is why now He was happy.

  He dreamt of how humans will soon enter this world of His. How man will rejoice at the sight of his new home, created for him instead of ordinary-looking old ones. How people will settle on boundless horizons of this Creation of Creations, and will love each other and rejoice to life and the world, given by the Maker.

  And thus He made a call then to the most distant reaches of the Universe for humans to gather – those, who will live in this new home – probably, the happiest ones among all living. And humans came to the Earth – not even came, actually, but have arrived from their common previous worlds on their spaceship – the ark. And they have descended down to the Earth from it and settled. And named this date as the date of world’s creation.

  There were years, and there were decades, and there were hundreds of Earth years passing. Settled those ones, who arrived from far worlds, on corners of sphere terrestrial, and primogenitors of races, three in number, they became. And loved they each other, as the God asked, for some time – yet slowly to forget of love some of them have begun. And, seeing this, to help those falling asleep the God has decided – and asked He started for prophets to come into this world to advise humans of where that Light in the end of a dark tunnel lives. And came angels-prophets, warriors of fine God, to this world terrestrial and prophesied words of pure origin, purifying hearts of His beloved humans. But nevertheless, hearts of many have fallen asleep greatly and did not hear words of those prophets of great God they – and crucified His prophets. But the Most Gracious Maker did not cease to hope, for after all he loved humans even with all their lacks and was ready to help always those, Light who were seeking.

  There were hundreds of earth years and there were millennia. Yet more actively and heavily did humans stray in dark and murky tunnels. And seeing human sufferings from the darkness, absorbed by them, the God has dared to make a deed compassionate. His Finest Son, by the Father’s light enlightened, He asked to come to world of humans, to help those suffering with His Light and His Love and to set them on the right path. But betrayed the Divine Son did humans, and killed his body, unable to cause harm to the pure spirit.

  And there were great grief and confusion in the Heavens. Light Angels of the World Spiritual did cry, seeing this human’s misunderstanding and all the darkness, to which many have already aspired.

  And the last, desperate step the God has dared to make then. He Himself has descended to the world He created, to test Himself all temptations of darkness, accepted by humans, and to deny it, having shown them the Way once and for all. The First and the Last the God has become in this world of His own, which on the brink of the chasm was flying, the Son of Man, the Alpha and Omega. For He has come into this world, made by Him, as a human and will leave it as a live revived God soon.

  And, having learnt about Him, among all of them living life simple and modest, people began to come to Him. One after another they came and asked.

  And the priest shouted to Him : “I banish you, unholy one ! Not of you did yours crucified Son told us, and not you we were waiting for. And not even did we wait for you, for no need for God living and just we need. And is it appropriate for a God great to live in a hole pitiful, and try not to drag in paradise for gold, as we did ? Disappear, impostor !”

  And the politician laughed at Him : “Here you are, preaching honesty, living not in mansions imperial. Better look as we, deceiving others, have built palaces ! Therefore study from us, while we share
this wisdom of life with you !“

  And the sick, humiliated and offended ones came : “There is no justice in the world of yours ever !”, - they shouted to Him. – “We have given you our stones, constantly dragged by us, expecting heavenly wings in return – and where is a fulfillment of our desires ? Or are you not the Almighty, as they say ?”

  And proud ones came to Him, and silently spat in Him, before others flaunting.

  And cruel ones came to Him, and to finish Him off they threatened.

  And clever ones came to Him, and to enter senseless philosophical disputes they tried.

  And sly ones came to Him, and tried to catch Him on a word said.

  And simple ones came to Him, and were filled their souls with wisdom of His words.

  And seeking ones came to Him, and with joy their hearts were lighted up, for they have found at the long last.