Humility

by Magdalene Hornbeam

  - Bollocks, traitors, untie me immediately and go out, I will throw you to the dogs, pitiful reptiles! I have not called you for a meeting, that bitch has lied to you! But the dogs for her will be held hungry three days without meat, I will personally watch the execution!

  The three people representing the senior management of the clothing factory jumped aside, as if burned and retreated.

  - Devoted director, if we don’t call the secret police to investigate the case, we can really be found accused, it is very dangerous because there are no witnesses, what exactly happened. The best thing is that the faithful and loyal to the idea agents to find out the truth in order not to put the blame on you - the voice of the president crept hints of malice but she sounded convincing.

  - Yes, I am afraid to take any measures, let’s call them – the short, chubby squat chief tailor supported her.

  The Inspector change the tactics. He began to pray:

  - Please do not do it, it will be a disgraced for me. While I live I will guard you. There will be no inspections in your factory. You will get medals, I will personally award them to you!

  The director was blushing, looking now his deputy - chiefs, then the inspector –lying and tied, almost naked. Sensing his hesitation, the victim continued:

  - I swear to the idea that I will never report about you. And number two hundred and fifty will be settled otherwise. I will not interfere and say anything about the factory!

  - Well ... - the director looked at them.

  - Make him swear by to children and mostly in her daughter, mistress number two of the high superior leader – insisted the only woman among them.

  - Okay, okay, I swear!

  - Ahh, this is not the way to say it!

  - I swear to my children and my eldest daughter, mistress number two of our high superior leader, the devoted leader of the idea!

  - Well, you go back to your work places, I'll untie him - the director had barely come to his senses.

  ***

  This time Anna had more time for the third task. And the white angel provided some picture of the past. So she saw the inspector having tied and raped with the wooden penis not only one worker in the factory, how his first victim had become a president, barely surviving the heavy bleeding and had remained barren.

  She also considered and saw many pictures of the life of the Moonlight. Her sister was hanged for treason on the idea and her mother was now digging with hands dry fields and was forced to eat grass. All of her village were doomed to slow starvation. The seamstresses were not paid any salary, they were only allowed a free lunch. They fed them in the dining room with some insipid cereals. The food for the evening was two lumps of sugar. The girl had hidden quite a lot of lumps, but she did not know how to send them to her mother. It was forbidden to leave the dorm. The state was in isolation, is not allowed to leave the dormitory, to import or export any goods. This year, the drought had destroyed the crops. She expected that thousands of people would die of starvation.

  ***

  Today was a very special day. All workers were dressed in new uniforms, and taken by buses and marched in the city center. The father of the great superior that had been taking this position before him, was lying for a year now in a coma after a stroke. Today, after the command of his son, they were about to turn off the machine that gave him artificial respiration and declare him dead. The whole nation was obliged to grieve. On the big square in front of tall statue depicting the great superior, there were the people who had been honored to express their grief in public. Only one TV crew from a neighboring country was allowed to broadcast and show pictures from the grief of the people. But no sound was allowed.

  - Line up, tailoring factory number five, stop hanging out! - A woman cried out like a sergeant.

  Anna rose to embrace the crowd. Each unit consisted of two thousand human species that corresponded to one combatant commander. Behind the monument there stood an imposing castle with high columns and wide stone staircase, seemingly formed by about a hundred steps. In an instant the crowd in the square simply froze and there was complete silence. The Portal palace opened and there came out a man, a plump man with the most good-natured face that could ever exist. Behind him - a group of key managers, were bending backs. It was a great superior. People in the square also have bent their backs. Due to his excess weight, the royal superior was going down slowly and it took quite a while until he walked all steps and stood on the podium beneath the monument. During this time, many people arrayed in the square simply fainted. They could not withstand into this position. Probably they did not have strength from starving. The responsible sergeants took them in some trucks - specially covered with tarpaulin.

  Moonlight endured all this. When signaled that they could face him, the superior began his speech. He announced that it was the day when his great father died, praising merit and magnified the idea. The latter slogan was: "Let the whole nation fall into inconsolable grief over the great superior, whose even greater successor is me, myself!"

  At the same moment each of the crowd lowered their heads and began to cry. The lady who was in charge of block of seamstresses, was sobbing loudly while watching vigilantly if there were any rows that did not shed tears. It turned out that Moonlight did not cry sincerely and with tears and the drill commander hit her hard with the stick she was holding in her hands. Anna was afraid that her girl will suffer immediately sent her a picture-vision of her hung sister and mother dying of hunger and work. The Sobs uttered by the seamstress startled even the lady-commander.

  The Grand superior retired to mourn in his palace. TV crew from the neighboring country has gone. It was a sign to stop the roars and to get to the arena. Anna tried to think, what the word "arena" meant, but she did not seek the angel, because after a while she would know. He did not expect to see anything that no sane person could guess, even one like her with opportunities to walk around with their ethereal, mental body. The “arena” proved a huge football field, but the lawn was surrounded by a network, and the ceiling was also from the network. It was a huge wire cage. She guessed that probably there will be circus acts with wild animals. Speakers blew and announced that some days ago the leader of the youth had been excluded from the Idea, removed from all positions and deprived of all ranks. He was accused of corruption, moral decay, alcohol abuse, drug use, waste of money when visiting casinos and all in all – “lower dirty acts” hindering the development of the most prosperous country on earth. So he was sentenced to death. The most grieving and loyal part of the people who today expressed its desolation because of the death of the father of the great superior will be able to watch the execution of the dirty traitor. From somewhere people had let many hungry hounds and then the naked, only in a loincloth old man. Anna was horrified and angry at Bell X18 because this seventy year old man could not be the leader of the youth organization of the Idea. She did not understand the language! Immediately appear the white shadow of the angel who "said":

  "You fully understand the language. But fanaticism is something you cannot understand. "

  The dogs began to bite and attack. They were screaming, barking, fighting among themselves. This man happened to be very strong. More than an hour he was running on the field and was not dying. Anna had gone down right next to her subordinate, named Moonlight and was doing her best to suppress the horror that he had conquered. Some of those present got a heart attack, others fainted. The sergeants took them away. Anna knew, with the help of the white angel, that all who showed weakness will be sent in camps. On the microphone finally it was announced that the “dirty traitor abominable garbage” had been eaten and the sentence was completed. The seamstresses were taken to buses and were driven back to the factory. The way back passed in complete silence. Anna found that she alone had found the levels of horror, but she did not feel it and she had no fear. She felt concern about the mental state of her object of protection, she inspired her courage and succeeded in it. Anna had courage, so he could for
ward it to another. It seemed that intrepidity had a mental origin. What was she told by her guardian angels? That she was present with her mind. It seems mind and consciousness were not one and the same. She was absolutely convinced that her mind and her soul were elsewhere. In her mind she had left her memory. She could not remember anything about herself…

  ***

  Anna finally met the young man who, according to the angel – guardian, was a partner of the girl from the factory for clothing. His name was Evening Breeze and as the name, it was very appropriate. Otherwise he seemed awkward and constantly gesturing with his big hands. He resided in a top-secret head-quarter because he was the brain of a group that developed some super technological weapon. But there was not available any landline or mobile, let alone the Internet. At the entrance of the building, the room of the guards - armed to the teeth soldiers, there were a couple of phones. Once a week, about 7 pm local time Evening Breeze rang the dorm where Moonlight lived, just to hear of her. She always told him that she was fine and that she was waiting for permission to see him. He assured that the moment he could hear her voice he could feel better and further work and create things for the flourishing of the Idea.

  The seamstress, hard-working and resilient so far, needed support, and this genius of Sciences was nothing but an involuntary loss mollusk- no strength, no will. During sleep, Anna tried to send him erotic dreams with his beloved favorite, but it didn’t work. The situation was desperate. Evening Breeze and his team had a deadline for designing new weapons and if the tests did not show the expected result, all of the team would be executed. However, in a sign of respect, they would be shot and not thrown to the dogs.

  But it meant failure for Anna. She was glad that she could quickly move on the territory of the entire country. And now she had no idea how to handle the situation. After making sure that in the head of a sleeping man may not appear any vision, even of a weapon they were feverishly working out, she decided to walk as a disembodied, transparent tourist in the vast, populated by millions of people, country. Because she did not want to watch whole families lying emaciated and starving, while the established “chosen” lived in luxury and ate caviar, Anna rose high to watch only the beauty of nature. She noted that one of the borders is a river, quite dry, but unlike the other border areas, there were few soldiers – they were border guards on service. There appeared Bell X18. He showed her how the neighboring state extradited citizens who had escaped across the river, how immediately they transported them to camps, but she refused to "watch" what happened in these fenced with wire-mesh places. The Nets were encircled by barbed wire, electricity running on them.

  "Bell, the only way to save the couple is to flee from the country of the Idea, but I guess physically this is not possible ..."

  "You want to ask me why I help you, and most hypocritically you are trying to fool me." - Suddenly said the Angel - Guardian.

  "Ah, excuse me please, Your Angelic Holiness, I constantly hear that this is not for me, I am not supposed to know, and now you accuse me of hypocrisy that I hate most."

  "You are always complaining that you do not remember anything of your earthly life, so how can you be sure that your hypocrisy is the most hateful?"

  "You tell me, how I should know!"

  "In the other tasks there was always a saving idea, plan B, and now in the State of the Idea, I don’t know what you may do." – The white angel diverted the conversation into another direction

  "I'm going to kill the mother of Moonlight." - Anna shared it decisively and surprised his spiritual companion, paying no attention to his joke.

  "Bravo, you managed to keep your mental decisions" invisible ". This rarely happens to me. "

  "I thought I was going to shock you with my ruthless final decision, and you would say something like` life and death are in the hands of the Lord ', and you just wanted me to read me like a book! “

  Ana was very angry, she did not care that the angel could leave her and never return, though he had helped her. But it seemed that mentally she was not capable of being self-controlled and humility was not to her liking. Bell X18 was not offended at all. On the contrary, he even shared his opinion on the case:

  "You're right, you can make any decisions to complete the task. You do not have the opportunity to kill people. If you do it in some way, it will not be a murder, but something else, so I do not find anything disturbing in the proposal. "

  "Ah, so that was it ... I do not remember, but I'm somehow sure when I was living on earth, I was convinced that if I wanted someone's death, if I visualize it and send him such thoughts I could kill him."

  "That's not true, definitely. Otherwise the world's population would be dramatically less numerous. "

  "Thank you very much for helping me. But not to be blamed that I am hypocritical I want to explain my assumption - you deliberately break the rules, so that next time Black is with me, and you can rest. "

  "You are free to think as you want and as you wish."

  "Bell, you showed me a picture vision of Moonlight’s mother, dying of starvation. You must know where she is ... "

  "Yes, in the eastern province, follow me."

  ***

  They found the mother of Moonlight alone, lying on a wide bed, barely breathing.

  "She is dying!" - Said Anna.

  "Yes, any moment”

  Bell X18 said nothing sarcastic, in the sense Anna’s wishes were becoming true. The body of the dying lady was just bones “dressed” in skin. They walked in the small village. Everywhere the picture was one and the same. In some houses lay whole families embracing, children, parents, grandparents, waiting for the moment, waiting for their last minutes.

  She panicked. There was no one who could telephone her seamstress that her mother had died. They "looked at each other" with the white angel. Immediately they went to the nearest town. Here the streets were full of people, probably some managers, employees. The President of the City hall was pretty plump, compared with the living skeletons who wandered up and down. Anna went into his office, where he accepted the operational report on the situation. She instilled the reporters with imagination and strength and they, in a very pathetic and eloquently way described the arid fields and starvation in the villages. She realized that the President is quite a coward and tried to strengthen his anxiety. When they said that there was no one to bury the dead, and there was real danger of an unprecedented epidemic, the bureaucrat made his employees leave the room. At that time they phoned from the capital. Then plump governor of the city dared to give suggestion, without being asked, which was unheard, very rude and impolite. But, surprisingly, on the other side promised to consider the proposal. It consisted of the following - the relatives of the dying people that are in the better supplied regions to be announced and be released for a day from their jobs - to be able to come and take care - by registering the deceased in the administration district town. And then they would send military officers for the actual disposal and burial of the bodies. An hour later they rang him, telling him his plan was adopted by the highest authority of the state and orders were shipped across the country.

  The next day Moonlight arrived and found her mother already dead. She cried so piteously that Anna was at first taken aback, but she saw the glowing white hood of her angel and she came to her senses. At this point she realized that there was only one day left to prepare her mother for the funeral. In the neighboring houses the horror was devastating. Most people were dead, some in their sleep, and those still breathing were on their way to end. The young seamstress dressed her mother in a discarded uniform, which she got secretly by the president at the factory, grateful for the elimination of the inspector. Then helped the neighbors as she could and left for the city to fill in forms for death certificates. Finally she caught a train and travelled all night, crying and weeping. Anna could not do anything.

  When Evening Breeze called her from the bunker where he was working on dangerous weapon, Moonlight was just cryi
ng. She was left without a voice. As a whole, the young man realized that her mother had died.

  - Well, you cried, but this will not console your grief. Stop crying, so you can hear what I have to say. I suggest that we get married.

  - How’s that? Will they allow it? - The girl was surprised and suddenly regained her voice.

  - They have to – he said in his inherent equal but emphatic tone he.- Let me call you and try not to cry at least, because you get exhausted, right? Will you do it?

  - Yes.

  - Bye.

  - Bye. See you.

  Anna moved in the building - bunker to help Evening Breeze. He had left the front cell with the phones and was waving with his hands on the stairs to the offices of bureaucrats who were in fact most of the experts in the team. He headed to the chief of the entire project, some high-ranked personality, enjoying the protection of the great superior himself. He knocked and entered without waiting for an answer. The great man was staring at a computer monitor, and to Anna’s greatest amazement it was in his Facebook profile. It turned out that some in this country on the Idea had access to the whole world.

  Devoted governor – started the newcomer - I want to marry my girl.

  - On this issue we have spoken, yes, come and sit down. Let's do the tests and then you can proceed with the wedding.

  - I want to marry her immediately.

  - But why the hurry, life is ahead of you. The project is coming to its end. Everything goes successfully, nice and easy.

  - I have my personal reasons.

  - How much time, do you think, you will need to fix the problem which you found?

  - The report recognized that we cannot fix a deadline.

  - Yes, but I ask friendly, what is your own prediction?

  - It may be a few days, it may be several months.

  - Well, then you can wait.

  - I cannot wait, I wish and I want to marry.

  - You are the most important scientist, researcher and designer, so I will try to fulfill your request - the great man stretched his mouth in a practiced smile.