Konu: The Masterpiece

by Rabia Rahou

  But meanwhile, we have to believe in our distorted reality so we can keep moving forward. We must remember that our planet was flat at some point in our history, and we used to believe in that as the truth to make sense of our world. A world where everything is quantified is a still, and it is a timeless world where imagination and belief are non-existent. Religion is believing, and it is a natural phenomenon. It cannot be concocted in a laboratory.

  Third and last, religion needs to resolve a problem, or at least, tries. The first Egap tribes didn’t create gods to help them make sense of the natural phenomena and didn't count much on deities. Of course, they had some, but only as folkloric stories. They never practiced forced rituals to beg the gods to save them. They never thought that they were special. They even do not kill animals, and they think they are equal with them. The forest was their playground the same as it was for the rest of the creatures. They never thought that if they made a god, she would help them in their daily routine of gathering wood for fire and fruits for nourishment.

  They must now admit that they are different from the rest of world, mainly because they lived in a continent, all alone, in small tribes that didn’t need to fight for resources. Anyone could form his tribe and move further to start a completely new life. Natural resources were plenty. Abundance can solve all the problems, and is the enemy of religion. No one needs to perform difficult rituals and please the gods when he has abundant resources in a safe environment. ManFirst camps are not the best place to find peanut butter, that I admit, but they are safe as we monitor them day and night.

  “Sir, can I ask you a question?” Dismar suddenly asked, interrupting the intellectual masturbation of my buddy the salamander.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you think something supernatural is going to happen? There is this time shift in some places, this talking baby, and even if it’s a made-up story, still, it did happen. And the machine starting today... Do you think that a supernatural event is coming into existence? Are we going to be safe? Are the gods aware of that? Are they going to save us?” he asked me, perplexed before he parked at the Arc.

  “I really wish the gods, the demons, or even the aliens, would show up and allow us to avoid all this mess, or at least help you to park properly,” as he parked like a new driver. “And yes, the machine is starting up today,” I confirmed. The time is shifting because the reality is splitting for the two consciousness. So, right now, this is inevitable, and I have to deal with it. And if there is any good god willing to come down and sort our mess, he better reveal himself today as I will not need him tomorrow.

  Dismar looked at me with his beautiful eyes desperately begging for answers. I said, “I need you to focus now, okay? We are in a war, so stop thinking like a civilian.”

  He answered me firmly like I had just woke him up from a dream, “Yes, sir!”

  This is absurd, finding myself trapped in this crazy, hopeless situation when everyone on this planet just had a nice weekend and is now coming back home from fishing or from spending an enjoyable time with their loved ones. I find myself in a meeting with the top grumpiest generals of this insane empire, trying to explain to them the AI machine and its role in our future defense strategy. I’m trying to pretend that their opinions matter and answer their concerns with sincerity, like they had some say in the campaign. I tortured myself for two hours by pretending I am leaving the dream of being at the top of my career, and today is the best day of my life as we will test the machine, finally.

  I must leave, run away from all of this, restart from scratch somewhere else. I have enough money, and I still have some time left to live happily. Why do I keep lying to myself that this is worth it? Suppose life has to end on this planet or in this universe, than let it. Who am I to pretend that I am very special and unique enough to save it? And even if I was special and unique, why would I try to save it? Why not just leave it to do what it does the best – extinctions? Only then will we all rest finally from this suffering, the suffering of existence itself.

  I am sick and tired of this. I don't experience any satisfaction watching these lame generals laughing, excited about this ultimate weapon, some of them joking about how invading will be easy and convenient. I don't experience any satisfaction watching them flattering me in respect and fear after what I announced to them. I want to vomit on this table, vomit up small ugly creatures that will jump on them and eat their ugly faces. This meeting is the ugliest experience I ever had.

  Oh to be surfing on a beach far away in some unknown island in a small poor country, where I can eat bananas and sleep all day long! My money will buy me a nice, small house on the beach where I could live peacefully for the rest of my life. I could leave now, pretending I am going to the washroom. I could never come back again. I could hide..

  “Excuse me, sirs, I’ll be back in about five minutes.”

  I went to the bathroom, my hands were shaking. I had a headache, and my heart was racing. I washed my face, trying to breathe and forget the ugliness I just witnessed. I then took the drops out of my pocket, five this time. It’s D-day, for god’s sake!

  I looked at myself in the mirror, shamefully. Can I really turn my back and pretend that this is not my problem when people will be enslaved? Can I really pretend that these problems don't exist when wars will erupt creating poor, tortured orphans? Can I really surf pretending that this sea is endless and wild when, in fact, someone owns it and is exterminating all the defenseless wildlife in it?

  My heart started to slow down. My head stopped hurting, and my hands were not shaking anymore. Deep inside me there was still lot of empathy towards every living thing, and that is not a weakness. In fact, it is my biggest strength.

  I didn't go back to the meeting. I sent the secretary to finish that as I had more important things to do than listening to their sad and miserable opinions. If one of them was not happy, he can, well…

  Chapter 14

  It’s On!

  “Let's call it a day.”

  ~ Konu

  T he room was full. “Everybody is here, let's proceed, please,” I said. The three monkeys started running everywhere to double-check the system. They finally decided to turn the power on after a small, pathetic chat that seemed to end with them looking like they were congratulating each other.

  We lined up in front of the big, principal screens. I was with all the First Citizens. Numbers and codes, codes and numbers, then numbers and numbers… this went on for at least 20 minutes. Everyone around me seemed to know what was going on.

  Suddenly, a long number appeared on the screen for a moment then disappeared. The screens went black, and everyone started clapping with joy. After a moment, Ube said, “Congratulations, the system booted successfully,” The First Citizens left very happy, congratulating me for the successful start.

  The monkeys opened up a bottle of champagne in the lobby room. I was very perplexed, watching the whole circus with a kind of ironic perspective. Is the whole thing just a geeky fantasy? Maybe, because what I saw wasn’t much.

  Back in my office, I called my top engineer and sent a message to the three monkeys to collaborate with him to secure more workspace. I instructed him to check the timeline for the full functionality of the machine, because as of now, it didn’t look at all like what I was expecting. Meanwhile, I sent a mission assignment to Kadar to start preparing my trip for the secret meeting between Banume, Oris, and me with the second citizen. I planned to keep the Services in the loop officially, as I know that they have already been briefed by the First Citizens. I know that Kadar knows about the meeting already as Wonfuse certainly told him that right after I left his house. He seeks his advice all the time, and he is counting on him to keep an eye on me. Then, I went to the box of isolation where I could make a secure call to Oina.

  “Hi, how are you?” I said

  “Konu! I will call you back from a secured device” she replied

  “Okay, but meanwhile, please call them first. I’m co
ming with the gift.” I said. She waited a brief moment, then replied with a touch of fear and hesitation, “Okay.”

  One hour later, she called me back. “Hi, I can speak now. Oris is hard to reach right now, but Banume said he will consult with his trusted circle.”

  Oina already spoke with them personally a month ago as I asked her to tell them that I may change sides to avoid the Big Filter, the filter that will send us again to the Stone Age. She told them that I think that the machine will kill us all and I may destroy it before they strike the Amians and start a nuclear holocaust. Probably they didn’t believe her, and I don’t blame them.

  I replied, “…meaning he is not coming? He is not sure what's going on, and he prefers to wait and see? Call them again and say that I am coming with a gift, a gift that shows how serious I am to prevent the war. If they don’t, I’ll keep my side safe, and everyone can go to hell. Tell them literally what I said”

  After another hour in which I waited inside the isolation box like a hamster, she called back. “They accepted.”

  Watching the clock second by second, my top engineer came back to keep me updated on the situation. It turns out that the machine booted correctly, and now it's reading all the collected data from Consoft. That could take another week before the main process starts. Other than that, he is not sure if the principal engineers are in the right set of mind, a thing that everyone started to notice.

  Everything is set now. I am waiting for the call from the Second Citizen since I asked Wonfuse, the First Citizen, to send ONC’s boss as a participant and a witness to that secret meeting. I instructed him, through our services, that he will need to play the role of the betrayer so Oris and Banume could believe in our story, at least that’s the plan. ONC’s CEO, the Second Citizen, called after a moment. I asked him to talk generalities as the empire’s services are picking up everything on his devices. It’s war time. He said he knows and that the First Citizen explained everything, and he agreed to assist me in my plan. At the end of his call, he couldn’t contain himself and said, “This is brilliant!”

  I hung up, looked at Dismar, and said, “Let's call it a day.”

  Chapter 15

  Solitude and Betrayal

  “Konu, I’ve got the green light to create the army's tournament of cuisine. Cooking can be very beneficial for the soldier’s mental health... I'm serious! Could you pass that cocktail, please?”

  ~ The Chief

  A lone, tired, and sick – that’s is my state two days before the meeting. The drops are not working anymore as I started to drink them straight from the bottle. Confined at home, thinking, doubting, and then thinking again. I’m exhausted. I’m getting suspicious, hypochondriac, and feeling feverish all the time. I’m tortured, and I wish I would have a panic attack right now, so I could throw up my guts and rest, but my body is resisting.

  Every healing technic or medicine is useless when the body is not complying. All knowledge on meditation, mental strength, and spiritual guidance is impractical when the mind is distracted. The best thing you can do in those moments is to let yourself accept the stress that your body and mind want to inflict you, as they will reveal something important down at the end of the nightmare trip. You must stress, fall sick, welcome the panic attack with open arms, accept that you are not in charge, and let your heart race like a crazy horse. Those are the symptoms of how scary the revealing will be. Wish for the heart attack and the worst death ever, like jumping naked in a moment of madness from your balcony while all the neighbors watch you in shock and pity, thinking that you lost your mind, and your name will be a topic of shame. Then, maybe, after all this misery, your mind will reveal the true reason for this unbearable stress.

  Finally, a panic attack. Thank god! It’s happening. I’m dying…

  An hour later, rested, I made a nice old-school weed roll, toking on it with herbal tea, as finally, I could see the reason for all this stress. It’s not that I’m worried about the meeting itself, but I am afraid that Oina may betray me.

  I thought that I was worrying about being captured and tortured forever by those tyrants. Nothing will satisfy the all-powerful oppressors more than capturing a free mind and burning him slowly alive. Not because it will resolve any matter, but because this is one of the rarest things that excites them. Then, I realized that was not the true reason, as it didn’t scare me after all. I knew that even if they would keep me alive and conscious with blood transfusions and humiliate me in every way possible, that would, in fact, deliver me. I would lose my mind to insanity. Then, there, where my consciousness was floating free, without all the noise of the physical world, there I would be free from everything.

  They would kill me after that, as they would lose interest in the torturing, knowing that I’m not actually feeling it, but it’s just automatic screams and moans produced by a tortured body.

  Death would be a gift to me, as I did give up my life when I was eight. Everything else I did after that was suicidal, trying to kill myself by taking every lost cause, so I could die with respect for my soul, and most importantly, with respect to my family that sacrificed everything for me. But that great death, unfortunately, never came. It did, though, elevate me to where I am now, as the gods are delighted watching me trying to throw away their precious life like it has no use to me. Therefore, they keep challenging me for their mere entertainment, as finally, they did find a unique show to watch, damn you all!

  If capturing me is a possibility, then Oina must betray me, and that is impossible. But again, why not? Why believe in the exception when the exception is unnatural, as everything in nature is repetitive. That’s what my buddy the salamander is trying to prepare me for – betrayal. It will hurt me deeply, and it will be worse than any torture, decapitation, or the worst death ever.

  I’ve already made the mistake of attaching my life to someone else’s life, a thing that I never did before. Therefore, I must experience the horrific consequences. I just want to believe that it can’t happen, even if it is very plausible, as she may choose their side knowing that they are going to launch a major, doomsday attack – and they may win. There will be nothing much left after that, but there will be a clear winner as the loser will vanish… forever.

  That feeling of love ruins my judgment. It is nice, psychedelic, and sometimes better than the best drug out there. “It triggers when you meet the right mate. Nature developed this process to lure you from doing logical thinking” said the salamander, he is right, as that logical thinking would expose the sad and the tragic life of a family. Love diverts you from thinking about the suffering that you inherit from giving up the only thing that you really own – the freedom of being. That gift that will be exchanged for something useless for the individual but necessary for the species, the duplication into the infinity. That psychedelic effect also halts or misleads your most sophisticated sense, the sense of the projection into the future. In its full functionality, that sense would show you how hard and grievous your life will be when you limit your freedom, also when you will have to share your resources.

  That’s why love is psychedelic. It shows you unicorns running on rainbows when you are in that state, it projects you into a completely absurd future where everything is pink with glitter.

  Although one must admit that love is pure art, it is nature’s masterpiece. The fact that even a wise person would choose to throw his or her life away voluntarily, knowing that they will suffer immensely in the end, just to feel that pure ecstasy of love for some time, is incredibly unique.

  That’s what I did… So did Oina.

  I must trust her, or nothing will make sense anymore. I picked up my phone and dialed her number. It's ringing, but she is not answering. It's been like that for a couple of days. She is busy with the preparations. She is taking a big risk, too, as she will not inform the other women about the real scenario, and that is a high treason crime. Of course, she must know that it's only a matter of time until the other women find out about the meeti
ng, and that time is not something she has in this case.

  I wish I knew her before when she was younger. In my stoned daydreams, I picture us as ordinary office workers in some governmental program of pensions for patients suffering from the Borderline Syndrome, or something similarly easy. Something so boring that we don’t have to focus on it as a definer. And, somewhere in a far district where politics is a myth. A simple life where we could have time to meet often, call each other every day, plan a weekend…

  I still remember how I met her. It was my first trip with an official delegation. We went to ratify some security treaties that no one cared about. It was already on the agenda and no one important had the time for that, so they gathered all the insignificant officials. They put us through an hour briefing and sent us straight off on a plane.

  I was out from the Black Unit. I was there because I had succeeded in all my missions without taking casualties, a thing that never happened before. To this day, I’m still wondering how I did it. Anyway, they offered me the worst retirement plan ever or to re-up again with the rank of major, a thing they never did before, in a way to show their gratitude, they wanted me to finish my days working in an easy job so I can keep my sanity. In the end, they are not heartless animals as I thought. They sent me to the General Affairs Bureau, where nothing much is waiting to be done except receiving complaints of harassments from the sous chefs on their chefs, or vice versa. “The chef told me publicly that my sauce is disgusting,” or “My sous chef is often out sleeping behind the dumpster.” That was a delight after a long career in murdering.

  With us was a general that we called “Chief,” a rank that was given to him just so they could throw him in a plane with any delegation to look official. Of course, this meeting was held in District 11. We didn’t take the League’s accommodations as the Chief said to me, “Konu, I don’t trust those women,” so the army booked all of us into the Royal Hotel. We reserved a full floor for just five people. We had expensive wines, the top League’s women and men escorts, and plenty of healing drugs for a full week. All of this was paid for by our generous army. Millions were spent because our mighty Chief said, “I don’t trust those women.”