Tin Universe Monthly #17

by Brian C. Williams

  *you might ask yourself- Is he going to do these Appendixes for every Quoit story. Maybe? I don’t know? It seems like one of the fun things you get to do when writing a fantasy story.

  VOICES AND BULLETS

  The Original Sin 4

  There are only a couple things that make me really uneasy. For the most part I’m a pretty steady person- Pretty solid. Once I was fifty yards from a bear and you know what? Nothing, my heart rate didn’t move a bit.

  Ok, some may say an addiction might make a person a little off but I don’t think a mild Pagophagia addiction is really that bad. Who does it hurt? Might make you uneasy but not me.

  When I was fourteen I developed an uneasy feeling when it came to dealing with heights. It came about because of something that happened when my mom and I were visiting some of my relatives in Houston.

  I had the misfortune of having to spend the day with Aunt Jodi’s crazy new boyfriend James.

  We had heard stories about James before we made the trip down to Texas. All of her now grown kids were totally against the relationship and didn’t have anything nice to say about him.

  We would find out for ourselves why they had those strong feelings.

  While my mom and Jodi where out settling some family paperwork issues involving some property in Austin that they hadn’t previously known the family owned, I was left with James and he had plans for us for that day.

  James plans were more or less him taking me around to all the local conspiracy locations to rant about the government, black helicopters, and how there was absolute proof that the British Royal Family where in fact members of an ancient race of lizard people.

  If a fifty-four year old bald man who dresses like a college professor but has the mind of spoiled tomatoes, and has a hard on for every conspiracy his feeble mind can give in to, if such happens were you find yourself in the care of such as man as described you should not allow him to take you up into a glass skyscraper, with a elevator on the outside of the building also totally made of class from ceiling to floor.

  The reason for this warning isn’t because you should take care that he might touch you in that place that doesn’t exist on most dolls… or action figures.

  And people wonder why sex confuses teenagers so much and they end up doing stupid stuff when the urges hit.

  I give this warning because if this were to happen to you at the age that I was on this day and you might think it is funny to jump up and down on the glass elevator floor playing scare the adult because this adult isn’t all there.

  The same thing you did to your brother’s wife on that ferris wheel at the country fair by rocking it back and forth causing her to piss herself.

  Yes, she pissed herself.

  The crazy tend not to care enough to piss themselves.

  The crazy are those who still have a lot of the very young in their minds. A lot of that early creation madness. They believe in impossible things and don’t know when you should really be afraid.

  James laughed at me and what I doing, and then proceeded to pull a flashlight from the inside pocket of his jacket, there because of his job as a night watchmen, and started to slam it against the glass floor of the elevator.

  The elevator moved up and up and up. I pressed button after button trying to get it to stop as he slammed the flashlight down time after time until it broke but the floor also now had a crack the length of an adult index finger.

  After see the crack he showed he started stomping with his work boots targeting the now growing splinter and that’s when we got to our floor, the doors opened, and I jumped off ready to piss myself.

  He followed me off the elevator laughing.

  I never told anyone that story. His relationship ended with Aunt Jodi when she found a bunch of child porn on his computer. He denied knowing how it got there; she knocked him out with a zip drive across the face.

  Heights make me uneasy.

  But that’s nothing compared to what happens when I’m around two old people sucking face fast and furious. That makes my stomach go into complete upset and my brain into memory recall.

  This unease was hammered into my psyche when I was in college. That being only a few years ago but I was different then. I was going through my experimenting phase so to speak. I was seeing if anything would stick from drinking, drugs, and internet searches for fetishes to try out for a jog in the small college community I was living in.

  From time to time I would find myself in a sticky situation of varying degrees of dislike and like…alike because of my need to plant seeds and spoil fields.

  Yes there was drunken nights that left me with little more than my underwear. And that walk home in rain and lightning in my Flash shorts made me sort of have a bad taste for the spirits.

  I took in some drug usage that twisted my mind for a few days to where I still don’t understand the differences between to, too, and two. Must have burned out the brain cell that stored that bit of information. I also think I damaged the part of my brain that tells me I should stand and pee because I always sit and push down without a thought.

  And then I come to the fetish exploration. Mainly those encounters came up roses or at least with a new found interest in once in a life time and never again experiences. But one night does stand out among all the leather was sticky.

  One night I found myself caught inside a cage at a fetish meet and greet hoping to have a bride like the look of me and beg for the key.

  But instead of a rough hookup with an audience watching everyone was reacting to some really disturbing cosplay between two people dressed as the Joker and Batgirl.

  I was a captive audience all by myself to see old deep tongue action… and more. One totally naked and the other dressed like a Victorian Brighton Beach visitor. Wrinkled fingers moving down into a pair stripped pants and the rest my brain wiped away. Though if it hadn’t taken up the task I would have done the job myself with an ice pick and a hammer.

  But even more than heights or old fuckers making out, what really makes me uneasy is crowds.

  More than anything else I don’t like crowds.

  Even crowds of four or five people make me a little uneasy. I’m not a shut in but that’s the difference from being very uneasy and being outright stricken with panic attacks. I can go to concerts but don’t like to unless it’s one of my favorites. I could attend a sporting event but would rather watch on TV.

  This bottomless fun fact about me has nothing to do with any deep seated trauma or event in my life. It only has to do with a simple feeling. Not a feeling I can’t identify. I didn’t I have to have a shrink pull at me to get words to puke their way out.

  I know this feeling good and understand it completely as I would the faults of a love and hate.

  Crowds bring out a part of me that wants to open the emergency door on a plane or jump off the ledge of a building. A part of me that loves the wrecks in NASCAR and wishes someone would die on Ice Road Truckers.

  The closes I’ve ever gotten to acting on these feelings is almost jumping off a Gambling Boat once over a young lady with a kid. But that doesn’t count. And the kid wasn’t mine FYI. That moment can be blamed, every inch of stupidity, on two Mexicans and a lot of Tequila shots.

  And with that being said today didn’t come about because of something special happening. It was just a slow burn. I get that burn from time to time when people who have access to information, in the age of information, keep themselves blind to what’s going on because of how it may benefit them personally.

  Usually I take care of that burn by watching a marathon of Sergeant Cribb along with a whole pizza and pitcher of ice tea.

  The crowd that was gathered outside the Palm Bay Civic Center was nothing like me but they also weren’t all the same despite all of their homemade signs and matching t-shirts and shouts that could barely be heard over canned misleading details.

  These people were old and young. They were rich and poor. Some decidedly well-informed and some very mu
ch dim. But each and every one of them has two things in common. One, all of them are angry at the way the world is going and Two, all of them need someone else to tell them about the world and what is the best way to deal with the issues facing our shared futures.

  The few people who know me well might ask why I’m sitting on one of the high ramps in the skate park connected to the civic center listening to all of them.

  I have to say I’ve always wanted to climb up on one of these things and look down despite my unease with heights. I’ve never skated in my life but I like to stand in other peoples jumping points. It makes me see the world from more angles.

  If any of my friends turned up I would say I’m here for the entertainment or just out from visiting the library across the road. The last bit is the truth because I just returned the latest book by Maureen Johnson but that wasn’t the main reason I came here today. It’s a mixture of entertainment and anger.

  I came here also to listen in person. It’s all being recorded but no matter what’s on television or print it has a bit of fantasy to it. I want to see for myself that these people who think these things were real.

  Those same friends who may or may not know me would never guess what I had planned for today but it all had been planned. I know they will question first if it was random, if I had planned this entire thing out ahead of time.

  No, I can see where some of your thoughts maybe going. No, I haven’t showed up with several concealed weapons and a plan for mayhem to slash across the blue of the day in a bloody off the chuff moment.

  No, this was a plan much more cutting than any bullet. Bullets aren’t rare in America. Discourse is.

  I’m just tired of people remembering my generation for Kim Kardashian and It Gets Better internet videos.

  It doesn’t.

  This won’t make anything better but maybe I will get my point across.

  I’m here to listen but I also have something to say.

  Here he comes on stage.

  I know what it’s like to be obsessed with things. I have a record of every sports video game I’ve ever played. I’m serious. For example I have football records for leagues I created for myself and friends even going back as far to when I played with my brothers on electronic shaking football.

  It’s an old school game.

  Ask your parents.

  I’ve keep records of hundreds of Super Bowl winners. Tons of stats. Most dominated by Bo Jackson on Tecmo Bowl but even up to last night playing the latest Madden release.

  The only person who knows about this obsession of mine, of my current set of friends, is my girlfriend Morgan.

  But that’s just one of many things that make her shake her head at me.

  And if you are wondering where she is, she’s with her family at Disney for Thanksgiving.

  Yeah, I don’t understand it either but Thanksgiving is also what has brought this crowd to this spot today to hear this man speak and in effect it has brought me here today to listen and take part in the world finally.

  Before we get on with things I don’t want to say everyone should do what I’m about to do but God even thinking about it has my heart beating to the point of me wanting to throw up.

  We can never sit within ourselves with the line of thinking that we will leave the talking up to others.

  At least if I said I was going to poison a Supreme Court Justice I would own it and do something with those words unlike one certain right wing ass wipe.

  I’ve come here and soon I act but I wish to take in some of it first.

  “… today’s America is all about you having to do without because a bunch of spoiled government employees think they are better than you. See I don’t think they deserve to have benefits when you don’t have benefits. I don’t think they should be overstuffed with your tax paid wages while you struggle day to day.”

  The crowd is really starting to get worked up and he’s wearing his Uncle Sam outfit so this is money ball time.

  I have to give it to guys like this. They have a stage presence that I’ll never have.

  “…America has offered up redemption to so many of those who are dragging down this country. They have pushed away opportunities of salvation. They want to normalize sin with every chance they get. Take an eraser to those Ten Commandments your grandmother has on her kitchen wall.”

  I’ll paraphrase- ‘Let me offer up your enemies to you.’

  “Fool you, fool you, and Washington are laughing behind your back. They have taken away your prayer in school. And don’t think God isn’t watching. They are pushing their agendas into your life. Betrayal after betrayal. You didn’t ask to pay for someone else’s crack habit and you didn’t ask to help someone murder an unborn child but these people they have put blood on your hands and I don’t know about you but that makes me angry.”

  The crowd is eating this up because he is saying just what they want.

  “You didn’t ask for someone to whisper into your wife or husbands ears about what right is for your marriage. God has already decided that. It’s a vile situation for them to be putting these things into your lives.”

  Got to love some good old fashion American faith based love for domestic abuse.

  “The food and manufacturing industries are so over regulated that you are losing your jobs. Take minimum wage for example…”

  Did you know before he became a walking mouth piece this guy was a reporter for a second rate cable news show that mainly focused on celebrity freak outs?

  “There are those who hate the very people dying for our remaining freedoms. Those that truly matter are attacked with lies and closed hearts. I’ve been to Iraq, I’ve been to Afghanistan, and I have been to Cuba and even the mean streets of riot ridden London. America’s embrace has made those places safer. Changed them. I walked down many of a road as if walking down the dirt roads of my home town in Kentucky.”

  Funny that, when I saw him touring Afghanistan with cameras following everyone was wearing vests. Kentucky must be a lot rougher than I ever found it to be.

  “People want to compare me to this person or that. I have those I have learned from. I know intelligence and it’s not spoken from the mouths of any welfare line or student loan free loader I tell you that truth. I didn’t bring holy hate down on this country and neither did you. God’s fury is pointing storms and malevolence at evil.

  See just like you I am a simple man who loves America. I know you do too and we don’t want this country to make packs with the devil like others have and we have to change before Heaven shakes our foundations for what we have let happen in our land of red, white, and blue.”

  I’m surprised they didn’t have fireworks go off with that cue.

  “And before I end this meeting of like minded good hearted Americans I want to tell you something many are afraid to say. This country is being attacked. It’s being hunted. It’s in the sights of many who want it to go to dust. Those who want the colors of the flag to burn to ash but we can’t let that happen. We, you and me, we have to put them in the crosshairs…”

  Speaking of cues, that’s mine.

  I stood up and pulled out the wireless microphone I stole from a friend’s house. It wasn’t easy. A lot of internet research made it easier but it worked proven by the fact that I tapped on it a few times to send out some very loud feedback.

  That worked fine as an attention getter.

  “I have a question for you Mr. Basso. Do you really believe the things you are saying? Because frankly if you do I’ll shut up right now but I really don’t believe anyone could be that stupid.”

  A bunch of his people came running over towards me but one of the smarter ones stopped them from trying to pull me down in front of the TV cameras. I heard them shouting, “The cameras! The cameras!”

  Basso walked over to the edge of the stage on the side closes to me.

  “Let him talk. I’m fine with an open dialogue.”

  Yes you are, when you think someone is surrounded
on your battlefield.

  “If that was true you sir would truly be a unique individual in the political community. I don’t believe it though.”

  “You asked if I believe the things I’ve said here today and in the past and the answer is Yes.”

  The crowd really cheered him there.

  And they booed me when I turned to them and gave a big smile.

  I’ll give him the next step.

  “Son, you stand up there in your black clothes all angry and ready to say what to me?”

  “I could just scream things at you in anger?”

  “Well, let’s be honest the only reason kids your age are doing sit ins and getting arrested or running your mouths online is because you are bored by the wealth this great nation has given up way to freely to a lot of people who don’t deserve it. Spoiled equals nothing better to do.”

  “I guess the protesters who were beaten, some close to death recently in Virginia for protesting fracking were spoiled to death?”

  “Another example of liberals declaring war on good wholesome values like mining. Miners have for so long been a backbone of this country. Good hard working people for generations sacrificed their lives to earn money to support their families and people like you want to protest those hard working values. I love coal and I’m not ashamed of it. I might like ducks and trees and the environment but people, people are who I really like.”

  He got a big reaction for that.

  “No one wants to take away anyone’s job. But you people know that. You also know screaming ‘Your Jobs’ ‘Your jobs’ to people living check to check will blind them to tomorrow so you can quickly rape today under the surface and surround tomorrow for more attacks.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself young man using words like rape.”

  “What like your best friend in Kentucky who recently said ‘There’s a difference between legitimate rape and false rape.”’

  “He was misquoted on that. The liberal media…”

  “Oh, yes, The Liberal Media. The spectra of The Liberal Media creeping around like a plague. That’s one of your trump cards isn’t it. When one of you suggested using a probe to rape shame a woman seeking an abortion, it’s the media running away with a story. When your bunch is pushing laws to pull back women’s rights and voting rights and civil liberties you scream that the media is stirring these things up when you want to talk about the economy.”

  “We aren’t the ones obsessed about gay rights.”

  “But you are obsessed about gays getting equal rights.”

  “Equal Marriage, right, that’s what you’re going to bring up next? Liberals act like being gay is normal.”

  The crowds starting to just yell things out no matter which one of us is talking.

  “Marriage is scared.”

  “Yes, let’s keep blacks from marrying whites.”

  “I didn’t say anything about…”

  “Same wording, different decade.”

  “Young man…”

  “Young man. I love how you try to gain upper ground calling me ‘young man.’ I guess if I was a woman you would say Ms. or Madam or something along those lines.” I lean forward for effect, “And if I was black it would be boy.”

  The crowd is now screaming in rage. I can’t even make out words but feel it coming.

  “See, young man.” He enjoyed saying that. He thinks it gave him something, “These people are feeling real anger. That’s not fake. That’s not made up. Not that self-entitled nonsense people such as you like to go on about. But you are much too young to even understand how stupid your words are.”

  “Yes, self-entitled lazy people. Lazy to want a chance at a safe working environment. Lazy to want enough food to feed their family. Lazy to expecting a country that they pay into to help out when they have been knocked down. Forget about those people because they are just a percentage number and wash your hands of their lives.”

  The crowd surges over more towards my side of the parking lot and with another fake smile I bring their volume up. The security guards are starting to have a really hard time holding them back.

  His people in the crowd are trying to quite people down so he can speak again.

  Now he is down to pointing at me so he’s feeding into this.

  “What’s your name son?! What’s your name?!”

  “My names Sam and I don’t want an American dream, I want an American reality check.’

  I could see him looking to the cameras. He doesn’t like that they are now focused on me fully and not dancing back and forth between us.

  “I’m just a stupid young loud mouth who wonders why in a time of great economic struggle you are so focused on dividing our nation. You might not be in favor of abortion or gay rights or government social problems to help people struggling but you focus on attacking these things because when it comes to fix something you don’t believe anything is broken. It’s basically a stalling tactic. It’s like letting a child starve but telling it every five minutes that food is on the way. You don’t want America to eat, you don’t care if America starves, you just want your good old club ways to continue.”

  “I love America.”

  “I would choose the napkin by a good meal in every household before I would a flag in every house.”

  “It makes me truly sick to see how desperate for handouts this country has become! No matter what you say the good people of this country will survive because they aren’t afraid to work! They will die working hard if need be!”

  The crowd is actually getting quieter as the volume of his voice goes up and up.

  “And you aren’t afraid to let people die to get what you want. A few hundred families go homeless- who cares you get to make numbers look good by laying off government employees. People die waiting to get treatment- who cares you get to party with all those drug company reps. You shout out at all nations and religions not your own- who cares you don’t have to defend those words on a battlefield.”

  “………”

  I never expected that. The man who can talk a mile even when no one can hear him is silent.

  Then my own words stopped.

  At first I thought someone had thrown something at me and hit me in the head because I was having problems keeping my balance. Then my hearing departed, left me, but when I fell to my knees I saw the blood going down my arm.

  For some reason my first thought was to turn and look at him, not check my own well being, but all I saw was a crowd of men standing over a body on the stage.

  Wasn’t expecting this?

  COURSE CHANGE

  The Original Sin 5

  Following Document Is A Right To Read Act-1 Article

  Viewing Without Proper Access Is A Treasonable Offense

  To: All

  From: Senator Jeb Z. Asthelly

  My fellow Senators Attendants of America the state of our nation is one where there is a race class war brewing and that’s not the only interior war on our sightlines. Our country is going to be fractured after this election no matter the outcome. We just don't know how many pieces it will be broken into.

  That is unless we enlighten smarten up and do some heavy lifting in the thinking department. That stirring that’s there to rip apart everything we have held dear for the long life of this nation isn't coming to the surface, it is right there walking the fields of glory liberty.

  We wrestle and fight over issues such as abortion, universal free healthcare, birth control, gay rights privilege, the economy, military spending, taxes, crime, and many more issues and our country is on the edge of a burning Hell future that smells like melted pride righteousness.

  Heaven Natural selection is our gradual, non-random, course change that must be followed. Our male genetic stock is strong now. Our eyes and minds are fresh with the love blood of war and the smells of victory battle. Now isn't a time for lukewarm actions. Now isn't the time for backsliding faith patriotism. What the time now is for is for America to fulfill�
�its hard built prophecies destinies.

  Our destinies say we must build a stage upon this world. We will have that stage built by those who don't see the U.S.A. stars and bars for what it is. We will set upon that stage the choice of being an American or being the rest of the world.

  The auto ignition of our future is not our own faults and failures but the faults and failures of the rest of them the world. This is not our reaction but a course change to the failings of others who have steered us and we need to grasp it because they will not stop pushing until we are pushed into a dark pit of evil history.

  That pit will be filled with only legends of what America was and could have been.

  I really don't understand why people can't see the truth.

  Pretty clear from where I’m the truth is sitting.

  I hope you see it.

  I see it.

  It's hard for me most of America to comprehend when something is right in front of us that we don't take hold of it for the benefits it holds for all of our country.

  Our nation was birthed from one of the greatest empires to ever grace this planet. It is our birth right and destiny not to stand on the dirt of other nations to defend but to show the sight of might. We must empire build.

  It’s manifest destiny marked fate.

  I propose we start by doing away with state independence statehood. Though this part of our long history has served us well in building a nation, it also flies into the face of making this country the best it can possibly be. Statehood will stop us from acting against terrorist attacks, protesters dissenters, or insurgents. We cannot be united in one view if there are many. This is common sense being applied.

  Next we need to build our military and continue to build it to strengthen our forces as defenders of our borders, not just in thought, but in view. There shouldn't be a citizen that has to walk home from a family gathering or drive back from work without seeing and knowing comfort in the sight of our brave men and women walking to defend their peace of mind.

  For the criminals that overburden our prison system it shall be military service in foreign campaigns or death. The same should be applied to those who cannot pay taxes or who choose to take the life of an unborn child. We must start making people pay back for the freedoms they say they wish to have. Live your life anyway you wish within the rule of law but there is a price.

  Building a stronger military force for actions into foreign lands, which we will need, is the answer to almost all of our problems. The poor, the mislead, the confused all can find a home among the ranks of the warriors of this great nation.

  We have a united religious view belief and that is one of our country. God set out a chosen people in the past and for those that was what religion was for. His chosen people now need no religious doctrine because we have a flag and a set of ideals that truly capture what he wants for all people.

  Put down your Bibles and Korans books and pick up your American sword and shield.

  Our nation needs to strike fast and first to build our empire starting with many nations facing distractions in the world.

  Where we see revolutions, we should see oil.

  Where we see financial crisis, we should see new holdings.

  And where we see a people screaming for a taste of what we have in America, we should answer those screams with our dove spears branches.

  In the nations we are currently in we must take a control freedom under our rule or bleach brush them from the Earth method of dealing with these situations. Some people just don't want better lives. The price of these crusades missions will be nothing to your purses dollars.

  Chant with me

  ARCTIC OIL,

  ARCTIC OIL.

  Chant with me

  SPICES,

  SPICES.

  Chant with me

  GOLD,

  GOLD.

  If you are born within our North American grounds and not somewhere which is not completely separated by water or other nations you are a citizen of the empire. No matter your race, previous social stature or female pre-pregnant other living natures you are an American and you will contribute to the empire to make it stronger.

  We all will have the same tattoo on our arms for the world to see that we are united in our just march. It’s a clear statement of a commitment to our mission to keep this country strong.

  Not one American is to be thrown to the side. We all will build this. From the simple minded to cripple bound. All shall serve in different ways.

  We will not turn away from a genius, we will use every great mind for our march.

  You want the best education in the world, you will have it serving the empire.

  Now I'm anobody, just one Senator, but the words of nobodies have awakened the minds of many people in history. From the Black Forests of Europe to the Holy Lands voices spoke out to be seized by the citizenry for the benefit of those who would be the potential world survivors redeemers.