Fiction Point Episode Sixteen: A State of Delusion

 

Fiction Point Episode Sixteen

A State of Delusion

All species, throughout the universe, will face existential threats, moments of catharsis and epiphany - and this was especially true for our own species. We were forced to vacate our origin planet, having exhausted its natural resources, and took aim at a rocky sphere, travelling light years through folded time and space.

 

Cast adrift from all previous tents which had bound our species together, we knew a different perspective would be required once we were established on our new planet.

On arrival, structures and systems were re-built, but curiosity regarding previous species habitation, encouraged us to commence numerous archaeological digs. We were then able to establish they called themselves human and their planet Earth, but we were unable, with any great certainty, to determine what led to their extinction.

However, their misfortune, was our opportunity. By design or luck, we discovered, at a crucial juncture of new societal unrest, fragile fragments of a text recording the planets previous inhabitants. As we slowly deciphered their ancient text, we found faith, hope and harmony in:

   The Four Seasons Total Landscaping Catalogue 2020

 

Over a period of continuous study and evaluation, we began to realise there was a mix of imagery and affirmation, which could only come from a complex civilisation. Once fully translated to the best of our ability, it precipitated a rebirth of our species, and an ideological, political and social reconstitution.

Therefore, our leader, who had been troubled for so long by the disintegration of our species in the new land, was able to announce himself as: The Great Landscaper.

New imagery appeared, demonstrating our leader’s newfound confidence, showing in one hand the shovel, and in the other the transplanting spade, symbolising the key tools needed to reshape our stumbling society. Much was also made of the rake, a method of cleansing the soul of ill-judged thoughts. This was also supplemented with the weed killer, a name given to the detoxification required of societal members, who tried to resist the Great Landscapers benevolence.

And so, to my own role in this evolution of the new morality and law. I stood side by side with the Great Landscaper, for it was I who had been entrusted with interpretation of the human system of governance and faith. Dutch hoe, garden fork, lawn shears and lawnmower, pruners and trowel, all found some translation into our system of government, rebuilding and making our species, ‘great again’.

Nothing would have shaken me from this path we were on, but for one fateful day, when I was confidentially advised of a new archaeological find. We eventually understood it to be called a library, and it contained a great wealth of information, casting doubt and then ridicule upon our adoption of the ‘Landscaping Faith’.

I ordered the site to be sealed, and with trepidation approached the Great Landscaper, with the news that we had based our new world order on manual labouring tools, which had no meaning to humans beyond their obvious function.

Effectively, I said, we had based our society on falsehoods, and a failure to understand reality. We were probably, living in a state of delusion.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said the Great Landscaper, calm whilst he ate through his cheeseburger. ‘Destroy this thing called a library. After all, the more deluded they are, the better it is for us.’

And so, it was thus.

Amen.

 

END

Flash fiction by Simon Marlowe, 11th July 2022

Fiction Point Episode Fifteen: The Dumb Dictator and the Adventures of Pinocchio

 

The Dumb Dictator and the Adventures of Pinocchio

‘You can call me dumb, and you can call me a dictator if you want,’ he said, grinning like a big fat Cheshire cat. And that’s how he got his nickname, the Dumb Dictator, even if he was elected.

One ex-insider described it as: ‘like working for a spoilt child. Policy briefings were contextualised into stories, a bit like fairy tales, so he could understand the good, the bad and the ugly.’

And it was one such story that captured the Dumb Dictator’s attention more than any other. Ignoring the analogy regarding accelerating inequalities, he instead focused on the nose of Pinocchio, which all ways got longer the more the wooden boy told lies.

During the Dumb Dictator’s regular medical check-up, he asked his personal physician to measure the length of his nose. He wanted to know if its length was normal. His physician reassured the Dumb Dictator that his nose was a very impressive proboscis, reminiscent of the great kings of antiquity, and an obvious sign of high intelligence.

Although the Dumb Dictator was satisfied with the affirmation of his physical attribute, he still wanted his physician to measure the length of his nose as part of his regular health checks.

Speaking ‘truth’ to the Dumb Dictator was ill advised, but the physician felt he had some leeway, whereby he could discourage a potential delusional trait from emerging.

So, he said: ‘The true story of Pinocchio is not the way Disney tells it, but was written by Carlo Collodi, over a hundred years ago. The moral of the tale is that children do not like to have their behaviour corrected by people who know much more than they do.’

The Dumb Dictator appeared to listen, so his physician continued: ‘The first thing that Pinocchio does, when he becomes real and learns to walk, is to run away from Gepetto, the shoemaker. Pinocchio then tells lies to other people, convincing them that Gepetto has mistreated him, and this leads to the shoemaker being imprisoned.’

‘I agree with that,’ said the Dumb Dictator, ‘there is nothing worse than child abuse.’

The physician was used to the Dumb Dictator missing the point but sensed he could articulate the moral integrity of the story a little further.

‘If you remember in the Disney film, there was a talking Cricket who helps Pinocchio.’

‘Oh, yeah, old blabber mouth!’

‘Well, Pinocchio felt the same, and told the cricket to leave him alone. However, the cricket was insistent. Pinocchio got so angry he threw a hammer, which hit the little Cricket on the head and killed him.’

‘You don’t say…’ said the Dumb Dictator wistfully.

‘Pinocchio blames the cricket, because it was trying to tell him what to do. But then, the talking Cricket haunts Pinocchio because it returns as a ghost. Again, the Cricket tries to give good advice to Pinocchio, warning him not to get involved with people who tell him that by planting gold coins they will get a tree of gold. This was Pinocchio’s undoing, because the people who told him a crock of lies, chased after him, tied a rope around his neck and hung him, saying: tomorrow we’ll come back for you and you’ll be dead and your mouth will be open, and then we’ll take the gold pieces that you have hidden under your tongue.’

‘You mean, they killed the guy just because he was trying to make some money?’

‘Well, as in all such stories, there is a blue fairy that saves the puppet.’

The Dumb Dictator appeared to reflect, then said: ‘Didn’t they hang Mussolini from a lamppost?’

The personal physician realised the Dumb Dictator was getting paranoid again.

‘I think the point is that karma catches up with Pinocchio.’

‘Well, whatever,’ said the Dumb Dictator. ‘Just make sure you measure my nose. I don’t want it getting too big.’

 

END

Flash fiction by Simon Marlowe, 14th May 2022

Words: 650

Fiction Point Episode Fourteen: On the Hill the Kraken Wakes

 On the Hill the Kraken Wakes

Aiden knew he had to move once he had studied the local area and discovered his house was only 50 metres above sea level. There was a hill 4 miles outside of town and that was 100 metres higher. So, he sold up and bought a new house at the most affordable mid-way point on the hill and moved his family in just as sea levels started rising.

Aiden could now wake up in the morning and watch the sun glistening off the shallow pools which occupied the deserted town below. Then dinghies became the in-thing, with power boat motors revving the commute into adapted high-rise offices. Yet everyone knew it was not going to last, as the height of the sea level accelerated.

 

One day, Aiden noticed their nice neighbours the Fleetwood’s, their children and their dog, had left and gone elsewhere. There was some logic to that, everyone was all ways thinking of moving to higher ground, he just thought it odd they hadn’t said goodbye.

Eventually, when Aiden and his family did move again, they had the pick of the best homes right on top of the hill, and it was all for free. When the waters had finally swallowed their old house, and there were just a few families left, they all wondered if that was as high as the sea was going to get.

Then, one morning, Aiden discovered they were the only family left on top of the hill. He had gone to visit the McCallister’s to discuss a little barter. Their front door was left open and there was a pungent smell, like fresh earth after a lot of rain. As he called out, he noticed there was a thick gooey slime coating the walls, on the upturned furniture, up the stairs, in the bedrooms and on the beds. He also discovered the same thing in the Sanderson’s place: no people, just slime.

As Aiden whispered to his wife the discovery, so his two children listened behind the door. They decided it was time to tell daddy what they knew.

‘It’s the Kraken,’ said Dominic,

Fiction Point Episode Thirteen: Nano Dot

Nano Dot – just in case you ever wondered if we were alone in the universe (or the bit The Origin of Species left out)

 

In the end, humanity had colonised the solar system and there was nowhere else to go. So, the Nano Dot was created to seed the galaxies throughout the universe. Developed by the visionary entrepreneur Andrew Curt, it was humanities last chance.

As Curt stated: ‘A long time ago, we became conscious of our own existence; now we know there is a lot more, but we are constrained by our biological and cosmological limitations. However, just as we have overcome constraints to populate and exploit the space around us, so we must have one last dance and journey into the arena of universal consciousness.’

Most people thought the Nano Dot had as much chance of succeeding as all the failed attempts at detecting aliens. But still, billions of seed like bio tech pods were manufactured, made to replicate in favourable planetary environments. They were then spewed out into the galaxy, the space in between the galaxies and the galaxies beyond. And, as Andrew Curt lay dying, he wondered if he would ever be reborn.

Fiction Point Episode Twelve: The imagination detective

We had one last call, an author who had kept his identity hidden with multiple aliases, but who had made the fatal mistake of accepting an award. ‘Ego always gets them in the end,’ I said to the young cadet, as we visited the 1^st floor flat of Joseph Prague.

In my business, first impressions count for everything, and when he opened the door, I knew we had our man.  There were tell-tale signs of the illegal use of his imagination: a large forehead suggesting enhanced cognitive function, eyebrows which met in the middle indicating substantial analytical thought, and a narrow frame, which any cadet textbook will tell you pre-disposes the subject to extraneous deviancies.

He was nervous, as I set-up the imagination detector, connected the electrodes to his head and chest, and told him (as I do with all my suspects), to relax.

 

‘I have tuberculosis,’ he said, trying to justify his recent arrival in Vienna. ‘For the waters.’

I laughed; it wouldn’t take long to break him.

He soon confessed to having published several short stories in slim volume collections, before revealing he had a cupboard full of letters (none of which he had sent) and extensive diaries covering his short pathetic life. Picking up on my readings of heightened cerebral activity, I mentioned his relationship with his father. This produced a bucket full of tears, his estrangement all written down in another letter he had never sent. 

His testimony was enough to put him away, but I had a feeling he was holding back. I studied the readings and indicated to the cadet a small peak on the screen. A novice could easily mistake this as an unattributable blip but was an indication Joseph Prague had written far more then he had admitted. We needed it all if he wanted to avoid torture with his imprisonment. That’s when he lost it and started raging like a madman at his literary failure. There were three novels, he said, and he wanted it all burned. I told him not to worry, because legally it was our job to do that for him.  

‘What can I do?’ he pleaded. ‘I have a literary disease; I can think of nothing else, night and day. I have this burning passion to write. My imagination is always on fire. I must put pen to paper, or else I feel I am failing to listen to the voices in my head. Without writing I feel nothing.’

‘Creative psychosis,’ I said, pointedly to the cadet.

 

And without prompting, Joseph Prague was keen to continue to condemn himself: ‘I have sacrificed personal relationships; let women down who I should have married. I have destroyed friendships or failed to fertilise associations - just to save time for my writing. I knew you would find me one day, but I don’t care what you do to me now.’

‘You see,’ I said, turning to the cadet, ‘what the imagination can do to you. Look at this mam… whose life is no better than an insect. Unloved and unfulfilled, frustrated and socially isolated. The laws may be harsh, but we must protect society from this disease, and retain order, obedience and control.’

I radioed in, to get the meat wagon brought round.

‘Who is it?’ they said.

‘Just another nobody,’ I replied.

 

Flash fiction by Simon Marlowe, 25th Oct 2020

 

  

Fiction Point Episode Eleven: The last mammoth

The sun was yellow, then it turned red, and grew very quickly into a very large ball. That was the beginning of how everything changed.

The herd took notice. Up on the hill, their proud leader looked across the open plain and navigated a route as far as his eyes could see. They would head further South. As they bent their knees and fought the wind, some wondered how much hunger they could stomach? Then cold got stuck in their frozen furs and fatigue drilled lines into their faces. They did their best to follow the trumpet call. On and on, day and night, through grey dawns and dusk, through great tall valleys and over hard high mountains; on and on, until they lost sight of where they were running, and the long march turned into a fragmenting line.

Those who could keep up, kept going, and those who were struggling, slowed down, and those who laid down, never got up again. First, it was the old and the infirm, the end of their tired lifecycle only slightly premature. But it was when the first young fell, that deep fears of how things were going to be, undermined their spirit. Eventually, only a few could keep going, until they too came to a stop, because they had got to the edge of the world. In front of them was a thick green sludge stretching up to the horizon, a swill of algae which could not be crossed and could not be drunk. There was no going forwards, and no going back. There was no food for miles and miles around, and what was left of the herd had no strength to forage.

So, it was not long before they too lay down in the strange comfort of the snow, the ice-wind blowing into their veins and shutting down their arteries. One by one they fell asleep, shut their eyes and felt it best to dream. One by one, they knew there was no point in holding on. They faded away in little huddles. Until, there was only one left: young, still fit, still standing, still wanting to believe. He moved away from all the dying, tracked east and then west, trying to find a way to keep living. He went inland and hoped to find something. He went back on himself, and hoped to find survivors, but even he, like the last mammoth, began to realise there was only extinction.

He stared one more time at the few remaining stars, pin-pricked in the dense cloud. Then he stripped off his fur, felt his skin freeze and the frost-bite takeover. He drifted into a dream, and took one last breath, before life came to an end.

END

Simon Marlowe 11^th November 2019

Fiction Point Episode Ten: The old man and the cold sea

The wind swept across the beach from east to west, cooling the skin, rippling the sand and watering our eyes. But even on the hottest day of the year, the North sea was cold, and kept the kids from playing too long in the water. My wife warned me about putting sun cream on my face, whilst pointing at an old man in the sea, who held a young girl in his arms, swinging her gently through the waves. ‘It might be his last wish,’ she said, ‘to go in the sea and hold his grand-daughter.’ Then I turned away to check on our own two kids, who were lying flat in a channel flowing down to the sea.

‘Oh look,’ my wife said, ‘he’s still got his trousers on.’

And the old man, with his wrinkled body, slowly waded out on to the beach. We watched him tread like a robot with iron feet, little by little, back up to the beach huts. He then disappeared behind a giant ice-cream cone. My wife wondered: would he shut his eyes for the last time, content he’d had his last moments with his favourite grandchild. ‘It’s like the cycle of birth and death,’ she said, ‘and he’s had his last wish.’

In the heat, laughing, splashing, screaming all around, we noticed a younger man, shouting at the sea: ‘Danielle… Danielle! Danielle… Danielle!’ This time my wife’s instincts changed.

‘I can tell,’ she said, ‘he’s lost his child.’

Although I was reticent, and said we should wait and see, my wife insisted we should help; she could tell by his face, he was desperate. And soon a crowd had gathered, offering to search the beach, search in the sea, call the police.

I kept my children by my side, wrapped them in their towels, and explained a little girl called Danielle was lost, and mummy was helping the policeman because we had seen an old man playing with a little girl in the sea. They wanted to know if they could go back into the water and cried when I said it was too late. I gave them a drink, a cookie each, and told them how much mummy and daddy loved them both.

I stayed in the car with our children who had fallen asleep. The beach was lit by powerful arc lights all the way down to the sea. A police tent went up, an ambulance came, and parents gave statements, including my wife.

And back in the car, ready to drive home, she whispered to me, so as not to wake the children.

‘They found a little girl who drowned,’ she said, ‘but no one says they saw an old man in the cold sea…’

END

Simon Marlowe 26th August 2019