Ramblings of Little Worth

It was a sad day for all of us when Mister C revealed the date for his scheduled retirement. On the third day of summer (Head-Quarters announced when summer began and winter ended to end any cause for confusion or conflict) in the year three thousand five hundred and eighty, his retirement would take effect and he would leave us forever. Incidentally this year wasn’t the actual “year” because nobody really remembers “years.” Head-Quarters arbitrarily announce the next year to be so and so. Thus we’ve had more two thousand and four’s than any other planet, probably because the world in general enjoys reminding me of my misery. For this was the year when I got married or committed the biggest mistake since I decided to head for the light on the day I was born. It is quite possible that on your planet these tidings of a person’s retirement might not altogether be considered devastating but since on mine they refer to the immediate ‘Termination of life which has become obsolete,’ we were all pretty shook up and feeling down about the whole incident.

Mister C or C as we called him sometimes when feeling particularly fond of him was a good man. Better man than most and more deserving of an extended life period than anyone else I have known in my life, including my wife. My wife was a two-timing obscenity and after obtaining sufficient evidence to support my suspicions about her, I was given permission by Head-Quarters to terminate her myself. An act I enjoyed immensely owing to the fact that I had loved her more than anything I have ever known. Despite my affection and respect she felt the need to run around with every guy in town and thereby break my heart. Thus I felt the need to take her life in a way such that I would never forget the look in her treacherous eyes as they relinquished their life force. I chopped her up in bits afterwards and fed them to my dog. His name was Dag and he was a good boy. Neutered and docile, he was the owner of a pleasant and unwaveringly loyal personality. However, eating my wife had a most peculiar effect on him. He started talking in a strange accent, stressing on the “s” a lot more than one commonly notices. Indeed it was surprising that he could now talk but to talk like a snake only further convinced me that my wife had actually been a reptilian humanoid from the planet Uret3. (also known popularly as Urethra…especially when our planet goes to war against it.)

A cold war has been going on between Urethra and Uranus. I hail from the latter planet which wasn’t originally called Uranus till somebody decided it was a better name than Vulvan-Gout96. The war has been going on for as long as I can remember which might not be very long considering how Head-Quarters is suspected of wiping memories of citizens who know too much or modifying their memories to promote a sense of general contentment. You see, with the help of slight modifications a person may live out the duration of his allowed existence without getting depressed, rebellious, and overly ambitious or in some cases even colic. I am fairly confident that my memory has not been altered in any way (except for the few times when I asked for it) for I was born and bred without a single “crazy-gene” in my body or at least that’s what the scientists think. I belong to the Lab-Grown-Perfect-Humanoid category but not really, for my father worked in the lab where people are assembled with their genetic make-up cleared of all irregularities. Nobody really likes that method of procreation for it is boring and was never really considered worthy of practical implementation, however those who are produced by this method are often excused from a lot of things normal people aren’t such as seminars about self help, positive mental attitudes, irrationality of religion, horrible physical or mental handicaps, genetic diseases and disorders including the ability to fall in love etc. the seminar on the irrationality of religion was proved to be pointless, since the existence of God is a verifiable, scientific fact and in some circles, a running joke.

In the year seventeen fifteen twelve, also known as the year of our lord, a scientist by the name of Halibut Praiseworth managed to prove the existence of God through a practical experiment. He got insanely drunk one night and called him on His cell phone.

My father hated his job and often fought with his superiors. This was before Memory-Wiping was introduced as a standard procedure. I have heard stories, that I was, in fact, naturally conceived, that my anti-establishment father had eloped with a young nurse who had later given birth to me in a remote cottage on the outskirts of the city where I live which is known as Former Glory. I am told that she died that same day and that she had been a very beautiful girl. But this is all conjecture since I never knew my father. The decree to have children taken away from their parents was passed the same year I was born. It was agreed upon that parents were a terrible influence on children and often set negative prerequisites for their offspring. In carefully controlled conditions, children had a much better chance of growing up without having to undergo intense, soul severing, gut wrenching, childhood trauma that would leave them scarred for the rest of all eternity. All my information, in reality, comes from the only man I have ever known who comes close to being what a father must be like. That man is C.

C is a prominent figure in Uranal history, (we are the only race of living creatures who refer to themselves as Uranals) he it is who led the young band of upstarts who rebelled against the newly established Law that all natural means of procreation were unsafe and thereby forbidden. After years of strife his party won and the right to procreate by any means necessary was termed Optional. Unfortunately by that time so many people had been convinced that genetic alterations/modifications were the right way to go about business that C’s party became more or less redundant and in his old age C decided to conform and was given the post of Professor of History in the Carnal College of Former Glory. The name was considered a veritable tongue twister by many so during my stay at college it was upgraded to Great Carnal University of Lost Glory. The name of the state in which I live is Lost Glory. The irony of that never ceases to amuse me. I applied for admission when I was sixteen and stupid, based on the idea that since Halibut Praiseworth himself had once been a Carnal, perhaps I too would find the road to greatness in that institute. Apparently the road to greatness has now been closed for renovations and we all have to take a detour via the road to ignominy and subjugation.

I met my wife on Uret3 many years ago. I was an exchange student, sent to promote feelings of harmony or something of the sort between the two rival planets. At that time a prevalent misconception was that exchange students could bridge the gap of enmity with understanding and love. (Halibut Praiseworth later declared that such a thing was impossible; the Urethrans were too ugly to be liked, endured or even acknowledged.)

She was nearly a head shorter than me with silky green hair and a forked tongue. In retrospect, I realize now that her reptilian heritage was quite obvious but I was young and foolish and forked tongues were the new fad. Everybody wanted a girl with a forked tongue for they were considered exotic and adequately promiscuous. When our eyes met at the station where she had come with the rest of her troupe of Urethrans to receive us…it was like magic. She was so graceful, (apparently years of slithering around had perfected her technique) her voice so charming and her eyes, deeply mesmerizing. I could not stop thinking about her. I did not want to stop thinking about her. Even now, I can’t stop thinking about her. She may have been a treacherous little lizard, but in a certain slant of light her beauty was almost incomparable. She was funny and witty and always quick on the draw. She was greatly fond of the outdoors, although that was probably because she needed the sunlight to keep her cold-blooded self warm. I honestly don’t understand why I love her even now. I suppose rejection is a great aphrodisiac. Not that she ever rejected me. She never rejected anybody. As far as I know she was practically a rest-house for wandering wastrels. I may be a jealous creature but I have my excuse. I have never known the love of parents nor was I ever the sort who made many friends. I had every right to be jealous then and now I have every right to be alone.

I have written a dozen applications to Head-Quarters, requesting permission to have my memory altered but somehow I can’t forget her. I am listed in the annals of neurology as the only known case of an individual who is selectively irresponsive to Memory-Wiping. They could make me forget the time when I failed in mathematics, they could make me forget the time I got stoned and exposed myself on national television, but they fail to make me forget a venomous reptile with which I had once been joined in holy matrimony.

Although religious beliefs are discouraged and deemed dangerous and counterproductive I feel that I am at least quite spiritual. When Halibut Praiseworth had called God and asked Him to stop interfering, people immediately stopped bothering about religious beliefs for they were now convinced that Halibut had successfully interceded on their behalf and were now “saved.”
Somehow, I can’t really accept that. I am not misanthropic but I seem to have lost my faith in men…or women for that matter. There is hollowness in all their doings, their smiles feel fake and plastic. When people talk to me I feel as if they’re making conversation just so that they can keep from blurting out exactly just what they mean to say. I have started to believe that in reality, everybody wants for it to end. This suffering, this great delusion, this void, this God-shaped hole in our lives that has forced our civilization to choose euthanasia as soon as they feel properly useless.
Euthanasia, claim Head-Quarters, is dignity in death. Rather than the torment of bed pans and misery of mindless drooling, a pill or an injection is served and a comfortable demise is promised.

Mister C told me fascinating stories (which may or may not be true) about my parents and the circumstances surrounding their lives though even he does not know what happened to my father after my mother died. He claims that he was a friend of my fathers and that he had known him quite well. He tells me that I look just like him and that I could not possibly be the progeny of anybody else. Sadly he has absolutely no proof for his claim. He says he knows that the authorities found him in much distress in the cabin and took him away for memory modification, which was at the time in its experimental stages. I was taken to a nursery. Perhaps he went mad or died as well. For certainly he would have come looking for me were he alive. I don’t earnestly believe C…he’s a story-teller, a professor of history, and an old man who thinks of me as a son or a friend when the occasion calls for it.
C was my best man when I got married even though he’s a lot more than twice my age. C chose me to be the last person with whom he would converse once they serve him the pill and I was there till the end, talking about the weather, sports, current-events, future prospects and aspirations.
It was a nice room with windows and a view that looked out at trees and blue skies. I asked him if the view made him wish he had longer to live and he laughed. I could tell that the pill had begun its effect and that he would die very soon. I thought I was prepared for it. I thought I knew this was going to happen, but something within me snapped and as his eyes began to close and his vision fade I grabbed the front of his hospital issued gown and asked him if he could see God. I shook him hard, trying to get him to answer before he passed on. If ever there was someone who could answer this question, it was a dying man, and so I asked him. I screamed in his ears as loud as I could.
"Tell me C, do you see God?? Is there anybody out there?? A tunnel of light?? Winged beings?? Anything at all??"
C’s body tensed, he let out a low gurgle, relaxed and that was that.
Later on when I was clearing out his things from what had once been his office, I found a piece of paper addressed to me in his clear but tiny handwriting. It was a poem of sorts not especially well written for a man so well read but for some reason I believe it has had a profound effect on me and my outlook on life, in general. I haven’t understood anything, but I am a lot calmer now than ever before. I suppose, I guess, I think, that it’s time to ramble on.

To Henry Littleworth.

At least you see that you can’t see
What all these things, mean to me
And even if you did
You won’t understand

So walk with me to walk with me
To places where we want to be
Where they lie hid
Beneath the golden sand

Far away from army men
Business men think what they can
but can they really think
like you and I?

Groping in the light like blind
Hoping to grab what they find
But will they ever laugh
Before they die?

The river carries out your dead to sea
With expressions of utmost glee
The rocks erode
With timeless subtlety

And time will take us back again
To start from where we first began
So think no more just let it go.
Time will show, you the door.

Much love,
C


(dedicated to szm and dph {if either of them read this, the former will know the latter will not})