Utopian Dreams
This is the future that people of a certain political persuasion want.
The city I once knew as home is
Teetering on the edge of radioactive oblivion
A three-hundred thousand degree baptism by nuclear fire
I'm not sorry, we had it coming
A surge of white-hot atonement will be our wake up call
Tech Noir, Gunship
Foreword: To enhance the mood of this story, listen to the song below before, or while, you read.
Liquid guitar lines wash over the crowd as Trailer Trash Tracys’ Candy Girl pours out of the speakers.
11 o’clock and my heart beat stops, my candy girl
He spies her through the sweaty crush of people swaying along to the hypnotic rhythm. She’s slim, blonde, and utterly angelic.
Lose yourself right, your dying wouldn’t end the stares
The pulsing neon lights accentuate her unadulterated radiance. He approaches her apprehensively, knowing he doesn’t stand a chance, but still compelled to meet her.
11 o’clock, I hope she’s coming out of church
She turns towards him, and he freezes in place. She flashes him a dazzling smile, waves him over. Her reassurance makes him uncharacteristically bold. He introduces himself, she reciprocates.
We’ll take our time and I’m still here, my candy girl
Within moments they’re entwined on the dance floor, their bodies moving in sync with the seductive music. He’s not a particularly good dancer, but she is, and she guides him with patience and generosity.
The song ends and the slinky bassline of The Maine’s Lost in Nostalgia immediately starts to thud over the immaculate sound system.
Don’t you get lost in nostalgia, no
Their bodies press closer together as the magnetic groove propels them along.
Turn something softer and lighter, yeah
He slides his hands confidently around her waist and she reaches back to hook her arms around his neck. The song is over much too soon and they take a moment to catch their breath as the last notes fade out.
It isn’t long before the staccato riffing of Rock & Roll Queen by The Subways fires up the crowd. He thinks to himself how odd it is that these are all songs he knows well. Almost as if they were plucked from his brain. In his experience, dance club music is usually an amorphous blob of overproduced, over-synthesized bass, booming at migraine inducing levels of volume.
You are the sun
You are the only one
She leans in close to him, brushes her lips against his.
My heart is blue
My heart is blue for you
His alarm blares with a squall that's akin to an air raid siren and he jolts awake.
“I should’ve known that was too good to be true,” he grunts as he rolls off the threadbare cot that is his bed. He stands, stretches, and flushes the sleep breath out of his mouth with a few swishes of the disinfectant solution that’s deposited next to his decrepit sink every morning.
“Good morning, attendees,” a synthetically feminine voice chirps cheerfully over the loudspeaker. “It’s another beautiful day here at our Camp of Education on Various Individual Lifestyles. We hope that you have had a good night’s rest. We have so many fun and inspiring activities planned for you today.”
He lets out a harsh bark of sarcastic laughter. He’s heard this message countless times. Always the same fraudulent voice. Always the same fraudulent words. Has it been months? Years? He’s lost track of how long he’s been an attendee.
In his thirty plus years on this miserable planet, the one thing he’s learned is that people want to be lied to. No matter how obvious the lie is, or how easy the truth is to figure out, most people will happily settle for being gullible drones. Eating metaphorical excrement with an obsequious grin: I know you’re lying to me. You know you’re lying to me. You know that I know you’re lying to me. But see what a good little lackey I am? See how obediently I devour this scat?
That was how he ended up here. Too many blatant lies glibly accepted as unquestionable truth. Too many people turning a blind eye to the obvious endgame.
“Please join us in our scenic outdoor dining area for a delicious and nutritious breakfast that is prepared with the helpful guidance of our scientific experts,” the genial Voice of the New World Omniparty pipes up once again. The door to his cell slides open and he steps out into a colorless, concrete corridor.
He leans on a railing and looks out over Charleston Harbor. Four miles away, across the shimmering swell of the river, are the decimated remains of the city itself. The people desperate to endlessly relitigate the Civil War had finally struck the ultimate blow for progress by demolishing what was probably the most important city for the Confederacy.
They were perfectly happy to leave Fort Sumter intact, though.
He can imagine the gaggle of bureaucrats smugly congratulating themselves on their scheme to convert the flashpoint of the Civil War into a prison for the NWO’s political enemies.
“Breakfast is served,” the Voice announces, her ebullient tones reverberating off the concrete edifice, rolling out across the harbor. He sighs, reluctantly abandons his overlook, and seats himself with the hundreds of other attendees as they prepare to choke down whatever dismal mush the experts have concocted today.
As he musters the fortitude to take his first bite, he’s slightly jostled by the person sitting to his left. An irritated barrage of expletives fills his mind, the words forming on his tongue, but the anger melts away as soon as his blazing eyes take in the perpetrator.
7 o'clock and my heart beat stops, my candy girl
She’s slim, blonde, and utterly angelic. The drab, dingy jumpsuit that is standard issue attendee attire does nothing to dull her unadulterated radiance.
Worn out cry, can she shout and still be heard
She flashes him a dazzling smile. He introduces himself, she reciprocates.
7 o'clock and my heart beat stops, my candy girl
She’s one of the newer attendees, brought in maybe a week ago. He’s seen her around, but never spoken to her before now.
“I dreamt about you last night.” Her words astonish him. Compared to the counterfeit femininity of the NWO’s Aural Avatar, her voice is vibrant and celestial.
“Y-you dreamt about m-me?” he manages to stutter. “I dreamt about you too. Why is that, do you think?”
“Because I know who you are, and together, we’re going to bring their world crashing down.” She reaches into her jumpsuit and pulls out a small, rectangular object. He sucks in his breath as he realizes what she’s holding.
A detonator.
She takes his hand in hers, still smiling her incandescent smile, and boldly presses the detonation switch.
Afterword: To enhance the impact of this story, listen to the song below after you read.
If you enjoyed reading my Thoughts, consider showing your appreciation by helping to make my dream of quitting my day job a reality.
I can see the whole thing like a movie. And of course I spotified the music afterwards.
There a sequel or something?