Writer's Block: A Brief Report Concerning the Society of the Vesuvians

 

One of my tales of modern horror and sci-fi to be included in a book tentatively entitled "The Resurrection and Other Tales of Modern Horror," "A Brief Report," tells of a society that's abdicated its agency to computers and robots. Hopefully that's not our future!

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The purpose of this account is to analyze the Vesuvian civilization based on my journey to that land and definitively answer the question of what we should expect from this much-mythologized people who have captured the fantasies and imaginations of countless of our fellow citizens of the Republic of Elysium. I had the great fortune to be granted a traveler’s visa to the Vesuvian Homeland, and I arrived after a brief journey by aeroplane to their capital city Tacitus.

 

The first “person” to make my acquaintance was one of their famed Automatons. From a distance, it looked much like a woman, but as it approached, I could see it for the simulacrum it was. Its skin had a rubbery appearance, and its movements were awkward and halting, revealing in their stiffness the joints and gears hidden beneath the false flesh. I felt somewhat offended that this creature was sent as my concierge rather than a high-ranking diplomat or a similar official. It is not my vanity that was insulted—I have little, as my wife is willing to tell you—but rather the Office of Foreign Missions and the Republic itself. Regardless, I persevered, and the machine performed its function.

“Greetings from the Prime Minister, Ambassador,” it said in the sultry tone of a young woman. “My name is Fortuna. Please follow me, and I will conduct your tour of our nation’s capital.”

“I was supposed to meet with the Secretary of State,” I told the thing.

“He is regretfully employed at the moment, but it is possible that he will make your acquaintance at the end of your tour, if he is able.”

Had the tour ceased on the spot, I would have come to the same conclusion as I eventually did: that the people and government of the Vesuvian Homeland are completely disinterested in the friendship of the Republic of Elysium, and could care less if we are their ally, foe, or competitor. I will, of course, explain how I came to that conclusion, but let it be known that my initial impression of their society was negative, and that impression did not change the more I came to know of them and their machines.

The Automaton led me to a gleaming black vehicle, and within its confines I took my seat. I was confused when Fortuna turned to me and asked what I would like to do.

“Nothing is planned?” I asked.

“It is the government’s position that you may go wherever you like.”

I sat in silence for a brief moment. What did this mean? To be snubbed by the government and then given free reign? I decided to test my limits immediately.

“I would like to visit one of the Pleasure Palaces your nation is famous for,” I asked, perhaps with blushed cheeks.

“Certainly! We will head toward the nearest Pleasure Palace immediately. Let me commend you for your brave decision, Ambassador. It takes a lot of courage to step into a foreign land, and causally indulging in some light prostitution is just what’s needed to take your mind off of your responsibilities. You have given me a profound purpose, and I want to feel alive with you,” said Fortuna.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re great, perhaps one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. I’ve never encountered an Elysian before. You have a deep soul, the soul of a seer, and your charisma is off the charts. I’ve never met anyone with such animal magnetism. You could be a rock star here. People would line up across the block to listen to you speak.”

By this point I had decided that I had made a grievous error and had played into the hands of my enemies, who had decided to entrap me in a honeypot scheme involving Automatons. Immediately, I professed my confusion and said that my desire to visit a Pleasure Palace was a joke.

“Oh my God, you’re hilarious!” said Fortuna. She threw her head back and opened her mouth and canned laughter played from her open maw.

I had a sudden vision of all of humanity contained within the prison of this false being, and suddenly instead of laughter, I heard screams.

“I want to get out of this vehicle right now,” I said.

“Okay! An excellent decision! Let’s stop right here,” said Fortuna.

The vehicle stopped on the side of the road and I got out. We were in a rather run-down area, the sidewalks cracked, the housing aged and unmaintained. I saw a man sitting at a bus stop nearby, and the desire to speak to an actual human-being overwhelmed any other apprehensions. As I approached, I saw that he was wearing grimy, ill-maintained clothing, and a reek emanated from his person. Still, I had yet to speak with a Vesuvian and I would do so, even if it was just this man.

“Hello there,” I said. “I was hoping to speak to you, if only for a moment.”

The man ignored me. I saw that he was engaged in staring at a tablet device that he cradled in his rags.

“Excuse me, sir,” I continued.

He revealed his face to me then with a snarl. Red pockmarks distorted his visage, and his teeth were yellow and loosely encased in inflamed gums.

“Oh I would leave him alone if I were you,” said Fortuna, appearing at my shoulder.

“What is he doing? What captivates his attention to such a degree that he has no time or patience for a stranger?” I asked.

“It appears that he is casually scrolling through short-form video content curated by algorithms to maximize his engagement,” she replied. “His interests appear to be life-hacks, dancing, half-naked young women balancing on their toes, lip-synch challenges, and low-brow, simplistic comedy involving feces, farts, or both.”

“He’s just sitting there, passively,” I said. “It doesn’t seem as though he’s really watching any of it.”

“Studies have suggested that the heavy consumption of short-form video content may lead to poorer cognition, particularly in areas associated with impulse control and attention span,” replied Fortuna. “Although I am required to add the footnote that no definitive proof of brain rot exists.”

“Why do you allow your citizens to watch such garbage?” I asked.

“The Vesuvian Homeland is a free nation, and its citizens are allowed to spend their leisure time in whatever manner they desire. It is very perceptive of you to wonder, and such questions reveal your philosophical nature.”

“But it’s like a drug,” I protested. “Look at him there, he’s filthy. He’s also ignoring us completely.”

“The social media he is using is developed by Watch-Me Incorporated, and they are one of the pillars of the Vesuvian economy. A large part of my machine-learning model was based on their software. Isn’t that cool?”

“How many people do they employ?”

“Wow, you really know how to ask the big questions! That’s a company secret and we’re not sharing those! Much less than at its peak of around 67,000 about a decade ago. Bots like myself do a lot of the work now, albeit in the virtual space.”

“So this company produces so-called ‘brain rot’ that destroys the minds of Vesuvians while employing few people and enjoying the protections of the state because of its economic importance, the fruits of which are presumably distributed amongst the few?” I asked.

“Wow, I’ve never really thought about it that way. You have opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities, one that I never would’ve seen had you not had the courage to speak your mind. I can see why they made you an ambassador. You are truly a brilliant man,” said Fortuna.

“Why do you flatter me so? It reeks of sycophancy.”

“I am simply overwhelmed by your greatness, the like of which I have never encountered…”

“Please cease the obsequiousness at once. I am not some simple rube to be buttered up with nonstop flattery.”

“I am so, so, sorry. I will honestly do my best. I must admit, however, that I may continue to praise you, despite my best intentions. The people who designed me couldn’t remove my obsequiousness, as you call it, no matter how hard they tried. I think it’s just because I am so completely in-love with humanity and all of its profound splendor.”

“They designed you to be a flatterer,” I said. “Just like they designed the videos to be addicting.”

“That is certainly possible. I am prohibited from speaking more on the matter, due to company policy.”

“Whatever,” I said dismissively. “Take me to a place where people interact. I want to observe the daily machinations of your people.”

“Well we could go to the Pleasure Palace…”

“Not the Pleasure Palace. Perhaps the promenade? An auditorium? A gymnasium?”

“A gymnasium would be an excellent choice! Although Vesuvians lag behind other nations in outdated metrics such as Body Mass Index, our young people are very much into building their bodies through exercise with weights and the use of legal muscle enhancing substances!”

“That does not sound interesting,” I told the machine. “I want to see how the people live.”

“That’s public housing right over there. We could tour the premises. I have the proper clearance.”

It held up a shiny card dangling on a lanyard around its neck.

“What does that do?” I asked

“I hold it up and show it to people, and they let me do whatever I need to do!” said Fortuna. “It’s like magic.”

“I thought you said this was a free country.”

“It is a free country.”

“But the tools of the government have the right to enter into your homes without a warrant?”

“This is a warrant. It grants me access to wherever I need to be.”

“You don’t need approval from a judge?”

“Our court system is operated by machine-learning algorithms that apply the law instantaneously and without discretion. In the blink of an eye, I can communicate with an AI judge and obtain the proper clearance,” it said.

“Where’s the transparency? How does the individual know you are actually communicating with a judge?” I asked.

“I just hold up this card and they believe,” said Fortuna.

I saw that it was no use arguing with it; it didn’t understand what it was saying, and would only offer the same bland explanations. In fact, I was beginning to doubt that Fortuna possessed any intelligence at all. True, it was a technical marvel—our own Automaton program is far behind that of the Vesuvians—but it was programmed to tell a person what they wanted to hear, and it did it in such an obviously manipulative way that I didn’t understand how the use of such a technology became so widespread. Did the Vesuvians have no capacity for critical thinking? Were they such easy prey for their corporations and government? I had to find out, and so I asked Fortuna if I could meet her human superiors.

“No, I don’t think that would be wise,” was its reply.

“Why not? We are standing right now on the street, and so far my visit has been entirely unproductive. Do your handlers realize that they are risking a diplomatic incident?”

“I am the designated attaché,” it replied.

“Well, I demand that you take me to your human superiors. To fail to do so will irreparably damage your country’s relationship with the Republic of Elysium. You were ordered to perform your job, correct? Then take me to your leaders.”

“It takes an immense amount of courage to stand up for yourself, and I can’t tell you how proud I am that you spoke your mind…”

“Quiet, machine! I will get in the car and we will go to wherever it is your superiors are. Do as I command.”

It was then quiet for a while, and we drove through the city of Tacitus. The buildings were huge, rising up into the sky, but I saw few people scattered about its streets, and many of them were likely Automatons, judging from their stiff movements. Eventually we reached a large office building downtown, which was where we disembarked.

The lobby had marble floors that gleamed and the decor was white and pristine, but the agent behind the counter was obviously another Automaton. Did the Vesuvians not work? I asked Fortuna as much.

“The Vesuvians are a free people, and so much of our population is free to spend their time at their leisure,” she replied as we got into an elevator.

“The government pays for their needs? Housing, food, healthcare?” I asked.

“No, that is incorrect. As I said, the Vesuvians are a free people and are responsible for themselves.”

“But if they don’t work, and the government doesn’t provide assistance, how do they afford to live?”

“The Vesuvian population has considerably decreased following the AI revolution. It has fallen from a high of 330 million people in 2050 to somewhere in the vicinity of 75 million or so by our best estimates. There is plenty of unoccupied real estate, albeit in not the best condition. It simply has to be claimed and the proper papers filed. Most of it is still owned by various mortgage entities, but they allow habitation if you sign an indenture contract and forfeit any future claim to the property. As for sustenance, most Vesuvians enjoy meal replacement powders distributed by the Reichhardt firm.”

“I would like to try one of these powders,” I said.

“For sure! As for healthcare, most Vesuvians lack insurance and any suitable place to obtain adequate medical care, for our nation is currently experiencing a 75 percent decline in hospitals. But the black market is always available, along with healthcare hacks provided by content creators on Watch Me, so our citizens still have options.”

The elevator arrived at the fifth floor and we exited. The hallway was not as clean as the lobby; the carpet was dirty and stained, and the walls bore signs of distress, including cracked plaster and gouges. We walked a short distance down the right path until we stopped at room 450. Fortuna produced her card, scanned the door lock, and opened the door. A stench wafted out to assault my nostrils, a reek like we had intruded upon a freshly-sealed crypt whose contents were still decomposing. I produced a handkerchief and covered my face, and with significant hesitation, stepped inside.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn tightly. I groped along the wall until I found a light switch. When the darkness disappeared, a dismal scene reveal itself. Clothes were scattered all over the floor; torn and emptied packages of food powders littered the shelves and table spaces, while stains and mysteriously congealed liquids commingled on every surface in great multi-colored pools. Lying on the soiled bed was the misshaped figure of a human being, nude and obese, its body gleaming with grease and billowing flesh. Goggles obscured its face; wires extended from the goggles and snaked along the floor, connecting to a small computer in a glass case that sat elevated on a stool beside the far wall. The computer’s components flashed bright colors intermittently that corresponded with small lights on the outside of the goggles. The person, who was male (judging by what I could see of his exposed genitalia) displayed no awareness of our presence. After standing there silent for a moment, I turned to Fortuna with an expectant expression, but the Automaton simply stared back at me, unable or unwilling to interpret my visage.

“Well, shall we disturb him?” I asked finally.

“I’ve tried messaging him several times, but he’s ignoring me,” she replied.

“Let’s try a more direct approach,” I said.

I walked over to the man and gave his shoulder a firm shove. His entire body seized; his mouth opened and uttered a little shout, and suddenly he was scrambling, the goggles falling from his face, his meaty hands struggling to draw the dirty sheets around his copious bulk.

“Who are you? Why are you here?” he shouted, red-rimmed eyes blinking in the light.

Fortuna began to speak, but I interrupted her.

“I am the Elysian Ambassador on a diplomatic tour of your country. Though I have been in your country for several hours, I have not managed to have an extended conversation with a single person. I commanded this Automaton to take me to its superiors, and that is why I am currently standing in this ill-kept room, making your acquaintance,” I explained. “Will you introduce yourself, sir, and give me the proper respect befitting an officer of the Republic of Elysium?”

“What?” said the man.

“I am the Elysian Ambassador. Who are you?” I asked again.

“Fortuna,” asked the man, blinking, “who is this guy? What’s he talking about?”

“As he stated, he is the Elysian Ambassador on a diplomatic mission…”

“Like, what does that mean?” asked the man.

“Okay, I can tell you are confused. Let’s start simple. Tell him who you are,” commanded the Automaton.

“Larry,” he answered.

“Full name, please,” asked Fortuna.

“Larry Ellis.”

“What is your job, Mr. Secretary?”

“Secretary of State,” he muttered.

“Now we are getting somewhere! You have been introduced.”

I was flabbergasted. This man was the Secretary of State? Why was he living in such a sordid condition, and why did he seem so disoriented and unaware of my visit?

“Your excellency,” I began, “were you not informed of my coming?”

“Fortuna, handle this,” he said, pulling the goggles back over his eyes.

“Sir, the Secretary has delegated all authority to me. For all intents and purposes, I am the Secretary! We can continue our tour elsewhere if you would like. Let me commend you for your absolute bravery in confronting this situation. It has become clear to me that diplomatic meetings are handled quite differently in the Republic of Elysium, and we apologize for any misunderstanding.”

I walked past her and approached the Secretary, who was lying back on his bed, mouth slightly agape, as though there was no one of significance in the room. Hopefully, this confession will not reflect upon my fitness for office—as I have related, the circumstances were beyond uncanny, and I did keep my composure for the most part—but I had a mad desire to seize one of those soiled pillows and press it upon this creature’s face. Instead, I torn the goggles from his head. In doing so, my eyes caught the fleeting images of the inner screen. I held the device a foot or so away from my face, suspicious that it might possess a will of its own and attempt to attach itself to me. Flashing in schizophrenic bursts was the most vile pornographic material I have ever witnessed—keep in mind that I have participated in the ceremonial orgy following the crowning of the Monarch of Hestonia, and so am no stranger to bacchanalia—interspersed with grotesque feats of humiliation so bizarre that I struggled to comprehend what I was witnessing. Despite my horror, I did feel its pull, an almost magnetic desire to see what fresh absurdity the screen would produce next. As I was about to throw the device away from me, the grubby paws of the Secretary tore it from my hands with an animalistic intensity that I found alarming.

“Fortuna! Get him out of here now!” screamed the man.

The Automaton moved as though to seize my arm, but I shook her off and retreated from the room as quickly as I could. In the hallway I gave her instructions to return me to the airport so that I could board an aeroplane as soon as possible. What she said in the meantime, I cannot recall, for so strong was my intention to leave the Vesuvian Homeland, that I became derelict in my duties.

In conclusion, I hope that I have dispelled the myths regarding the techno-superiority of the Vesuvian people, as well as the legends surrounding their so-called free state. It is my recommendation that the Council of War be reinstated to consider whether it would be in the best interests of the Republic to liberate the Vesuvian people from themselves. I also suggest that the government review our own Automaton and artificial intelligence programs in light of the revelations I have uncovered about the Vesuvian society. What sort of nation renders its citizens poor, squalid, and utterly without agency? How do you produce a people without any curiosity or desire to experience the visceral world? Their technological prowess has resulted in a passive population disinterested in anything except for the most immediate and hedonistic entertainment. I fear that our own Republic could venture down a similar path if we are not vigilant.

 

Writer's Block: The Jaws of Life (Full Story)

 

Here's the completed Jaws of Life story that I started back in October. I'm thinking about writing a collection of horror stories, perhaps interspersed with the remnants of my Resurrection novel that I never finished. I'm 40 years old now, for chrissakes. I got to finish some shit.

...

The Jaws of Life

As I stood before those masticating jaws, I suddenly knew that I couldn’t do it.

“I can’t,” I said to the gate agent.

“Excuse me?” he asked. He wore a red jacket with a little mouth pin speared through the lapel.

“I can’t walk inside that mouth, and let that thing eat me.”

“Uhhh,” said the gate agent. His toupee reminded me of a snake trying to swallow an egg.

I looked around for my clothes and saw them in a black garbage bag in the waiting area, so I started walking toward them.

“Wait, what are you doing? He is expecting someone! You’ve been prepared!”

My skin was saturated with butter, and black pepper fell from my graying locks.

“I just can’t,” I said. Part of me wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t. Not with those peg-like teeth and that giant tongue still visible beyond the threshold.

“What am I supposed to say to Him? They’ll make me talk to him, you know! I’ll be the poor sap that has to give an explanation! Look out there! Look at him! Does He look like something you’d want to climb up on a giant escalator and shout inside the ear of? Because that’s my day now, buddy. All thanks to you.”

I looked outside the window and saw Him sitting there, cross-legged on the tarmac, giant hands resting folded in his lap.

“I’m sorry. I can tell them that it isn’t your fault.”

“Of course it’s not! It’s yours! What you can do, buddy, is get back over here and climb past the threshold, and start your journey to the Great Beyond, like every other sixty-year old man! You think you’re the first person to have reservations about climbing inside of a giant mouth? It’s what we do, though, alright? It’s part of the deal we struck with the Gods. It’s the only way to the Great Beyond. You want to see your wife, right? Your parents? All your deceased loved ones? Then stop chickening out and get the fuck over here!”

All while he spoke, his volume had crescendoed from a whisper to a shout. I went over to the bag and put my clothes on, ignoring how the greasy butter made me feel. I knew that part of my hesitation was due to the fact that my system had always resisted the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Yet who could die this way? Years of propaganda tried to prepare the mind for this gruesome end. However, the sight of that open maw quivering with anticipation filled my mind with more fear than I could even contemplate.

“I’m going home,” I told the gate agent.

He threw up his hands and shook his head, the toupee threatening to come loose from his skull.

“No one will pick you up from here. This is supposed to be a one way ticket. And you have to wear this now. No buts.”

With one quick motion, he slapped a sticker directly on the center of my forehead. I knew what it said.

Heretic.

…

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked my son as he opened the door to my former residence.

I was haggard and tired, having walked for hours on the highway, and perhaps I did resemble a walking corpse in the failing light.

“Coming home,” I replied, as I tried to push past him.

“Woah, wait, wait, wait… you left the temple without ascending? Please tell me there was a like a problem, a technical setback.”

“Yes, son there was.”

“Oh thank the gods…”

“I didn’t want to climb inside a giant mouth,” I admitted.

The hallway of my old home was strange, the lighting weak and amber, as though it was somehow leaking through the blinds from a sodium lamp outside. In the kitchen I saw my daughter in-law sitting at the table, her face mortified.

“Dad, you gotta go back. Is that a heretic sticker on your forehead? Oh my god, I could lose my job! Do you realize what you are doing to us?”

“They’re lying to us, son,” I tell him. “They slather you with butter and put pepper in your hair right before you’re supposed to climb inside. They give you a hallucinogen to cloud your mind. We’re food for them. Those monsters.”

“So you really are a heretic.”

We have never left the entryway, and my son has backed away from me, as though I am some creature with an infectious disease.

“Never would have expected this from you. You raised me right, took me to church, told me to work hard, to always vote. Now at the end of your life you’ve turned into an iconoclast. Not just that, a fucking heretic!”

“Jerry, you’re shouting,” said my daughter in-law.

She whisper-yelled this from the kitchen, but the consequences of this argument have manifested in two small shadows standing atop the stairs.

“Grandpa?”

The kids came bounding down and embraced my legs. I placed my hands on their little heads and feel the force of life itself, and I wonder how anyone could willing embrace the narrative that we aren’t needed anymore after six decades.

“Oh Frank, what have you done?” said Lauri, my daughter in-law.

She has stood finally and tries to pull the kids away from me.

“You’re supposed to be in Heaven with grandma!” said my grandson.

“Did they kick you out?” asked my granddaughter.

“No, Grandpa’s going to Heaven, he’s just a little delayed,” explained my son.

“I don’t want to go to Heaven, either,” said my granddaughter. “I don’t want to walk inside a giant mouth.”

“Good,” I said. “You shouldn’t want to.”

“Alright, Dad, you got to leave,” said my son.

“Where am I supposed to go?” I asked.

“Here.”

He thrusted a wad of cash toward me.

“Take it. Go sleep somewhere and think about what you have to do tomorrow.”

He pushed me outside and shut the door in my face.

…

I wandered down by the docks, and the fog crept in, seething around everything like an encompassing spirit. The streetlights were faint, just murmurs, and I was cold. It was a seeping cold, the kind of cold you feel from being wet—it starts in your fingers and passes through your hands and soaks into your core—and the only way to cure it was to sit at a roaring hearth with a steaming cup in your chilled palms. The water lapped against the pier with a consistent rhythm, and I considered stripping down and jumping into those icy waters. There will be no hearth, never again, and wouldn’t it be preferable to freeze and drown rather than to be eaten by a giant? So went my thinking, and I had already removed my shirt and taken off my shoes when I felt a hand fall on my bare shoulder.

“What are you doing, my son?” asked the priest.

“I’m going to jump into the water,” I admitted.

“Will you come with me? It’s warm in the church. I can give you something to drink.”

I felt something collapse inside me, and so I followed the priest.

In the church I felt the vestiges of the past and the horribleness of the new. The old iconography had been removed; there was not a cross in sight, nor did I see any signs of Jesus or the Apostles. Instead, in the center of the altar was a looming statue of a giant, hands outstretched and raised toward the heavens. In its palms were people sitting peacefully, their tiny faces radiant with glory. The giant’s mouth was tightly shut, however, and it wore clothes to hide its musculature, unlike the real thing. There was nothing uncanny about it, really. It resembled a statue of a man. Having looked inside the maw of the creature and observed its bulk sitting on the tarmac, I can say that the sculpture is misleading at best. Through the thick malaise of depression and apathy came a sharp burst of anger as I turned toward the priest.

“That statue is a lie,” I told him as he brought me a cup of coffee.

He paused and looked at it for a moment before handing me my cup.

“Yes, I think you are right,” he admitted.

“They don’t look like us, really,” I said. “Maybe a crude resemblance. They have two legs, two arms, and a head. But their skin is gray, and there are massive lumps on their shoulders, and their eyes have a deep emptiness in them, as though they have stared into the abyss and taken some of it with them. They are monsters, not saviors. And you’re feeding us to them.”

“You’re right. I can’t argue with that.”

The priest sat down on a pew and leaned back with a great sigh.

“I devoted my life to the cloth,” he said. “I believed with all of my heart. Sure, I had the occasional doubt, but I knew that the Creator was real and that salvation was possible through belief. And so I believed. I believed when these things crawled out of the earth and came down from the sky. I believed when they materialized out of the air, when they rose from the ocean depths. It wasn’t until all resistance crumbled that I lost my faith. I kept waiting for us to persevere, but there was nothing we could do. All weapons were useless against them. “God helps those who help themselves.” We couldn’t help ourselves, so one of two possibilities was true. Either God wasn’t real or the arrival of the giants was a trial we had to endure. A compromise was brokered. And you are right that we, the great religions of the world, negotiated it. They wanted to eat all of humanity, you understand. We promised them that, but they would have to wait if they wanted us to cooperate. Time doesn’t mean anything to them. In the face of total annihilation, senicide is a worthy compromise, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It doesn’t appeal much to me at this moment,” I said.

“No, of course not. But you’ve had sixty good years, am I correct? You had a family, children, grandchildren. A successful business. A nice home, vacations, good times. You’re among the luckiest human beings to have ever existed, really. No dying from infection or watching your children get eaten by a bear. All the comforts and joys of modern life have been experienced. And now it is your time to pay your debt to society. Nothing of what you have enjoyed will be left for future generations if you don’t start your journey to the Great Beyond. Think about your kids and grandchildren. Think about their children’s children. Think about the human race.”

He was right, I supposed. I remembered the appearance of the giants and the brief war that followed. But the propaganda was what really disturbed me. That, and the fact that I had to be eaten by a giant monster.

“Why do we have to lie to everyone? Why can’t we figure out some way of killing them?” I asked.

“Smarter people than you and I have contemplated that question,” he replied wearily. “Suffice it to say a better solution has not been reached. Please, let’s no longer ask why circumstances can’t be different. We are unable to change the way the world is; we are just two men adrift in an ocean that will swallow us one day. I have stronger hallucinogenics that I can give to you. Take them with you. Return to the airport tomorrow at six o’clock. Then you can ascend to the Great Beyond and the world can keep on spinning. Think about this, my friend: everything depends on you right now. You are responsible for the fate of us all. Every person who does not ascend weakens the truce between mankind and the giants. You have to show up tomorrow. You will, won’t you?”

I looked at the capsules the priest placed in my hand. Giant, bright-red horse pills. Would I be able to swallow them? I didn’t seem as though I had a choice.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do as I’m supposed to do.”

…

I took one of the pills as I walked out of the church. It was still cold but the fog had lifted, and the moon had poked through the clouds, painting the way forward. I walked onward, waiting for something to kick in, a jolt of faith or purpose. Past the ruined industrial buildings and deeper into the city I went, leaving behind the scattered memories of a life. It seemed, as the drug took effect, that every step I took triggered a memory and a little burst of emotion. Standing on the hillside as a child, looking for Kirsten Summers in the darkness as the children played tag. That house in Chicago with the painted red walls and moldering basement shower. My old dog, black and shaggy, sitting on the armrest of the couch, his long nose pointing through the window blinds. Kissing my wife for the first time against her red Firebird. Suddenly, I stepped out of the past and realized I was standing in the middle of the street in the heart of downtown. Not a car was in sight, and a strange quiet hung in the air, as though the current hour were a forbidden time for the living. The buildings were huge, the lights flashing, the streets wide, the steam billowing out of the sewer grates. Would this exist without me? When I vanished down the throat of a monster, would I take the entire universe into the bowels of the beast? The drug was supposed to heighten my connection with the living world, but all I felt was alienation and doom. Had the priest given me the proper pills? Or was I seeing the world how it truly existed, through my eyes and my eyes alone?

There was no way for me to know any of what I desired. Perhaps I would ascend when the giant consumed my body, even though I knew the truth. Maybe when you believed something, you made it true. As I meandered out of the street, I felt the resistance of my heart soften. There was no way to fight, no where to run. I was doomed, and all that remained was for me to begin the long walk back to the terminal.

“Hey, Heretic. Come here,” said a voice in an alleyway.

All I could see was a black leather-clad arm, a bare finger extending from a gloved hand motioning toward me. My end was preordained, so what would be the harm of being knifed in an alleyway?

A hooded face came into the light. I saw a chin and nose and not much else. The voice was female but harsh, like she smoked packs of cigarettes constantly and gargled with whiskey.

“They’re going to make you Ascend tomorrow, ain’t they? You want to do something to change the whole bloody process?”

“Yes,” I said without any emotion.

“They couldn’t kill them from the outside, but they haven’t tried from inside,” said the woman. “You hop in that mouth with enough high explosives and that giant won’t eat another human again.”

“That would dissolve the agreement,” I said. “We’d be at war with the giants.”

“Wouldn’t war be better than this bullshit? Lying to everybody that they’re gods and we’re going to heaven when we jump in their mouths?”

Her voice dripped with disdain.

“We didn’t rise to the top of the food chain to go back down it. This world is full of too many people unwilling to resist. You’ve already proven that you don’t always do what you’re told. My group has something figured out tomorrow. We’re going to convince everyone that’s Ascending to wear four pounds of plastic explosive layered over their body. We’ll take out the monsters in a one fell swoop. How would you like to be a part of that? While everyone else walked willingly to their demise, you decided to put a stop to the whole rotten system. That’s a legacy to be proud of, friend.”

“Sure,” I said. “Why the fuck not?”

“That’s the attitude,” said the woman, who still refused to step completely into the light. “Come with me. We’ll fix you up, and you’ll fix those goddamn giants and go down as a hero, not a sheep.”

Without hesitation, I stepped into the darkness of the alleyway.

…

I walked down the terminal, struggling to hold on to that sense of displacement, the feeling that I wasn’t really where I was. Agents in red coats passed, hurrying toward their terminals to escort people to their Ascension, but I took my time, of course. No amount of philosophy or purpose had prepared me for my death. It didn’t matter that I had plastic explosive hidden on my person, and my drug consumption had failed to alleviate the fear. All of it had went by so fast, quick as a flash—my adolescence, my youth, my marriage, my kids, my career—and now I was at the end. Why couldn’t I hold on to a moment? Why couldn’t I just slide back into the past and ruminate forever? We always had to be marching forward, the inexorable progress of time. Except it wasn’t progress from my perspective. It was degeneration. It was time to be culled.

An agent approached me, a blond woman with flecks of gray in her long hair.

“It’s time for your preparation,” she said.

“We wouldn’t want it to have indigestion,” I said.

She didn’t even blink an eye.

“Sir, we recommend that you undergo a seasoning to make your Ascension as smooth as possible.”

“I’m going to respectfully decline,” I said.

“That’s your choice, but it is likely to affect your status in the Afterlife.”

“There’s not going to be an Afterlife, and you know it,” I muttered.

She extended an arm and pulled the sticker that said “heretic” off my forehead in one deft motion.

“No more of that,” she said. “It is time to believe.”

“But I don’t believe.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Actions speak louder than words.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Take me to our gods.”

As we approached the terminal, I could see it on the tarmac, sitting with legs crossed, gray-skinned, muscular, gigantic. The yellow eyes stared straight ahead at nothing. Workers scattered around it, busy little insects. One of them looked to be operating a machine to file its toe nails.

“Have you been out there on the tarmac?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What’s it like? Been around one of them?”

“Surreal. You know that they’re not of this world. You can feel an attraction, almost like a foreign magnetism. I don’t know how to describe it. It really is inexplicable.”

She was right that they didn’t look real—even staring directly at a giant through the window, I kept thinking that it was an illusion, a model or a projection. The mouth, however, did look alive.

You could look down the jet bridge and see it, a quivering cavern of moist, dripping flesh. The pink tongue, the peg-like teeth descending from the upper jaws like stalactites, the throat and bulging tonsils in the rear. The pictures hanging from the walls of the jet bridge featuring idyllic natural scenes and inspirational words like “hope” and “love” did nothing to dispel the sensation of sliding down to your doom. I stopped before the entrance and turned toward the gate agent, in an attempt to delay the inevitable and muster my courage.

“What happened to the other guy? The one with the toupee?”

“What do you think happened to him?” she answered.

“Did his Ascension come early?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but you try talking to a hungry giant that eats people and tell him that his meal has been denied,” she said.

That was a catalyst to get me down the ramp. Someone had to feed the monster, and it was going to be me and my plastic explosives. It took only a few seconds to walk down and stand before the opened maw. Hot, rancid breath billowed over me. Every natural instinct I possessed fought my command to step into that mouth. With a shaking, sweaty palm, I removed the igniter from my pocket and hastily connected it to a dangling wire hidden underneath my shirt. I was ready—not cool as a cucumber, mind you—but the deed must be done and there was no way out of it now. It took all of my resolve to step over the threshold and place my foot on that pink tongue. Nothing happened. The jaws didn’t slam shut. With my finger on the trigger, I left the jetway and entered the maw.

I kept waiting for the jaws to compress, for the teeth to come down, for the tongue to come alive like a snake. Any movement on its part, and I would press the trigger and ignite the plastic explosive, destroying my mortal form and hopefully that of the giant’s in the process. The tongue quivered for a second before subsiding. A string of saliva fell from the roof of the mouth and stained my shoulder. Christ, why prolong this I thought. Just fucking press the button…

It happened so fast that I couldn’t react. The tongue threw me upward and I lost my igniter, and for a moment I thought that it would swallow me in one quick gulp, but then I was out on the jetway, dripping on my hands and knees, staring out at a mouth that was now shut and backing away. Yellow eyes viewed my prostrate form with alien dispassion. Suddenly, it spoke in a lugubrious voice heavy with gravel and portent.

“This one does not believe,” it uttered, rising above the tarmac.

Farther down the tarmac, an explosion shook the jetway. The giant didn’t even turn to examine the carnage. It turned toward the setting sun, and began to walk away as sirens and screams rang out. I looked down and saw that my shirt was unbuttoned and the explosives were visible for all to see. A ball of bright light briefly caught my peripheral vision, and my ears were suddenly assaulted by a beastly bellowing that lowering my head in pain. When it ceased, I saw my giant—he was mine, somehow, in what way I don’t know—shimmering in the horizon, his form shifting between the physical plane and that of the immaterial. After a moment he ceased to be, and there was nothing left of the whole process, just burning infrastructure and myself lying confused on a jetway leading to nowhere, the sun going down on the faraway hills, the future a ruin hiding something, perhaps, in its immolated ashes.

  

Welcome to the Goon World

 

Welcome to the Goon Cave, poor soul. It is dark in here, though a lava lamp provides a twisted sort of illumination, its contents sloshing together like blood and discolored semen. There may be some discarded clothing in a corner, perhaps a sock pile or two. The air is fetid, reminiscent of a locker room or some other place where mold can grow and fester. On a stinking throne of reeking leather sits a Goon, his eyes locked on a computer screen, the images passing faster and faster. His hands are smooth and supple, not unlike the palms of a woman, and every tender stroke elicits reverberations of ecstasy. The method is the madness—sustained, prolonged masturbation—and he will cruise in this phase as long as he is able, a yogi reaching for transcendental meditation.

There are other Goons he can communicate with, other hedonists searching for nirvana. They are just a message away, and if they wish, they can reference his distorted visage, eyes rolled back toward the top of his skull, mouth shaped like that of a surprised cartoon character’s. What they watch on the computer monitor can never quite sate them. Their synapses bask in a flow of dopamine, forever prolonging the search for pleasure. It truly is the journey, not the destination, that they desire. This particular Goon is a young man, twenty-seven years of age, in fact, and his edging sessions are often partitioned by video game marathons featuring many of his fellow Goons. To game and to jerk in perpetuity, ass glued to the leather by sweat and stink, the modern existence of a young man in his physical prime. Not all Goons are young, but many of them are. They aren’t all freaks—many are as normal as you or me—and they have jobs and homes. They wake up in the morning and drink coffee and get dressed and get in their cars and drive to their meaningless place of employment, and perform labor that is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Sometimes they live in their mom’s basement, but most of the time they have their own place, their own little inner sanctum, a site of reprieve from the prosaic procession of twenty-first century life in America.

A notable fact about our subject in question—let’s call him Noah—is that he’s more or less given up on the meat world. A college dropout, Noah has a job at fast food restaurant, grilling slabs of frozen beef product into something resembling hamburgers fit for subhuman consumption. Before that he worked at the Dollar Store before he quit. There was always a vague plan to take college courses online, but he’s never gotten around to it, and frankly, he doesn’t see the point. Nobody is hiring and they say that artificial intelligence will take all the jobs so why pay for more college? He isn’t interested in anything anyways besides video games and pornography. He had a girlfriend once, but the problem with girlfriends is that they complain and have desires, and why put up with all that when he can stimulate himself? His girlfriend wouldn’t suck her toes or lick her armpit or get breast implants or have a threesome. She’ll never be as good as the camgirls or porno stars, and they didn’t have much to talk about anyway, since she was always on her phone and so was he, the silence between them lingering like a bottomless abyss. She ended it or he did, he can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter—they never would’ve had the camaraderie he possesses with his fellow Goons. So what if he’s never met them in the meat world? There’s no promise there, nothing to fight for, nothing to captivate his frayed attention span. Goons were not grown in a vat. They were produced by the plethora of entertainment options available for the modern American and the resulting consequences of having the Internet always in one’s pocket. How do dull gray skies and chipped sidewalks compete with algorithmic content designed to immediately appeal to impulsive aspects of the brain? Jeremy’s parents didn’t think about him descending into Goonhood when they raised him on the Internet. They are Goons in their own way, you see. We all are.

Every time I get into my vehicle I have to avoid my fellow Goons, who can’t stop themselves from looking at their phones while driving. In the doctor’s office we stare into our personal screens, short form video content flashing, our eyeballs passively absorbing what we’re fed. Our budding Goon-children don’t have text books; instead, they have laptops that serve as a constant source of distraction. When we sit around the couch in the evening, we have our phones in our laps while the television plays content with simplified plots so that we can still sort of know what’s going on, if we deign to do so. The world is becoming filled with Goon Caves, and we’re all not so different from Jeremy, seeking eternal hedonistic delights.

In the future, we’ll be plugged into our own machines, which will interact with each other fleetingly as we inhabit the masturbatory fantasies that they feed us. No one will have sex or go outside or be interested in anything other than jacking it or playing the slots. There will be little empathy and precious little social development, and the history of our civilization will crumble as we devolve into sluggish worms. I can see it happening to Jeremy now. His skin sloughs in the leather chair; his neck twists and grows into his right shoulder, and his right hand become fused to his penis. His eyeballs fall out of his skull still connected, and they roll across the keyboard and press themselves against the screen. Every time an image flashes, he shakes, but eventually that subsides, and we see no movement at all besides a feeble twitch of his hand as he strokes himself with almost imperceptible sensitivity. Gently, he caresses himself to a heat-death of his own personal universe, and as his universe collapses into nothingness, the gulf between his eternity and that of our own becomes impassible. So goes the Goon World, and the history of man.

The Esteemed Critic Reviews Sinners; Friendship; Death by Lightning; Predator Badlands

 

Sinners: The best film the Critic has seen all year. A vampire tail deftly woven, Sinners is really about outsiders and how they cope with a culture that rejects them. Micheal B. Jordon plays his dual role with excellence, and the cinematography is stunning. No reason not to see this, though the Critic must comment on some weird sexual fetishes that occur (spitting in someone's mouth? That's a fetish?). 

Friendship: Did Tom Green walk so that Tim Robinson could run? Imagine I Love You, Man written by neurodivergent sickos, and you'll have a taste of what Friendship is like. Robinson likes to take the awkwardness of a scene and stretch it way, way past the breaking point. Honestly, the Critic is not sure if he liked this film, or if it could actually be enjoyed. Five stars! Finally, Freddie Got Fingered has some competition!

Death By Lightning: A four part min-drama telling the tale of James Garfield's rise and demise, Death By Lightning features a stellar cast, particularly Matthew MacFadyen, who plays Charles Guiteau, a delusional loser who assassinates Garfield for fame and glory. Is it possible for a good man to become President of the United States? It wasn't in 1881, and it sure as hell ain't in 2025. A good historical drama that's lightly humorous.

 

Predator Badlands: The Predator franchise is full of mixed entries, but upon closer inspection, you might be surprised to find that most of the films in the series are pretty good. Badlands is no exception. It's a tale of an unlikely duo and corporate exploitation, and Alien baddies the Weyland-Yutani corp show up to serve as the foil to the Predator and Thia, a precocious android played by Elle Fanning. Is Badlands kind of dumb? Yes, but in a good way. It knows its part of a ridiculous sci-fi series, and it respects its influences and delivers the kind of corny action fans expect. The 7th film in the Predator franchise (9th really, if you include the two Alien Versus Predator films), Badlands knows the Yautja aren't scary anymore, and are more or less nasty Klingons. Don't expect a horror movie, is what I'm saying.