Welcome to The Baby wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, a creative project by Martin Anton Smith a NZ based creative. In this episode, I read part six of my Dystopian Sci Fi Novella, “Marcel Atkins – The 22nd Century’s Rogue Brain Chip Hacker” Lets begin!
While Marcel was doing the dull leg work before the exciting stuff would ramp up. He was re-studying the Viceroy Brain Chip coding schematics. His mind started to daydream back to that unique period where the G7 leaders and there military cohorts had been vaporized on the stage before the worlds watching eyes. Looking back he realized that moment was the start of a new ‘acclimatization period’. The hellish pungent cloud of flesh infused vapor and smoke that drifted off the stage, was the specter of Earths reset it’s new “year zero’. Of course in those first few hours and days, there was much skepticism and wild theories circulating about what was truly happening. This global uncertainty was fueled by the fact that Initially their was a 5 day “Phoney War” period where literally nothing happened. The booming voice that emanated from the sky immediately after the G7 vaporization event promising space ships to surveil and instruct the planet’s citizens, was notably still absent. The rampart skepticism in the air, was amplified by the ‘independent’ Podcaster’s. Their communal cry was evidenced by this later historic quote “This is a just trick of the Elites – the vaporization of the President, the G7 and Military leaders was just another smoke and mirrors play like we have seen for so many decades, just like The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, just like The Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and Just like the Weapons’ of Mass destruction ploy of 2002, the ‘Wet Market’ Virus of 2019” and the false solar electrical storm blackout of ’31, it’s all just junkem and bunkem listeners“. Marcel of course, followed these so called ‘independently minded’ ‘rebel’ podcasters, who since 2015 had risen and risen in their popularity dramatically with deteriorating global conditions. By 2051 the establishment Podcasters had reach their maximum reach, but their listeners didn’t ever really know how much their favourite podcasters were compromised by the system.
Marcel remembers those first 5 days before the Spaceship announcement as dark and full of suspense, where he was just sitting in his studio apartment listening to the Podcast hosts come up with various theories. top rating Leslie Frizelmann had an interesting theory at the time, one that resonated with Marcel. The theory was that the G7 and the Military that were vaporized on the stage were just simply a “culling of the puppets” by the real leaders, those of the ‘military industrial complex’ whose natural habitat was in the backrooms and shadows. They had now simply now put themselves out of the shadows and onto the stage for all to see. Why did they come out of the shadows? Technology. The advancement of technology had allowed these shadowy figures to have such complete and robust surveillance and control of all aspects of peoples lives, that there was now no need to hide at all. why would you hide if you are so powerful you can’t ever be beat? Because the mass surveillance and control of the masses was such an imperfect system up until 2051, they had to every now and then have an array of false Puppet leaders to take the fall, take the heat and so placate the global citizens. This was quite a good theory, and Marcel liked it for a couple of days while he was drinking coffee and lying motionless in his bed – like everyone else – all the 4.5 billion people of Earth were. Why only 4.5 billion people on earth in 2051? The coronavirus pandemic of 2020-2027 had taken the worlds population down from 8 billion to 6 billion, and since 2027 fertility rates had dramatically dropped all over the earth, meaning another 1 billion babies were never born, on top of that there were the 500 million dead in the ‘blackout riots’ of 2031 caused by the highly questionable Solar EMP event. These events left a stable population of 4.5 Billion as of 2051. The last reason for a non growing population was the culling of the structurally poor sick and homeless. Every year a new 100 million batch of ‘deplorables’ rolled off the production line, and these were swiftly eliminated and filed under the ‘self death’ category. So all in all the elites had achieved a ‘balanced personnel count’ as they coldly denoted that line in the yearly Earth in Balance Report.
within minutes of the g7/President Kincaid’s shocking-yet-celebrated podium vaporizations, competing theories of what was truly happening were zipping around the globe’s media airwaves like a flock of a million screaming, frightened bats suddenly flying out of their cave en-masse. The feudal elite system of the time simply couldn’t handle surprises, let alone ones this cosmically big. It was podcasters that people would turned too for answers. The Populist Podcast hero Leslie Frizelmann’s of the We Need More Hero’s Podcast theory was that the supposedly ‘alien voices’ emanating from the clouds were not of aliens at all, but were simply the existing but now ‘out-of-the-shadows’ ruling elite broadcasting using the most high tech methods available. The same bastards he said emphatically were simply pretending to be aliens, as a ploy to grab even more power and control. The other popular theory was from Roy Riley the Wrangler Podcast. Roy’s theory was that they Aliens were indeed real, and they were from the nearest star system of Alpha Centuri, and they were the same Aliens that had been visiting Earth for thousands of years, as per the still surviving records of the hieroglyphics and cave drawings from the Ancient and Paleolithic world.
Another geopolitical type theory was that it was China who was responsible for it all, and that it was finally ‘mopping up the tail’ with the world, which it had essentially been the financial master of since at least 2020, China was just now naturally asserting itself in all remaining domains of power – military and culturally and civically. While the ‘Aliens from Alpha Centuri’ theory was the closest, like all “conspiracy theories’ there are at least as many holes and omissions in the theory as spurious connections. It really was ‘theory soup’ in those first 5 days of silence, but still everyone was still hungry for the real uncensored answers. The reality was that the Earth was being subjected to the unfolding of the StarPeople’s long term Galactic plan, as per the Treaty and that was now coming to the implementation phase.
Looking back at the start of year zero – that is 2051, Marcel could see how blinded by fear everyone was and how the Podcasters and Philosophers lapped up the fear for ratings, as the parasitic system in place demanded. They amplified it and then cashed it in, and then slowly disappeared off the airwaves, only reappearing in watered down form as state holographic documentary narrators in June 10th 2053.
Now that it was 52 years later 2103, Marcel was a wise expert on the whole history, technology and philosophe of The Pleiadean StarPeople. He knew their motives. Their takeover, he conceded was brilliant as he often had marveled at over the years. They had made an amazingly stable system of totalitarianism, where prior earthling despots had failed. The Earth was an incredibly stable unit under their guidance, but it was also so robotic and soul-less, and marcel knew he could come up with a better system, one with a modicum of emotion but none of the bad long past history of war , poverty and deception.
Yes the Pleiadeans could have flexed their muscles at anytime over the last 2500 years, going back to the Greek philosophers heyday, but Earth was not in such danger from itself way back then. The StarPeople were wise enough to wait for fertile conditions, i.e. total chaos to organically arise on Earth. That policy was of course written into the Galactic Treaty Of Care. This mass global chaos would allow for absolute minimum resistance from the global Earth masses and so squelch the chances of any meaningful rebellion. The Earth’s humans would be so mentally and physically exhausted they would willingly invite Alien capture and control. Marcel had begrudging respect for the patience of the Starpeople to wait multiple millennia until Earth was such an floating, sitting duck.
The day before the ‘Vaporization Event’ Earth had already from the perspective of the ‘average working stiff’ had had 71 years of growing chaos poverty, reducing wages, job insecurity, crime and general disrepair. This structural downward spiral for ‘non elites’ had started since ‘the Grand Communicator’ Reinhardt Reagan was elected in the USA 1980. Reagan the ex Hollywood actor, had ushered in a so called new ‘free marketeering, low regulation, small government’ era of what was later to be called “Neoliberalism’. Looking from afar, this was exactly what the StarPeople were patiently waiting for. They’d just have to bide their time and wait till the insanity matured, like fine wine or camembert cheese.
The propaganda of the Reaganist system rolled out to the masses was brilliant in it’s effect. When telling of smaller less intrusive government, they made government bigger and tapped phones. When taking away worker overtime and holidays, they said the jobs would be more secure, then they fired everyone and set up operations in China or Mexico or insert third world country here. When telling kids to “stay off drugs” they sold cocaine to fund arms to murderous rebels in far flung foreign conflicts. This Reagan-led smoke and mirrors forign and domestic policy created a parasitic elitist era marked by total chicanery whereby the sweat of the everyman was collected and swapped for Bollinger for the parasitic, snobby speculating Reaganites. This system was best thought of metaphorically as an armored beast with high tech weaponry. The Beast up to 2051 had many mouthpieces for mass broadcast of propaganda and key messaging, many hands and arms and legs that could hold and move many guns and shields; a multiple hemisphered brain for different levels of cloak and dagger decision making .
One mouth of the Beast was the broadcast media – this was the mix of radio/podcast/tv/newspapers/social media; another mouth was Line and Middle managers, Board members, CEO’s, Executives; another mouth was global thinktank operatives, Politicians, Public servants , Schoolteachers, Scientists and Professors. The hands and weapons were the Military, Spies & informants, Army, Airforce, Navy, Cyberforce, SpecForce, & Police. they with their offensive and defensive armory, the guns, radar, surveillance tech, missiles, nukes, real viruses, computer viruses. The Brains of the beast were the major owners of the keys sectors of the economy the captains of technology, health care, financials, real estate, energy, materials, consumer discretionary, industrials, utilities, consumer staples, telecommunications. This Beast over the decades expertly hoovered up and directed all assets so that by 2051 any cash formally held by small and medium businesses and families or even countries themselves had entirely disappeared. Reagan as a key initial mouthpiece and then the ‘Reaganist philosophy’ of Neoliberalism was in truth just an accelerated version of what had always happened over the long term. This accelerated global program as created by the brains of the Beast would over the next 7 decades systematically erode all the remaining key regulatory social and economic safeguards that had been installed by necessity worldwide at the end of ww2 .
These social and economic safeguards, such as a minimum % of bank reserves required to cover toxic assets and loan defaults, The right for workers to form unions, public ownership of key societal assets such as water roads and schools, family home ownership, the right to freely associate, the right of free speech. President Reagan his elites were told by the ‘brains‘ to view this seemingly ‘about face’ in policy simply as an intelligent and required, much belated, return to natural order social normality. The brains had to pull the pin on the falsely inefficient and kinder world that came out of the ashes of WW2. That falsity of safeguards and protection, indeed promotion of the average joe, were 100% necessary in the immediate decades after ‘Great Depression and War years’, but were always designed to be at some stage, rolled back. This temporary postwar sunshine lead to a economic boom whereby the average joe could become comfortable, raise a family and even become rich if he worked hard enough. By the time Reagan had come along, the Elites, i.e. the so called ‘brains‘ had grown miserable at this situation of sharing wealth with the deplorables. After all, the deplorables didn’t even wash or brush their teeth regularly. They didn’t like to see these in realty, battling normal people do well. For deplorables to do well this meant that the myth of we-are-elite-because-we-are-brilliant would be roundly myth-busted. The worlds elite ‘brains‘ had to take the world back to its equilibrium, that is a feudalist society with them as Kings. From day one of this system, the brains just had to put themselves in a suitably armored & weaponized body walk out the gated communities and into the ghetto, and their fully actualized utopia would come to full enlightened fruition……………………
The key years of the ‘elites strike back’ of 1980-87 were astutely managed propaganda by a compromised media and Politicians. A simple mantra message was put out by the ‘beasts’ mouth to the masses: “Regulation is bad, government owning things is bad, worker rights are bad, non materialism is bad, stuff is good, debt is good, money printing is good, inflation is good, poor people are lazy criminals, pharmaceuticals are good, working 70hrs a week and no social life is good, global thinktanks dictating policy is good, greed is good“. The mass indoctrination of the world worked far better than expected – the naïve world masses took the indoctrination to heart and danced joyfully under the sword of Damocles. In the end the deplorables, the masses, the people, the earthlings grew nauseous, and the doctors orders were for them to cheerfully dig their own graves, jumped in and cover themselves with freshly dug dirt. Yes by 2051, the party was finally over, the well had been totally sucked dry. The Neoliberal, neo feudal Reaganist agenda was complete, the brains and the beast had spoken, the hammer had come down, and the World had become the elitist utopia long dreamt of – a genuine feudalist system again.
The World of 2015-2051 was for everyone other than the feudal overlords and their lackeys, a place of random murders, no police presence, no home ownership for non elites; mass legalized people trafficking; the complete disappearance of small businesses and local craftsman. By 2040 There was only a maximum of 1000 gigantic non competitive companies worldwide. Communication was now completely mitigated via technology and the internet, and no one would dare to talk to anyone who didn’t already have a similar internet/social media echo chamber as them. World Mainstream Media was controlled by a single nominated elite player – the 100 year old ‘Rudolf Kromwell’. The Media had long brainwashed the public with the ‘big lie’ trope of the brilliantly intelligent high aristocratic priests of commerce and government, and by tacit implication the belief of how you were not them and couldn’t possibly succeed outside your lane.
There was under Reagist Neoliberalism & the Beast, installed into the deplorables minds a major distrust and fear from anyone on a face to face level of communication. The only free sphere of commerce was that they had allowed a culture of high IQ quasi independent Podcasters to develop – the theory here was that this would mop up and distract the inevitable 7% of people who were naturally alpha and willing to die for a cause. These people would be allowed to communicate with the average deplorable joes, who would have any residual rebelliousness drawn off them and absorbed by the alpha persona but 100% Proof Reaganite compromised Podcast hosts.
By 2051 the disarray and cold heartedness of the people was so complete anyone who had become homeless or too poor was simply euthanized by the corporate owned private police. By 2051 inflation had long destroyed any interest in saving money. Huge swaths of population were fully reliant on the Corporate Welfare crumbs that were thrown to them. There was no marriage to speak of, as only the elite aristocrats and neo-feudalists had a financial and social reason to get married. With all mature non aristocratic men being subsistence level poor, no women were interested in marrying them, and marrying an elite was illegal and punished by indefinite detainment in Labour camps. 2051 was a world of unhealthy single people with irrational ideas, no dating culture with the occasional engaging of meaningless on the spot perfunctory sexual release via corporate funded ‘Street ‘n’ meet Sheds’. Of course with infertility so high, there was low risk of pregnancy’s, and where they happened there was on the spot abortions that no one saw as a problem anymore. For all but the anointed ones, earth was a law-of-the-jungle society, a technical dispirited loveless wasteland, a real life hell hole. By its full maturity in 2051, this Earth-ian, dystopian reality was a genuine new ‘Dark ages’. A place where poverty and fear were harvested by a few Kings against a powerless indoctrinated and unaware serfdom. Marcel was always sad to recall this dark History, but always happy he in 2103 was alone the gatekeeper of these genocidal memories of a long forgotten, in fact erased Earth. If he could remember the past, he could also change the future, and the future was finally now.
With the rise and both slow-yet-swift installment of Feudalism, The Pleiadean StarPeople patience of 25 centuries of clandestine surveillance would now pay off magnificently. The perfect time to strike had now appeared before their eyes. For they knew neo feudalism was tapped out completely. It had become internally destabilized and so pave the way for a worldwide on every level breakdown. The breakdown thus triggered two major and necessary preconditions of StarPeople invasion. Firstly would be the full breaching of the key intervention terms of the “Galactic Treaty of Care’. Secondly the beaten down populace would be ready to accept any new system other than the Neo Feudalist, Reaganist one they were ensconced and enslaved in. Thus this would be an opportunity to invade and impose a new galactic control system run astutely by their authoritarian overarching galactically intelligent AI computer they called Aurora. With this they would soon have yet another, ‘healthy wealthy and wise’ new Milky Way Planet in their Federation. The beauty of this, foolproof system, was that Earth’s 4.5 Billions of downtrodden serfs would happily welcome the Alien invasion. Any initial fearfulness or panic from the serfs would be a minor footnote in Galactic History. The holographic AI written headlines of Galactic Federation History would in time tell of an overjoyed, content and healthy Earth populace who warmly embraced a new otherworldly era of galactic Citizenship, that was The 2051 Reconfiguration of Planet Earth.
Marcel again started thinking back to those first 5 days after first contact…how he his head was spinning while he digested all the theories spewing out of from Leslie Frizlmann’s Podcast, which was by the way called “We Need More Hero’s Podcast”. Leslie, who was in reality a fat bloated goatee wearing pig, had always been happy to air listeners comments and viewpoints on the ‘let the listeners yelp’ segment, and now he was sorting out all their mixed up theories on air in real time as the alien invasion crisis was evolving. Leslie had always been so calm and had the gift of a booming bombastic manly but silky smooth voice, but now it had turned almost ‘squeaky’ under the volcanic pressure of it all. Leslie was of course, was no “man of the people”. By that stage independent media was decades gone. Like all the 2015-2051 Podcasters, Leslie Frizlmann had basked in the duly apportioned sunlight of the Feudalist overlord elites. Just like how old world prime CIA informants were eventually retired and rewarded with big estates in leafy suburbs, nice cars, beautiful ex soviet bloc wives and all the vices they required with no consequences. Those last generation Podcasters were a lucky few had loophole freedom. Only those ‘one in a million’ who happened to be naturals at being great movers of men’s minds and therefore of strategic use to the feudal elite were allowed to freely move to Podcaster fame. While the feudal era up to the shift of 2051 was quite messy, it usually put the right bastard in the right bastard hole, that you could be assured of, so long as you could be corrupted to further Reaganite Feudalism’s evil needs of oppressing the global populace. The 2015-2051 pre reconfig era “Rebel Podcasters” had all been slowly turned into “company men” of the elite who were only too happy to speak through one side of their mouths to the listeners, as they simultaneously used the other side to denounce the elite to the fanfare of their false idolizing and desperate lower class listeners. The Podcasters had kidded every vulnerable dope that they were true prophets of a future rebellion. Little did they know that by 2051 they had only 5 final days of glory left after President Kincaid and his lackeys were vaporized and the Revolution would be done to them by the Starpeople. Little did they know that they’d also have to wait another 72 years for Marcel Atkins to attempt to save them.
Marcel continued to ponder the past as he daydreamed away in front of the Viceroy brain-chip schematics he was studying. The interesting thing about those first 5 days after the “vaporization event’ , that awesomely frightening day when the full G7, World Military and president Kincaid were zapped in front of a global audience of 4.5 Billion, was the psychological stages the worlds masses all went through. It started with denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and then finally exhilaration. Exhilaration of the thought of a better, fairer, safer and more equitable world. Collectively everyone was euphoric that maybe, just maybe the last 70 plus years of Reaganite feudalism was over. Many many tears did flow freely from those poor naïve souls eyes. Marcel allowed a proto sweat and a proto tear to form, he knew exactly how to surgically manage his emotions, so as not to affect his hacked brain chip, so as to not give the game away. Marcel thought this premature celebration from the masses he saw back in ’51 was also reminiscent of a time before his in a book he had read as a teenager. The book called “Hope, Change and status Quo” which was about the smooth but ultimately ineffectual first African American President named Batrack Lowbloomer .
In those key moments of history, the Earths public always had a bad record on picking good leaders from bad ones, or to put it more succinctly, bad ones from really bad ones. There was a distinct negative correlation observed whereby Presidents who were somewhat good were hated by the public, and really bad ones were loved. But then with all the emotion based Media brainwashing going on this was exactly the plan. The People were in a constant state of cognitive dissonance back then, so Marcel had long realized.
On the sixth day, Marcel had recalled that finally the numerous identical Space craft appeared every 60 km’s in grid formation the sky, all were about 500 meters above the ground, and of pyramidal shape, pulsing with a green all encompassing light. The invasion craft were also slowly rotating in such a free way it was clear that anti gravity, ‘Einstein Gravity Wave’ utilizing technology had been mastered by the StarPeople Aliens. And then begun their first message.
“People Of Earth, Thankyou for your patience over the last 5 long days. We will now get straight to the point. We are here because your former leaders had enslaved you for decades, destroying your social, economic and your entire Planet’s ecological wellbeing. As you may already know, President Kincaid, his Military Alliances and the Puppet G7 had refused to agree to the two options of complete or co-governance with the Galactic Federation. Thus resulted in the triggering the Galactic Federation Treaty Of Care protocols. From that point onwards, we the StarPeople as representatives and local enforcer of the Galactic treaty Of Care, had but no choice to vaporize those traitors of the earth system on the spot. Thus you are now completely free of slavery, and a new Governance from the nearest Federation members from the Pleiades, the StarPeople, is underway. The StarPeople are your liberators. The StarPeople are your enablers. The StarPeople are your friends. You have nothing to fear, other than the fear of us itself. We are your Galactic elders and we are here to help. thankyou for your attention and patience. There will be further messages to come.”
Marcel could hear a deafeningly loud roaring sound, as if a million lions were growling at once mixed with an eruption coupled with a pre-virus era Superbowl crowd. It was the sound of 4.5 Billion humans screaming with ancient tribality….and Marcel Atkins could not detect an ounce of fear in the blanketed vocal rumblings.
There was only the sound of hope ringing around the atmosphere.
…………end of pt 6………pt 7 is coming very soon… in the near future…..
Thankyou for listening to the Baby Wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, A creative project by Martin Anton Smith, a NZ based creative. This podcast is available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Welcome to The Baby Wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, a creative project by Martin Anton Smith, a NZ based creative. In this episode I read a short story of mine. It is somewhat inspired by my very wise cat. I wrote this after much thought about the inter-related world of civilians, societal leaders, geopolitics, pandemics and international trade. But at it’s core, all these things are instances of social interaction. Social interaction is largely is about the contested world of forming narratives, and he who tells the best stories wins. He who wins long term, creates cultural norms which are by nature tough to budge. What is ‘Culture’ other than embedded stories we all tell ourselves each other, over and over, without much or indeed any thought.I now fully recognize the art of “telling stories” determines what gets done and by who, who leads and who follows. In other words the ancient tradition of storytelling lives on in its beauty and pre-eminence more than it ever did, and also if we are not careful bad culture comes as a growing weed along the fence, avenue, town, city, nation and finally the World.
Proof of this constant need for narrative and storytelling has been seen during the heavy lockdown period in 2020-21 coupled with a period of not-seen-since-the-1930-s media and tech giant censorship. A totally new environment of “the pandemic” required demand for a new both local and world narrative. So I wasn’t so surprised when opening a web browser and seeing Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World were at the top of Amazons fiction list of best sellers. In this state of flux, people are scrambling for good storytellers to tell them what’s happening and how to act. In many an eye of the public today, the dystopian future outlined in these books 1984 and BNW is now happening. Wefeel a distinct flavor of Authoritarianism, and these famous ‘storytelling’ books 1984 and BNW of course are also a message to the future, the future we are now in 72 and 83 years after they were written. It is notso surprising a fact these books ring true, given Orwell and Huxley were gaining much knowledge of the Authoritarian times they lived in, coupled with the History Rhymes thesis.
Sothe best story wins, and in the Western World at least, Huxley and Orwell have the best story about the nature and future of Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, that why they were and are still again bestsellers. In 2021 we live in a world which seems to approximate these two books. In the future, if history is not fully erased, we will be known as the people who fought off Totalitarian disaster and World War, only to decades later throw away all for a few inflation reducing bucks and a few obselete-ing foreign made widgets. I haven’t mentioned ‘Animal farm’ which is probably very silly as my short story and the themes are more obviously similar to that Orwell novella. I will thank these three books and these two men, for the unknown guiding hand that helps move the pen when I talk of dystopian and authoritarian subjects.
I will speak no more, as you more than get my drift. I don’t claim to be anywhere as good as these two writers, I am a beginner or at best a sophomore writer who is probably emerged in too much silliness. However Orwell and Huxley are a great inspiration for me personally to attempt meaningful fiction, which I hope to achieve on some level in the future.
I’m sure when all is said and done, the animals will have a better plan for us all.
P.s. I cant help but think of the BNW theme where society programs people to die exactly at age 60, the logical point where the societal dependency and reducing economic value began to become ‘a problem’ (& by the way, is coffee the new soma)?
Please enjoy the story!
““The Proud Cats At The P*U*C*C Finally Put Their Paws Down”” – A Short Story by Martin Anton Smith 2021.
My Cat, being Conservative by nature, always wears an old world formal dining coat.
It’s Coal black with highlights of the finest Aegean sea tortoiseshell.
It fits perfectly as one piece, with the only gaps being the most physically necessary ones.
He does not, of course have a dull cat name like Tom, Mittens or Timmy.
He has a wide range of titles bestowed upon him by the finest chaps and chap-ess’s.
They are: Squeaky, Sir Squeaky, King Squeaky, His Nibs, Squeak Chop, Sir Squeeksalot.
These Titles, he advises me, are from his esteemed fellows from the strictly exclusive ‘ Pragmatic Utilitarianism Cats Club’.
Often out of Nowhere, he will say “I’m off the P.U.C.C., don’t wait up”
“Me and the ‘Cool Cat’s’ will Talk Geopolitics all night”.
To which I mentally squash the obvious childish retort of “But I thought Cat’s were lone wolves”?.
A cat of Sir Squeeky’s class, would always despise such time wasteful comedy, especially while on the way out the door.
As King Squeaky always looks resplendent, and is as organized and on-time as a German train, he is not one to mess around getting ready.
I hear the door slam shut, followed by a muffled goodbye of “toodoloo!”, followed by the slowly reducing sound of paw steps on the crunchy driveway gravel.
After somewhat feeling jealous of Sir Squeek’s upper crust social life, I retreat to my bedside reading: The books title is “China Now Owns The World, SO NOW GET USED TO IT”.
The hours pass, and I wonder how His Nibs the cat-about-town, is getting on. Then exhausted from the days running around, my eyes droop and I fall into a deep sleep.
The next afternoon Sir Squeeky opens the door and meanders in to the living room almost as slow as a turtle dawdling along on a beach.
He’s before me in the living room, eyes half closed as he has been up all night yakking at the exclusive Pragmatic Utilitarianism Cats Club – or “The P.U.C.C. or more simply spoken as “The Puk”.
“taking my opportunity for a sneaky quip I cheerily utter ” Look what the Cat dragged in; how was the Club”?
Squeaky ignores the ill mannered quip and replies perfunctorily.
“Well, we talked and decided the China problem is ok for us Cats, but extinction-ally bad for Humans, so I’m concordantly content”
“But what about shipping delays” I say, “their will be undoubted delays in your finest branded Cat Biscuits – RegalCataBix”
To which “His Nibbs” replies – “It’s sorted we’ve organized an alternate secondary shipping backup via the ex Cape Horn Spice trail and the boats are all manned and manufactured by craftsman felines”.
Again I squash the obvious quip “I thought cats hate water” and I ask “what about delays regarding sardine smelt production from Canada”, I rebut.
To which Squeak Chop dismissively replies:
“I and the P.U.C.C can get it fresh fish from the mountain stream at the next village, you dunderhead! canned sardines pffft as if, OUTRAGEOUS!”
Sir Squeaksalot starts grooming his paws nonchalantly, exuding his usual unflappability under fire.
Continuing my line of questioning I say “And so you talked about the Pandemic? So what if you Cat’s all get sick?
Squeeky looks at me with the same disdain the Queen might if a politician had upon greeting had hugged her instead of bowing politely.
“That ridiculous, we can’t get sick from something we developed ourselves in our virology labs along with the antidote”
Quite stupefied, I ask him “Are you saying you elite cats down at the P.U.C.C developed this virus in the lab, in order to do away with all Earths people”
“Sir Squeaky pawed his whiskers, that’s exactly what I’m saying, and I’m dreadfully sorry on a personal level, as you’ve been a good foot soldier for me around this joint, but we at P.U.C.C are a pragmatic and utilitarian bunch – we couldn’t take any more silliness, you were all feeding us a far too limited diet, and making the air far too dirty to breath, so much so half of us now have asthma. On top of that our coats were becoming grimey and that simply wont do. We had to put our paws down.”
To which I protested: “But you get the best quality biscuits, I feed you beef bits from the butchery, full cream milk and even some shaved deli ham on occasion”
“Yes, of course – you have been good my dear boy – it’s the rest of humanity we made this call for – you will unfortunately be what’s called ‘collateral damage”
“Collateral damage” how could you be so cold Sir Squeeksalot? After all these years”
“3 to be Exact”, he firmly retorts. “Well as I said, dear boy, it was a tough decision, not taken lightly and we spent all night on it, and it could have gone either way at any moment.”
I was about to further protest when a firm “Knock Knock Knock” cut out our conversation.
“Special delivery for Sir Squueksalot – paw print required”
I opened the door, and Squeeky jumps up on top the box the delivery man is holding. He proudly thrusts his somewhat oversize paw to the mans digital scanner, he scans it with a “boop-bip” sound, says a robotic “thankyou”, and leaves in a flash.
Then in a blur Squeeky cuts through the carton with a deft flick of an un-retracted claw, the top box flaps open to expose a small ray gun which seems to have a handle which has been molded especially for a cats paw.
Before I know it, I see Sir Squeeky point the ray gun at my head and he says “This is harder on me than it is for you sonny”.
I am swiftly encapsulated in an otherworldly green glow of visible plasma particles. It’s like I’m looking out into distant space from the surface of Alpha Centuri.
Time seems to slow to a halt for what seems like an eternity, then in the blink of am eye, all’s normal again.
For some reason I have a monstrous craving desire for ‘RegalCatabix’, some fresh Canadian smelt all washed down with a saucer full to the brim of full cream milk ‘.
I squash the acute hunger as I see Sir Squeaksalot peering at me with that common cat look of squinted half closed eyes – though this time our eyes are equal level with each other.
As the reality begins to set in, my rising anger erupts ….I open my mouth to aggressively chastise Sir Squeeksalot and ask him to reverse whatever in hells name he’s done to me with that green plasma ray gun.
I open my mouth to let out the words, but to my surprise instead of my human voice all I hear is elongated unhappy screechy sounds:
I am about to look around and find where the feral cat is hiding – perhaps behind the couch? Then it dawns on me.
Sir Squeaky has turned me into a cat, so as to save me from the Cat-in-the-Lab designed ‘Killer Human Virus’. The Virus that would abruptly solve all of the Earth’s man made problems.
I look sheepishly at Squeeky, he looks back in a grandfatherly-wise way and says hypnotically and with gravitas:
“It’ll take you a while to get used to your voice box and speak Cat English again, but me and the Cat’s at of the P.U.C.C will teach you everything we know”. As a tear appears in my eye he swipes my face with claws fully retracted, as says ye-olden-days speak: NOW KEEP A STIFF UPPER WHISKER AND FOR SPHINX’S SAKE CARRY ON – YOU’RE A CAT NOW”
I pawed the tears streaming from my now wide yellow cat’s eye’s. Soon my spirits began to lift as I realized how lucky I was to have Sir Squeaky save me from a certain viral death.
I no longer had to worry about the deadly ‘Man Virus’ and I could live in a paradise in a world ran by Cats running of the philosophe of “Pragmatic Utilitarianism”.
I was now an ‘insider’ cat, controlled by the strongest paws and the best minds of the P.U.CC. Soon no doubt I’d be inaugurated as a fully fledged member of P.U.C.C., and no doubt would be asked by His Nibs to jointly head the committee which will manage world affairs in lieu of those dumb humans. I mean what could possibly go wrong?
Sir Squeaky then wheeled out a platform with at least 30 large red books.
“Now we have to get you schooled up of the ideology principles and methods of the P.U.C.C. system- start with Vol 1.”
Sir Squeeks pawed off one of the books from the platform, and it landed with a thud in front of my nose. I looked at the front cover. It read as the following
“P.U.C.C. MANEFESTO Vol 1 – A NEW WORLD DIGITAL CURRENCY – THE PURRCOIN”.
Then uncontrollably, my furry stomach started revolving, like the rolling waves on the open seas. Then I started rocking to and fro, violently like a sailboat in a storm in the roaring 40’s. Then I broke out into a drenching sweat, I could see my fur clumping together through my now salty sweat addled eyes. As ill as I felt, I could hear King Squeaky mumble over and over: “Oh no, not again, this theoretically shouldn’t even be possible…dear oh dear…somethings wrong with the plasma re-orienter settings, those bloody P.U.C.C. techs are useless…useless…USELESS!”
I thought it was over when a paw toe suddenly turned into my old human pinky finger, then it popped back to a paw toe, then a finger, then back again. Then horribly the same thing happened to my head. The whole upsetting experience lasted no longer than five minutes, then I was once again fine and fully formed. I was a healthy normal cat.
His Nibs sat me down and gave me a warm saucer of full cream milk, to settle my nerves after this harrowing trial. I said nothing and listened to his soothing words.
“Don’t worry, these teething issues occur initially, the ray gun plasma blast is 100% healthy. Your mild symptoms are merely a small technical hurdle the nerd cats at P.U.C.C. haven’t ironed out yet. This wont effect anything. For the moment just follow this process that has been rubber stamped by the highest P.U.C.C. committee, which you will be happy to know I also reside on as Chairman.
“One – avoid large gatherings or anywhere where you cannot reach a bathroom stall within 3-5 minutes. In other words no sports games or concerts, automobile trips etc.
Two – the signal to hide yourself away in a bathroom stall will occur when your tummy starts revolving, you of course must get to the bathroom stall before your head starts to flip between your normal cat’s head and your old human head. You must understand If anyone who is not a part of P.U.C.C sees a cat with a human head, the P.U.C.C. will be shut down. We cannot under any circumstances let that happen.
Three – when safely hidden from prying eyes inside the stall, you will wait the remaining minute or two till its all over, perhaps 5 to be safe, then you can rejoin the prior activity with no one the wiser”.
I was finally feeling a bit less worried when he kindly added “If you follow this process there wont be any problems, and of course you can still potentially be a member of the P.U.C.C. and I’ll make sure I’ll keep a guiding eye on you until our best P.U.C.C. Ape-to-Cat Reconfiguration Technicians resolve the problem”.
With Sir Squeaky’s increasingly calming words, I knew I was in good hands. I didn’t protest, I smiled obediently and wiggled my whiskers joyfully. Now was the time to begin psychologically preparing myself for a whole new post-human existence. After all, What else was I to do? Go back to being a human being who would be wiped out by cat instigated virus? Never! I wouldn’t dare squander the gift of life Sir Squeaky had manifestly bestowed upon me.
I reached my paw out for the well bound, red leather cover of the P.U.C.C. Manifesto. After all I had so much study to do. Sir Squeaky casually ambled over to sit on his favourite grey furry blanket, that overhung the base of the couch. He turned around twice the settled and went to sleep almost instantly. His purrs rung out loudly as I turned over the first gilded page.
Thankyou for listening to the Baby wants It’s Bottle Podcast, A creative project by Martin Anton Smith, a NZ based creative. This podcast is available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Welcome to The Baby wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, a creative project by Martin Anton Smith a NZ based creative. In this episode I read a short story. This is simply a creation tale. It is me musing of the logic behind why we are here, and why things often don’t go well. I will not give any spoilers on this, so “without further ado” lets begin.
“It Is Written, It is Rotten” Short Story by Martin Anton Smith 2021.
The Artist looked intently at one of his recent creations. He let out a long series of dispirited sighs, so much so his nearby candles flickered too and fro, and some would even blow out. He he realized his Artwork didn’t cut the mustard – it was to be binned, destroyed, eliminated. It was wise to start again, from scratch and make something that could shine with ebullient brilliance. He ruptured the outer shell, he threw water on it, he lit it on fire, he got rid of all the organic material, well almost all. On the Artwork there were some Bugs tucked into a few wrinkles on the surface. He had grown fond of some these Bugs, for not all of them had turned bad. He thought he might be able to repurpose them on the new and improved replacement Artwork he had already long been planning. And so he saved just a few of those good Bugs.
After many days of hard destructive work, He was half done when he wanted to rest. As he rested, he saw a Foe approach, and knowing he was a uniquely spiteful destructive force, he said to the Foe “You can break my Artwork”. The Foe couldn’t believe his luck. He didn’t ask questions, he had been handed a goldmine. He got to work – he ripped the crust more far more violently that The Artist had, he threw acidic water on it, He put a blue blowtorch to it instead of amber flame, he also threw rocks at it, piercing it, scratching it. He squashed almost all remaining fleeing Bugs. Some hissed & couldn’t believe it as they thought they were good bugs and didn’t deserve such harsh treatment. The Foe, like The Artist also saw a few Bugs he liked, and so he saved them in his pockets for future use, as he, like the Artist also made his own Creations when he was allowed too. When the Artist saw that his Foe had done “good work” in destroying the Artwork, he simply froze him. The Artist froze the Foe for at least 7 centuries, as was the standard protocol, as the Foe was always far to would up with excitement after when being used in such enjoyable demolition jobs.
The Foe knew it was coming, this had happened many times before – so he complied meekly in the end, but for a few barbs. Now The Artist had a blank ‘canvas’ just as he had wanted, after seeing it for what is was. The Artist thought of the new Artwork to replace the old. This time he would make a more bountiful work, with a far less harsh foreground and a heart warming background. He would have less Bugs, & instruct them more wisely. He would give less crust & more water. He placed the bugs back on the emerging canvas. “Now enjoy new Artwork” he said to the Bugs. I have made it easier for you to prosper, the land is bountiful, and the wind sings. There is no flood-building rain, there is no ground shaking as like the rattlesnake tail. The Artwork will have few major natural calamities. The bad Bugs are gone, and your good work can now prosper as you go forth and multiply in this ‘New Eden’. The Bugs listened and crawled in to this ‘New Eden’ – the New Artwork from The Artist.
The Artist was true to his word, The wind was songful, The ground still, the rain was warm and the suns rays were visible as a collection of never ending long shimmering streaks. The other animal life around the Bugs came forth, and was totally different from before, more at peace and there were now no animals eating each other, there was no need to murder for sustenance. The plants were luxuriant fruit of giant ripe orbs, all close enough to pluck.. The Bugs heard a booming voice from both everywhere and nowhere: “My Creations, now listen to me. My only wish is for you to take this bounty & not repeat the mistakes of the prior generation, you are now the leaders of this New Eden – ‘The Artwork’ , and you are no longer the bedraggled outcasts of my long forgotten ravaged and now dead former Artwork. I have rewarded you, you are free to become Kings of the Kingdom of your choosing. I wish you farewell and good luck”.
And with this wish, The Artist left and the booming voice disappeared. He could now think of another exciting project. The forming of the idea was his biggest pleasure – for the idea was always perfect. All his ideas were perfect, it was only in the ‘breathing into life’ and moments afterward in the physical realm, that problems arose. The Bugs enjoyed this New Eden for 10 000 fine fruitful years and 300 generations. This was until a descendant of the 1st of New Eden’s Bugs decided to write the stories of the past. This Bug had realized this would allow society to have a precise memory of all the good things they had made, like the ‘Warmthcloth’ they wore in winter, the ‘SlingCut’ which was used to harvest fruit. With writing this Bug knew society could progress faster and make more amazing new labor saving devices, so as to give them even more restfulness and leisure.
When this Bug wrote these first words in the dirt, it triggered a silent notification to ripple outwards beyond The Artwork itself. The Artist received this message cosmically & instantly. With this The Artist again knew that the scourge of Written language would again ruin his New Eden, His Artwork, his Creation. He thought to himself ‘Now the Bugs have written down words, lies and foolishness will now soon take hold and sow the seed for the required Regeneration’.
Of course at heart The Artist always knew this self defilement of the Artwork from the discovery of Writing would inevitably happen. The discovery of Writing put in place a cascading train of consequences that would result in the Bugs discovering this ‘Supreme Law’, the one that put everything else in motion, the thing that made everything possible. The Artist before time had begun had decided discovery of this law would be forbidden. This ‘Supreme Law’ was necessary for it was the thing that would allow for organic change within his Creations, it allowed for change to occur. With the Supreme Law Artworks had the chance to find their own way – to somewhat control themselves and develop. He wrote The Supreme Law into the system, hardwired if you will, it was the only fundamental Law that he would never change or be able to changed – even by himself.
The Artist called This Supreme Law by a pet name – ‘The Principle of Uncertainty’. ‘Uncertainty’ in that whenever something could be seen, you wouldn’t know where it was, and where you knew where something was – it could no longer be seen. This allowed things to be fundamentally differentiated and slightly unbalanced. With this imbalance 100% particle annihilation would not occur and thus there was a remainder of things to exist, coalesce and change. Planets, Stars and life could now form. He made this Law show itself only on this smallest building block scale, so as to hide it for as long as possible. Cloaking the Supreme Law, the ‘Principle of Uncertainty’ in such tinyness would allow thousands of years to go by before Bugs in any particular Artwork could discover it. With this stroke of genius, The Artist knew his Artwork, indeed all future and past Artworks, would be able to grow independently of him. It allowed free will to exist. Without the Uncertainty Principle nothing at all would or could happen, which wouldn’t do as Artist likes to makes interesting unpredictable things, not boring nothings.
His inevitable eventual intervention in all his Creations was simply the price to be paid for natural growth and change inside his Artworks, his loving Creations. Of course he, The Artist, the force who designed it all from scratch, knew this fact. Despite this brute fact, he was always deeply and inconsolably upset and even angry every time he had to regenerate one of his Artworks. Upon every Regeneration event, he had to seek a period silence and solace just to assuage his loving and grievous heart. He referred to this period of ‘hiding as ‘The Retractment’, a period that lasted approximately a millennia.
Strangely, no how many iterations of Creations and re-Creations of Artworks, the Bugs within a particular Artwork never seemed to understand the core trigger which caused total cataclysm and thus their own demise to grow. They never clicked what the seed was that turned their bountiful paradise into a fiery, shaky illness ravaged living hell. They never realized that the discovery and use of written language would also allow them to discover The Artist’s prime Law. The Uncertainty Principle once discovered unleashed a cascading knowledge that became uncontrollable in its unintended consequences, to the point its internal processes became too much imbalanced. The environmental and social runaway train that came after the discovery of Writing always rendered all Bugs totally inconsequential. The Bugs in every case, were always so surprised when they couldn’t come up with a fix.
The Artist could never quite accept that the Bugs were, after infinite trials, never smart enough to stop themselves from the evils of writing things down. The Artist thought to himself the same thought he always had while working on a Regeneration – “One day it will come, one day there will be an Artwork with change without spiraling destruction, a Creation where Bugs realize spoken stories are supreme and sacrosanct, and are wise enough to never write down the first letter and attach a sound to it”
The End
Thankyou for listening to “The Baby Wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc.” Podcast, A creative project by Martin Anton Smith, a NZ based creative. This podcast is available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Anton Martin Smith Writer 