by Martin Anton Smith
The other day I went & listened to an anonymous someone.
Beamed in from somewhere & someplace.
For it was a blue plasma ball that snapped into human form –
Right before our incredulous eyes.
Yes, it was quite the speech.
As I listened I had the thought:
“Were they wise or just mad?” –
Alas as to which one I still cannot be so sure.
But I can at least tell you his words verbatim,
For I recorded them while I listened along with everyone.
Something told me this is what I should do.
.They went as follows…….
Greetings oh people of the past,
Forgive me this interruption –
But the exigencies of your situation have forced my hand.
Your blindness has conjured my departure from my time.
For I came from a time where perfidious petty battles have been long since mastered.
We roundly squabed our decks free of your current squabbles, to use ye olde maritime lingo.
I must bust you out of your wide-awake sleep-dreams.
My goal is to have you reconfigured – renatured if you will.
And so my message can begin.
“Hell is other people”?.
Hell. Is. Other People.
This my friends & adversaries in the gallery, this is perhaps the most true statement ever.
Far truer than Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls”
More propitious than Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or death..”
And robustly in line with Bukowski’s maxim about spiritual death before actual death of the everyman.
Yes, you may be surprised to know that in the future we value Bukowski right next to Paine.
And so, we must thank Jean Paul Satre for coining the term “Hell is other people”.
According to your own words:
Humans have apparently been ‘civilised’ for a long time.
So, some of your Anthropologists say.
But of course, even your Geologist’s & Physicists would gaffaw at this statement.
For is Is ten thousand years a long time?
Not really.
You think this way because you cranial Lilliputians still think time “flows”.
You think the future is burped from the past,
And its quality determined by whether the menu had Spaghetti or Steak.
But I digress.
Back to the topic of civility.
Yes, ladies & gents – the experience of your life life tells you civility is a rare cultural ore.
Perhaps even as rare as Tritium 3.
Although incidentily this is not rare where, I mean when I come from – we harvest it freely from the moon.
Statistically we are lucky if perhaps 1% of your current Humanity is civilised.
But the number is of course much much lower.
Now as the 20th Century Americans liked to say
“let’s now have a Pop Quiz:
Were you teachers civilised?
No they were lazy bufoons, desperately afraid of the real world.
Were your parents civilised
No – they worked at jobs they hated.
Were your friends civilised?
No they wanted you to get nowhere in life – just like them.
Were your workmates civilised?
No they were on the modern day slavery hamster wheel & didn’t even know it!
Sorry pals – your early 21st Century indubitably not civilised, at least beyond a wafer thin veneer.
We in the future define basic civility broadly as this:
“Those non-roboticised or non-cyborg-ised human beings who on the whole are in control of their emotions, & not the reverse. Those who work to improve the welbeing humankind”.
Oh I see a few raised eyebrows – yes sorry to let you know of this but in the future the Robots & Cyborgs have the numbers over the humans.
I don’t think I’ll get in trouble for confirming that – after all you people are already half way there nowadays.
On the subject of 21st Century Civility, we notice there are many false alters.
Your leaders need to know that Civility is not really anything to do with advancing technology.
For the caveman simply had less shoulders to stand on than Dirac or Ford or the Wrights or Gates, Jobs or Musk.
If I can talk like one of you let me summarise this by saying:
What good is it if a man knows the secrets of the universe but is a social ogre out to destroy?
Perhaps he knows so much he plug into “free zero point energy” or spaceship to “Zeta Reticuli”.
Yet no one can stand to sit with him in a room for more than 1 to the minus 34 femtoseconds.
Oh dear – another cat is out of the bag! – Yes you have people harvesting free energy & travelling the cosmos.
That was the next project after Los Alamos – held in secret from the public.
I ask all of you people here – Is man in the 21st Century really civilised?
Were the men who worked on the ‘Manhatten Project’ civilised?
There is a clear argument against this despite the accolades, they were the reverse of civility.
Boldly our view in the future is this – this passage is written on a monument to your era:
The men of Los Alamos rode their low EQ all the way to the gates of hell,
Jumped over those gates unannounced,
Shook hands with the Devil & proclaimed:
“Our leader we have done your bidding & created the Hell Weapon”
To which the evil one could have replied
“I am happy with your anti civilisation you are all my fat men & little boys,
you have followed my will perfectly”.
Mmm hmm, that’s right, yes my 21st Century sir & maddam – you usually confuse status with goodness & decency.
We in the future cannot understand you adoration of unneccesary social hierarchies.
These Los Alamos types are the anti-lords of earth & you blessedly boost them in the echo chambers,
By medallion bearing Machiavellian monsters all riding the optic fibers & satellite feeds.
So the wielding of High tech & high tech weaponry & social climbing is not proof of your ‘Civilisation’.
But the garden variety of Human Un-civilisation is galactically even more common.
And excuse me if I again adopt 21st Century lingo.
The guy that loses his sh*t at the cashiers coz he hates his job, that’s uncivilised;
The Karen that rings the cops on a neighbour, thats uncivilised;
The office narc who engineers someone out of their job, that’s uncivilised;
The bogan who kicks his dog because he can, that’s uncivilised;
This is the walled garden of your un-civilisation – the wild flowers of 21st Century discontented daily life.
I contend you 21st-ers (that’s what we call you) are at best like the contradiction of the nuclear power plant –
one part alien technology & one part steam age,
For it is simply Einstein’s brain crystallised by the equation e – mc squared,
Strapped on to an essentially 19th century steam turbine,
Which turns a coil on a axl around a magnetic housing so to make electricty for us all.
I think your Homo Sapian brains are just the same –
Your best human brains are still as a ‘Einstein strapped to a Lizard’.
And that is the core problem – BOTH your Einstein AND the Lizard brain need to be tamed.
Tamed to be civilised.
Tamed to be civilised.
Tamed to be civilised.
I said that three times for effect – for you people don’t understand your ally cat wild-ness.
For all your anthropological, Physic-o-Technical, Spiritual & Artistic efforts have so far failed.
That rogue Einsteinian Lizard in your brains, is the eternal monkey on your back.
And so you yet remain uncivilised in according to your media – the very futuristic sounding year, of twenty twenty four.
And in closing, let me regale you a tale.
This is a popular tale from 21st Century, written by one of your own only one year ago.
It goes as follows:
I was one day walking along the riverbank,
& I saw something from the corner of my mind’s eye.
It was a shining resplendent floating dictionary,
I believe it fell from an angel’s pocket.
Anxious to know what they thought of us, I flicked to the word.
Humans (n). Mostly Uncivilised bipeds of Planet Earth holding poorly designed bootstrapped brains. Prone to emotional outbursts & non logical reasoning. Live in an oasis of plenty yet choose to hide under rocks. Biggest ritual is to sling their own shit at each other while screeching loudly. Slated by the Galactic Council to soon to be totally reconfigured as to be totally unrecognisable from their present state.
I felt warm inside as I thought to myself “See I was right after all”.
I went & ate a sandwich & drank a coffee at the cafe, feeling mighty proud of myself.
I sat & waited for something to happen.
I got bored & went home & cracked open a beer.
I sat & waited for something to happen.
Nothing happened.
I cracked open another beer.
I waited
…nothing happened
I cracked open another beer.
I was now 3 am.
I looked around for the angel’s dictionary.
I couldn’t find it anywhere.
I’m such a dolt –
Why didn’t I look up the angels definition of ‘soon’?.
As I’ve always said.
If you’re going to be wiped out, it’s nice to know when.
Oh well, what can you do?
I cracked open another beer & drifted asleep.
I don’t know if it was part of the dream or not but an angel floated in the room.
It said nothing & simply reached under my seat,
I heard the rattle some empty cans being moved out of the way.
‘Aha there it is’ I telepathically heard the angel say.
I saw it float towards the door.
“Wait” I said.
The angel turned around.
“What is it?”
“When will it all happen” I said strangely confidently.
“When all your beer tastes sour, it will be so” said the angel.
I nonchalantly took a swig & replied.
“I knew you’d screw me around with an answer I couldn’t rely on”
“What – you think we’d tell you guys what’s going on? You’re far too uncivilised for that!”.
“Fair call” I said & cracked open another beer & watched it dissipate like steam.
I know what you’re thinking.
“Was the beer sour?”
Well why would I tell you that?. . .after all it’s a stupid question.
I mean, are you still uncivilised poop flinging screecher-er?
Of course you are!
It was then we saw the man from the future return to his blue orb state & shoot off into nothingness. All at the meeting thought it was a great performance. We all wondered which amateur dramatics troop was responsible. We loved the special effects – both the blue orb & his holographic appearance. We couldn’t allow ourselves to publicly think otherwise. But at least I recorded it – for future posterity.
The End
Anton Martin Smith Writer 