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The Ideologies rarely ever thought of the time before they first actualized into corporeal form.Only in dreams would they encounter the flashes that jumped in and out of the scattered patches of memory,before disappearing in a silver leap into the murky below.Whose who cowered in the impossible mass of the human population gave Political Nihilist his liquid being,which hardened in mass with each coin covertly passed,every vote that decided whether you’d be tossed to the streets and every resigned shrug at the commence of an atrocity.Through the earliest form of the human mind,their chemical ghosts had swam through the stream of consciousness,mixing into one another like broiling liquid,that would flow to a conscious conduit like gravitation.
There was thought in the peace offering of a young lamb,innocent of the responsibility burdened on its fragile forelimbs as its white pelt was stained red with the fell swoop of a ceremonial dagger.A death to herald the end of a millennia of war.A pelt that would go on to cloak the thin shoulders of Arnacho-pacifism in a gentle hug.These memories shone out from the confusing blur.
Anarcho-Insurect was birthed from the raging caverns of the brain's amygdala,more of a knee jerk response than a system of thought,but he never busied himself with the technicalities.He carved out his slice of history with the maddening precision of the guillotine.
Feudalism existed,and was as nameless as the conglomerate he emerged from.
They had not given a name to the status quo,but this did not hinder him.He was given form through the devotion of a higher deity,be that a blazing right hand,an incomprehensible triangle,a paternal father looking down from the heavens or simply a king.He had sovereignty and dominion over his land and he was always inferior to the divine.That distinction was integral,lest The Supreme Patriarch call down roaring crusades at his blasphenies.In every land far and yonder he inherited the backing of heaven's mandate to command those who controlled the land and extract resources from those bound to it.
But soon a new resource began to twinkle in the covetous eyes of Man:money,alien from land and birthright.Surfs were drawn to the golden promises of the wealthy metropolis,annulling the age-old contract of lord and tenant.Gold was always there as long as he remembered,but its growing prominence did not go unnoticed under his ever watchful eye.Soon whose same humans began to only deal in the transfer of gold,peasant by blood and baron by occupation.At first Feudalism was overjoyed to be able to surpass the need for rebellious aristocrats,renting out trained mercenaries to expand his border reach to new lands,whose gods were warlike and many-limbed.
But now…the meaningless tokens had replaced his purpose.People could simply pack their purses and leave in the face of war taxes.Land was only so precious as those who resided on it.They were mobile,and he was trapped to police his fixed plot of land.
He always felt so tired nowadays.His crown had begun to rust,as had his kingly scepter.Nowhere on the face of God's green earth did he exist as he had.He was obsolete.His skin took on a nebulous,transparent haze,blinking in and out of reality like atoms.
Anarcho-monarchy had tried to help by offering a hopeful seat with The Wackies,but he declined,Hiding his disgust and repulsion with what the man represented.A contradictory mess of two opposing concepts,that sought to dismantle the security and hierarchies Feudalism worked so tirelessly for,as if it were a burning building being repaired as it blazed without end.
Anarcho-monarchy had simply nodded and turned away to shield his face,not wanting to embarrass himself any more before the man he had admired all his existence.It is painful meeting your heroes.Now Feudalism was once again the intangible air.He didn't see,feel or touch as he had done in his youth,but in some unconscious way,he knew he would manifest in a time anew,Through the lifeblood of humanity.I will be reborn…
********
The world is a melting pot of ideologies,millions of branches,curling and splintering into groups and subgroups,flourishing in the sunlight before petering away into irrelevancy.Every ideology was a chimera of the creator,and those who came before.Communism,inherited the scholarly zeal of Marx and Engels,becoming engrossed in dogmatic theory for days on end in his study.Posadism respected how he rigidly held on to his beliefs in a world of “populist revision” as Commie had claimed.
Despite being classed as a “20th century ideology",the roots of Posadism ran deep,older than the mountains and the seas.When Mankind resembled a small shrew-like mammal he was there,hiding under the fractured earth as the reptilian giants that crushed his kind under their toes baked in the meteoric inferno.He was there when those same tiny mammals emerged to a scorched land and coughed in the sooty air,to claim their due in the wake of the dinosaur extinction.They would devour the carrion left behind.
It was nowhere near his consciousness now but it was simple:Run,hide,let the predator burn.
In the existential threat of the cold war,it was Commie who gave this primal fear a cause and a reason to strive.A hope for a better future,that Ancap and Nazi just failed to conjure.After his birth.they had teamed up during the cuban revolution but he couldn't get through to him even though he spoke in the melodic hum humans find calming. “How is the working class supposed to organise when they’re a black shadow on the ground?!” His accent was more pronounced in the confusion of the moment,stabbing out the “H” with a harsh “Kh”.“They organize before and begin the collapse of capitalism via the detonation of nukes.” He said simply,hoping to disarm whatever miscommunication that had aroused such a reaction.The light shining from his ever present smile glimmered onto Commie's tense face,he was gritting his teeth with slow crunches.
They had parted on bad terms,but Posadist would give his life for Commie,he would act as the catalyst for the proletariat,whether Commie wanted it or not.Because he was becoming obsolete.No world superpower backed communism anymore.Communism is spoken of like a past tragedy,a shadow over a lost generation.You do not become a communist you are branded one,to be laughed and mocked by the global village.And deep down in his state provided heart Commie knew this,but the authoritarian types never like to admit weakness.Posadist would be true to his word.Soon the echo of nuclear alarms would usher in the equality of Man.
So he organised those who lacked direction under the looming danger of centrists,and quickly enough he formed “The Committee Of Niche Ideologies",known more crudely as “The Wackies”.He had tried to stop the use of the name but it had grudgingly stuck.He had grown the organisation to 5 people: Homo-National,Transhumanist,Anarcho primitivist (Anprim) and Anarcho-monarchist,with him as sole head and leading them with a controlled hand; which was no small feat for the chaotic directions they pulled each other in.
He kept his distance but if he was made to choose a "Favourite" it was Amprim.There was some kind of solidarity from the fact they preceded any enlightenment or revolution in core values.Humanity has been striving to return to a simpler age ever since there was something to look back on.Amprim was also just very good at just doing what he was told,a good collectivist attitude that prioritised group welfare in a dangerous world.And he kept him on separate ends of the table to Transhumanist.There was only so much cordiality he could dispense,but he offered Amprim this relief.
Every Tuesday they would meet in a rented office to discuss usually whatever was on their minds.They had pretty much stopped talking about centrists ever since the final battle,which was no problem as that was only a scare tactic to get them together.And yet they showed up regardless.Some even earlier than others.
“Hallo evri bodi,I have returned!”Nazbol's relapse of rebelliousness had come to its conclusion,just like all the other times. “Good to see you again,your seat is just where you left it”smiled Posadist from the head of the table.The chair was tipped over on the ground,untouched from 2 months ago because Nazbol had places to be.The floor underneath it showed a clean outline on the carpet of a healthy light green,surrounded by scuffs of darkness and mud,as the place was always stained from Amprim’s wanderings.He beamed,happy to be acknowledged and sat in the middle of the table kicking his feet like a kid in a doctors office.“So Nazbol,where have you been?”He liked to keep conversations with the rest,though most of the time he simply listened in on them. “Oh…You know…just saying hi to some people”.Homo-nat exhaled in amusement,taking a sardonic glance at him before returning to his mirror as the younger man hunched in self consciousness.Both him and Nazbol seeked validation from both Commie and Nazi and received none from either.
Homo-nat made his insecurities known in less productive ways,and Posadist noted that down long ago.
The glowing man dropped the subject too,the talk of Commie brought some memories he would rather explore alone.Nazbol hummed to himself.
Amprim was chewing pieces of soft facial tissues between his teeth and throwing them at Transhumanist like little darts. “Your aim is off barbarian,see?”chimed in An-mon.Tiny blobs stuck to the walls behind Transhumanist like deflated jellyfish.Amprim grunted and looked to An-mon to elaborate. “Never look at the tip of your arrow,look at the place you want to hit”.
“But me dont have arrow!” he cried in frustration.
“Why use your finger to point the way”he replied.Transhumanist beeped in betrayal,it was two against one now.Amprim’s hand (Holding the paper ball) was guided to the corner of his mouth while his other pointed gallantly towards the fearful robot with the meticulous hand of An-mon,like a bowman of old.The caveman was smiling twice as wide as him.
“Now 3…2…1…”
“FIRE!”
With a swift motion of a fleshy spring,the paper arched through the air,breaking through the thin glass screen and erupting in a volcano of electrical sparks.Transhumanist clutched at his face in a weirdly human way,as if he still retained a nervous system.Someone screamed,Homonat dropped his mascara,its sound drowned out by the mechanical shrieks.His limbs flailed erratically,sinking to the ground in an electrical seizure.His spincers clutched at something only he could see,before stiffening like dying spiders.
“Metal man is dead!”screamed Amprim in anguish,his smile evaporating and teeth bared in primal fear.
Nazbol began to cry.
“ANACHO-MONARCHIST”
the man jumped in fright,looking half as tall when he looked into those intense yellow pupils.Posadist loomed over him as he stammered dumbly,trying to keep Amprim from hyperventilating.
“WHO GAVE THE TISSUES TO AMPRIM?”
He could see thin mammalian teeth in the ever present grin.Sharp teeth.He was no king here,but he had forgotten that.And now look what he’s done…
“SPEAK!”
He was practically on top of him. “I–i-it was Homonationalist…Homonationalist….”all the attention and rage that bore down melted away from him as Posadist turned to the abashed fascist who was quietly trying to leave.
“SIT DOWN”
“But I-”
“NOW!”
He sat down curtly,and quietly wished it was Nazi who was talking to him instead.Everyone had silently left.It was just them,sitting opposite each other in the fluorescent room. “So it has come to my attention that one of the group members is dead because you provided him with an object that holds moisture”,his calm voice straining over the last word.“I didn't kill him!Amprim did!”he deflected tactlessly.Posadists antennae twitched,but he said nothing in the tense quiet that followed.
He doesn't know any better.
Homo-nat dug his manicured hand into his palm “It’s not like anyone wants to be here anyway…” he muttered resentfully.
……
Homo-nat braced for a hit.It's not like he hadn't been punched before. “Then leave”.This surprised him more than any slap in the face. “Run back to your Nazi who will throw you aside like the worthless trash you are.”He said it without scorn,without hate.Like it was a simple fact.Like Homo-nat was a toddler throwing a tantrum and he was trying to soothe him with his melodic voice.Like no human would proclaim such awful words.
“That's not true degenerate!"He snarled.How dare he bring up his name. “He never left me!He would never do that-”He coughed out some tears.God…
“It's ok.I know you were rejected from the compass”There it was again that smile. “We all were,but I don't really mind,that's actually why I picked you…”
“Fuck you…”He grumbled.
“...It's why you keep coming back.It's why this group stays together despite everything.”
“I never came because of degenerates like you!”spitting out his words with a venomous sting from his makeup covered lips.
“Yes you did.It's because you were lonely,not even An-Queer could relate to you.You always look at us in disdain,because we are the outgroup.You fascists always have one."
Angry tears peppered Homo-nats eyes,streaking his eyeliner down his face like ink.
“You cannot fit in the only group you have,so you cause disturbance.Like a cancer.”
“Shut up…”
“You're an ingroup of one,but to be alone is to die,so if you want to keep your place here you will stop causing trouble,you will apologize to the group,and get some self-awareness.”
*******
Posadist,felt like he handled that pretty well.He was never good with tears or telling people off,but he who wears the crown does so with a heavy head (He remembered An-mon saying something like that).Homo-nat had left without a word so that was probably a good sign.And now the 2nd least co-operative person in the committee was incapacitated,with old vacuum tubes full of uranium.
*******
It was late at night now.The sky was dotted with needle thin pinpricks that smudged into the murky dark,approaching headlights obscured the cosmic details.Lights manned by the tired faces of the people.Commie was walking home from a long day,The Anarchists had gotten evicted from their basement and he was worn out from from the screaming match that followed with him and Ancap.After a drawn out siege,with counter attacks for counter attacks,Ancap:red faced and furious relented. “Find freeloaders I’ll *relocate* you somewhere where I won't be tempted to break the NAP!”.And relocate he did.The flat was dingy,with flickering lights to illuminate the mould that clung to the blood stains of the previous resident,but it was a win non-the-less.
He built his mortgage-less,rent-less house with the tools supplied by Ancap (for a price),but it was the best he could have without just living in the woods.He lived next to a university,with all the noise and bustle that came with it,but he liked being around those who had heard of his praxis and internalised it.Even if it was slightly revised…
When he took breaks from his writing,he would watch all the little humans, laughing ,walking, crying as he typically did roughly 180 years of his existence.It was nice.
Unlocking his door he walked to his bedroom through the unlit corridor.Books tripped him up but he was too cathartic to really care,he picked them up lazily and placed them with all the others that lined his walls.Was it just his eyes or did he see a red silhouette in his bedroom?
Yawning into his hand and blinking blearily he searched for the light switch to no avail.Slowly a red beacon lightened his bed like a bloody candle stirring itself to life.His pupils shrank painfully away from the anomaly.
“Hello Comrade!”came a cheerful voice.The voice emanated from beneath glowing antenna that waved as if submerged in a warm underwater tank. “Who-who..”Commie felt a strange de-ja-vu at the voice but couldn't bring his badly adjusted eyes to look at…the angle?God? “Why it’s your beloved friend and colleague Posadist!”The figure straightened out.He was sitting on his bed with his legs together,clasping his hands as if in a prayer with a wide grin on his face that seemed to grow with each second he gazed at his luminous face.He had also straightened out the covers and puffed the pillows in his absence.Commie gasped at the recognition,but he squinted in learned suspicion,and backed towards the doorframe.“How did you get inside?”The room was dark and windowless,scattered with decaying novels and hardbacks from the last century and portraits of dead men.The figure cocked his head to the side as if confused “I walked in”.The intruder looked down at his own clasped hands and slowly towards Commie,hugging his legs in a fetal position like he was the one afraid,like he was the very same eager revolutionary he was all those generations ago.
“I have great news for you~” Posadist giggled,his voice choking with excitement as he beckoned the hesitant man who was inching towards the exit.
“Sitt with me,sssiiiittt” suddenly that very same curled up body,jumped up and held Commie's hand clumsily by the wrist as he sat at the opposite end of the bed.Posadist hopped across the room,wherever he landed revealed small,sometimes bulky mechanical parts as if a car was ripped apart in his tiny room.His eyes were guided towards a metallic shell that lay next to the dusty flintlock gun display.A small glass case that emitted an unhealthy neon green was scooped up like a chicken,and presented like a gift,neatly 2 inches away from his face,making Commie jerk backwards instinctually.Posadist jittered happily like a dolphin amid the carnage that surrounded him.Commie's eyes began to glaze over in the incomprehensible monologue,poking the silver wreck at his feet cautiously.It was like a deflated Halloween costume,lifeless in a way that made his eyebrows twitch uncomfortably.The rambling intruder had quietened,his fingers twitching every now and then,surveying this development with his glittering round eyes.Commie steadied himself under the scrutiny,channeling the violent urge to attack the man by kicking at the side of a rectangular box.Guts of machinery splayed limply from the torn sides.What is this…?Crouching down now he examined a mouth like apparatus and followed the ruined wires to the torn dials that moved with the spluttering energy of human pupils. “Posadist” he rumbled,keeping it low enough to stop the building acid from overtaking his voice. “What is this?”.
“Hmmmm?It’s Transhumanist”He stated blandly,as if declaring the weather,while he jumped over an oil stain.Commie yelped,falling backwards onto the hard wooden floor.The metal eye followed him,shivering with undying spasmic energy because robots can't die. “Oh…” the monster said, disappointed,rocking his heels backwards and forwards on his mattress.
“I wanted to tell you that-”
“You killed him!”
“-that I developed a nuclear weapon.”
The deafening void that filled the air,consumed whatever happiness there was and that there could ever be.Posadists smile contorted into confusion,disappointment and finally a hurt grimace.The tube he so happily displayed now hung limply in his fingers.Commie watched the man as he picked himself off from the ruined carcass.
The other was weirdly tense now,with controlled breathing to calm his nerves as his antenna folded to the side,behind his ears.He looked to the south wall of his room away from him,as if sensing a change in air pressure outside. “We have the same goals.I am helping you.” as if he was declaring a universal rule.The more he sat there the more his light made him appear like an anglerfish in the gloom. “I’ve organised,humans and ideologies.I’ve done so much…” He muttered, messing with the bedsheets.Commie breathed in sharply,the horror flashing in his mind. “But why.Why now why do all…this?”He gestured around him.The place he had lived for so long,dirtied with machinery. “Because we are dying…”the end of the whisper puttered out,unheard and unknown,other than to Commie,the man who had antiquated with the memorabilia he surrounded himself with.
No…NO!He wasn't dying.Communism still had many goals to complete,class war to rage,fascists to line up against the prison firing squads.The proletariat still laboured day by day and only he could convince them to cast aside their chains of capital.Heh,get out of here…
“But I fixed that…”Commie paused,looking down on the short figure that now lay cushioned by his bed's headboard between two saliva yellowed pillows.
“Wha-?”
*******
The fireball had engulfed the city of Ottawa
in a blazing sun of destruction.Skyscrapers shattered and collapsed like burning pyres.flesh,metal,brick and steel disintegrated in a furnace of heat,before scattering to the wind like funeral ashes.Shock waves vaporised soil and ruptured pipes and internal organs.Those who were lucky died in the first second,most though were not so fortunate.Trains melted with the all the resilience of butter as the terrified creatures inside boiled like steamed dumplings inside their metal pans.The earthquakes would be felt internationally,inciting hurried nuclear retaliations,as there were was not just one nuke,oh no,each country was provided its fair share of devastation.Biblical hurricanes of molten glass flew through the air like strident bats,nicking the crumbling infrastructure.
Posadist observed from the rugged Gatineau Hills.The kind of place families would go to ski and look at birds.There were so many things he wanted to think about.He had imagined this moment countless times,ever since he had been pulled from the shifting ether into this form,but the only thing he could think about was how beautiful the fire looked.The first thing someone feels when caught in a fire is the feeling of their skin burning and their eyeballs boiling.He of all people knew that,but he was too choked with excitement.Every now and then it would overflow and he would find himself laughing and giggling like a madman.
All the Wackies were dead,just as their handful of people were.All the major ones,Anarchist,Nazi and Ancap…well I dont think people will be using money for sometime…As far as he was concerned they would be at least easily defeatable,especially with the help of his friend.
Someone groaned as if waking from the dead.Comrade! Thought Posadist,smoothing the creases out of his slightly ruffled shirt.The other man lifted himself up and stared at the epicentre of the growing mushroom against the horizon,and buried his face in his cold hands as he blinked at the afterimage.
Posadist left him to himself,while he unburied the bunkers.The little humans were still alive and had been there at least 6 months before he dug them out of their burrows.He knew,just like the invisible and capricious spirit he was.He wondered if they had caught onto the fact he had been slowly adding to their supplies.Nothing in their terrified demeanor showed so,except a world-sick weariness.
In the small bunkers he had occasionally eaten with them,not that they showed any knowledge of his presence.But if you were to ask and they were to talk,they would say that the temperature rose to a stuffy heat, that their skin mutated as if near a radioactive proximity,or perhaps they were filled with a sense of dread that gave them hope.He had decided to rebuild distance once talks of abandoning the tunnel system began.
The ionising warmth of the surface heated up his cold-stiff joints,and he leapt and pranced weightlessly in the carnage of the new world,skipping from foot to foot,whirling and spinning in the smoke.This is going to be so much better!
Posadist had finally cleared the rubble from the bunker hatches,with the help of Commie.The labour had stopped himself from stewing in his thoughts for too long.4 days later the communists slowly climbed from their bunkers to the joyful cheers of Posadist.Everyone of them gathered up their tools and tilled the parched radioactive soil in the cloudy light of a blind sun.Others tended to their wounds,staring up into the soot stained atmosphere as if for guidance.Posadist was there to keep them.He was all around them.
“Anarkiddie!Anarkiddie,are you there!”The bunkers had yielded the bitter fruit of false hope.He could find no anarchists,and therefore no success. “Ancom…”He spluttered a dry cough in the emptiness.
“You’re still looking?”It was as if he emerged from the shimmering air amongst the wasteland.
“Yes…”It was a shameful confession.To this war criminal.
He hunched to the ground in despair.What was the last thing he had said to him.He could have done more for him,he should have done more for him instead of letting him move into that abandoned shithole.
“Hey,dont think of the Anarchist,look what we have here” he gestured hopefully at the thin village of people he had accrued.They looked hungry,but standards had significantly improved since they found a well.They didn't see or notice the two men as they tried their best efforts as rebuilding.
“They have so much potential!Don't you see”
The shorter man hugged his back with a strange strength.Burrying his face in his red suit.Posadist could feel Commie quietly catch his breath,it came as a small jolt,like a paralysed deer.He could feel his thin,muscular arms,his warm torso that his hands cradled so tenderly.He could still smell his clothing detergent.Posadist nudged his face under his ushanka so he was against his ear. “We could do so much,we have the whole world…”His arms cuddled tightly around his neck like a loving snake,as a hand massaged the soft skin around his ribcage,that rose quickly with each breath.His legs wrapped round the man like a clamp,stroking his shoulders with his chin slowly.
He suddenly pulled away,letting the cold air shiver down his spine and crouched in his line of view.He studied his face but this time there was no smile,the only light that came from his face was his eyes,searching for…something.Commie could feel his breath,it was hot like a furnace against his skin,and yet he stared,wide-eyed.Then just as it was gone it had appeared,he smiled sincerely,curling up his face and into his shining eyes like the morning sun.His hand search for his in the dust,grasping it dearly,while his other fiddled with a stray tuft of hair on his neck as he pushed his face towards his for a kiss.
It is time to clear the stage as the last man standing does so on a mountain of corpses.