Thomas Zman

     It is the summer of the future, the year of our Lord.  Having been legislated obsolete, humans are now dispassionately conceived in Growth Houses, emerging as fully developed, Generation F ers.  These replicants for humanity (the brain-child of libertarian governance) are then weaned from such Houses by the age of consent, leaving from there with nothing more than a name.  Chemically imbalanced and emotionally disabled, festooned with tattoos and piercings, elaborate scarring’s upon their bodies, these soulless surrogates emerge into a society where their indolence is consubstantially rewarded by means of the latest smart phone.     

 

      In contrast, during this same time-period, Elders (traditional humans who now exist without the means to further reproduce) have abridged their existence as compared to years ago.  Their decline of longevity the direct result of all medicinal resources having been channeled towards the burgeoning Generation F ers, insuring their evolution, and thus the stabilization of the world’s populous.  Elders continue on with the responsibilities historically bequeathed to the ingrates of their species; positions of prominence having all been methodically eliminated, replaced by technology, efficiently juggernauting humanity’s foray into the future.

      Most Elders, too old or frail to contribute to the planet’s workforce, now spend their days lounging at the beach, alongside the multitudes of Gen F ers.  Many repose beneath the searing heat of the heavens, shielded by umbrellas; some smear lotion over themselves, attempting to resurrect that long gone glow of vitality.  Most are embittered as to where life has left them after all their years of earning an honest living.  They now sip libations, complaining of their declining health, and of course, the “state of the world today.”

      Sigmund is one such Elder.  A professor of psychology, back when academia was an integral component of society, Sigmund had contributed emphatically towards the betterment (at least what he thought of as to being the betterment) of all mankind.  His working years had been extraordinary:  his ventures’ having taken him to places Beyond Imagination.  Yet Sigmund’s mind continuously replays a life he can share with no one – not that any of the other Elders would have believed him, anyway.  Being an eccentric, as well as an eclectic, the burden of secreted knowledge retained within him as to “universal providence” the reasoning for his daily sojourn.  

      Sigmund’s ramshackle house abuts the shoreline.  Every morning therefrom he descends upon the sands, wearing an oversized wrap and toting a large cooler.  The cooler he packs with ample amounts of his favorite drink, of which he shares freely (a “special brew” that cleanses one of life’s indiscretions) dragging it behind him, staking his claim just as the morning’s haze was lifting . . . before the Gen F ers arrived.  

 

      It is during this time that Sigmund meditates, petitioning forgiveness for that long-ago role he once portrayed: courier between converging worlds.  So, with his large, signature cooler beside him, the insulated box acting as an armrest—some would argue a pulpit—with no umbrella, hat, or sunglasses to protect him from the penetrating rays of the Above, Sigmund, whose skin had long ago aged to a leathery brown, sojourns improvidently amongst the fellowship of mankind, seeking to remedy what so long ago had gone awry.

      His descent upon the sands occurs as the many of his own generation awaken from their makeshift hovels, gathering up their sparsities, and heading up towards the rocky bluffs.  Beyond, they (these accursed) flow out into the streets, out into avenues for another day’s drudgery, scratching out an existence.  And so it is during this time that the old man sombered through supplication, his eyes quick to settle upon the few who had spent their last night upon the sands.  For it is not uncommon that several of his generation should have their lives’ drift from this planet during the darkness, their bodies then awaiting collection by roving Coroners.  

      Again and again the crashing surf pounds the shoreline, only to gently caress its sands upon retreat.  This natural, multitudinous, rhythmic descant of nature endlessly rumbles along the coast, immixing with the cry of gulls as they swoop along in search of their morning’s meal.  The sun silhouettes them as its rising warms the air and blankets the old man, wrapping him in a tapestry of serenity.  Savoring this moment, this unfettered time of tranquility, Sig concludes his solicitations, crossing himself, and opening the first of his day’s libations.  

      Soon, however, the buses arrive, disembarking the denizens of debauchery: the Gen F ers.  Down from where the asphalt meets the sands, the encroaching cretins exit the buses, naked, emaciated, hellish hermaphroditic forms bearing armfuls of blankets, chairs, stereos, ice chests, and the entirely of all other possible sundries.  As they proceed hence, bringing forth these items as if appeasements to some exalted beast, there too is their devilishly cacophonous music -- its thundering bass resounding all along the beach, disrupting the natural composure of the shoreline, summoning forth an abolic, underworldly pall.

      Sigmund knows many of these Gen F ers.  They come to the sands daily, hindered by mind-altering chemicals and bio-stabilizing compounds, which course freely through their veins, soothing their plight into a world they are totally unprepared for.  The old man is sympathetic of them, youths as he calls them, they as yet the “unfestered ones.”  For as has come to be discovered, aging causes interior boils and skin infections, which chronically debilitate the Gen F ers some years after their release from the Growth Houses — it then taking copious amounts of numbing oxideines to sooth their discomforts.

      Sigmund had long ago decided each Generation F er as to being their own, individual work of art, the unwitting progeny of world governance.  The Elders, however, were not by any stretch of the imagination smitten with the F ers.  To them, they were the reason behind their own ailing conditions.  Sigmund welcomed always the Gen F ers with a hearty smile upon his cragged face, and a bottle of Nectamber for their drinking pleasure.  During days past, youths would gather round him, staring zombie-like, listening to all Sig had to tell.  Sig reminisced of when people grew up in a family, living in a house — gesturing towards his own upon the bluff.  He told of how families enjoyed spending time together, eating meals, playing games, taking holiday.  He explained how people actually left every morning from their homes, drive in their automobiles and go to work — same as how a few of his own remaining generation still did to this very day.

      Upon hearing of all these great tales by the old man, the Gen F ers, unfortunately, were indifferent; a disheartening reality of which Sigmund had grown accustomed.  And even though all of these things which Sig spoke about were new and wonderful to the Gen F ers, they simply resounded in the hollow of their minds, stimulating them not, inspiring them not from exiting their sedentary lifestyles.  

      F ers rarely spoke amongst themselves.  They communicated via picture text messaging, or a simple pre-written tag added onto any videos they wished to share.  Often, however, they would Video-Skype Sig during their visits to him; very proficient were they in holding their phones and moving about for differing angles of viewing.  Yet none of what they recorded ever made it to the WorldWide Web; Politically Correct bots immediately expunged him from the global network.  No mention of anything Sigmund ever described ever left the sands whence he spoke them.  And in the same sense, none of what he described had ever been encoded into the minds of the Gen F ers during their years of listening to his preaching’s.  Smart phones were the only means F ers had to learn or retain anything of the world.  No outside influences ever registered with them, and no other Elder ever paid them any mind.

      Sig remained undaunted by this fact; perhaps he was ignorant of it since he possessed no phone on which he could communicate.  Sig was especially proud to inform the Gen F ers, the youths, that he once stood within huge classrooms, lecture halls full of students, commanding their attention, teaching them of historical occurrences, and the consequences of wrongful actions.  With his white, bushy eyebrows shifting with essence, his features animated  (and in a complete turnaround as to what he once actually imparted to his university students) Sig portrayed a variety of historians who’d devoted their lives to upholding the concept of “liberty and justice,” hoping that his words would inspire these youths, implanting within their minds some kind of motivation.

      The youths all enjoyed the old man’s tales — even though they would quickly fade from memory upon their leaving.  Sometimes the youths attempted to share some of their own stories with Sig: Waking up in the morning; finding food, medicine (the mind-numbing intoxicants stipend them) and then of course their daily trek to the beach.  It was the same routine day in and day out.  Sig found it near impossible to follow along in a youth’s story—they all having been improperly taught the art of conversation — though by sheer repetition and gestures, Sig generally knew what they were trying to convey. And so it was known, repeating the same stories over and over, changing words, characters, situations so as not to bore himself, Sig, enjoyed the Gen F ers — though pitied greatly their disposition.

      Youths were all well trained in phone etiquette.  They knew instantly where from to connect to everything everywhere of triviality, wrapped within blogs, posts, and especially the all-important infomercials, which spewed forth locations as to where food, clothing, and shelter could be found.  Huge self-driving stores parked roadside in open spaces where businesses once stood, opening their doors to supply the F ers, while shelters varied in location.  With just the basics of sanitation, these shelters were simple, ill-kempt hovels where everyone slept clustered on the floor.  No Gen F er knew any better as to care where or how they existed, though the Public Service Announcements implored them to wash with disposable, moist towelettes supplied them at the hovels, all afforded them, of course, free of charge.

      F ers had few belongings and no worries.  To them, only their phones held any kind of value, any kind of importance.  During every waking hour, an F er fiddled with their phone.  The incessant imageries of someone sleeping, shopping, or pleasuring, is penultimately what defined this generation.  The continuous tapping and swiping, their cerebrums over-working to ingest, process, then absorb dopamine, is what compelled one Elder to describe them as to being, “Lab-born mutants each equipped with large reservoirs for the copious amounts of dopamine consumed on a daily basis.”  

      Rarely did Sig speak with any of the embittered Elders flanking him.  All kept to themselves in this portion of the beach — a portion directly beyond Sig’s house up on the bluff.  It was said that Sigmund actually owned the sands upon which many of the Elders lounged, extending right out into the ocean itself.  Sig never quibbled about it; he was only too happy that he should have visitors daily.  

      With his land ownership, Sig was an exception amongst the Elders.  Most of them lived, as did the F ers, in the squalor afforded them by government handouts, or upon the sands at night in their makeshift shelters.  It appeared no one was as blessed as was Sigmund.

      However, Sig’s days at the shore were not without consolation.  Sig, who had delighted the Gen F ers’ for years, despite any of them ever having the ability to hold a conversation, had just recently befriended himself a special Gen F er.  

      Savant first introduced himself to the old man, after having been turned out from a Growth House weeks earlier.  He had been standing amidst the other F ers and listening to Sig’s stories.  It was when Savant began to speak, asking the old man questions, that Sigmund first realized there was perhaps hope for this generation.

      It was from that day on that Sigmund had to politely excuse away all the other F ers, leaving himself ample time, and beverages, so that he could enlighten this newfound prodigy.  

 

* * *

 

      Sig watches for his new friend daily.  Savant is hard to miss, standing apart from all the rest.  For as the buses unloaded throngs of F ers, individuals whose defiled forms are and covered by tattered remnants, a svelte, shirtless Savant wore simply a pair of shorts on his finely bronzed body.  His hair is parted straight down the middle and tied back in a sweeping ponytail.  It bounds from side to side as he walks; a swagger few F er’s had ever achieved, many of them adopting a primitive, ungainly gait. 

      Gripping his smart phone, Savant heads out onto the sands where he pauses atop a dune and looks out across the beach.  Salty air fills his lungs, as does the assaulting Gen F er music his ears.  The sands are littered with sunbathers and their possessions, while in the distance, away from the multitude of sitting and prostrate bodies—one now being collected by a roving Coroner—Savant spots his friend, Sig,with his balding scalp, fringed by white hair, the old man watches a tern near the surf’s edge playfully peck at a scuttling crab.  Nearby, F ers vie to kill both the crab and bird by hurling stones, laughing at their antics.  One such of these F ers then curses at a nearby Elder, who had dared to shake his head in disdain. 

 

      “Zig!” yells Savant, trying to get the old man’s attention.  But the attempt is naught . . . the devilish din of the F er music drowning out all else.

       Savant makes his way through the crowds, carefully placing his feet, attempting to avoid needles and broken glass, puddles of unburied feces.  Savant ignores the jeers and threats of the Gen F ers who realize he is not the same as they, but more like some hybrid they’d long ago seen during their beginning years in the Growth Houses. 

      Along with Savant come more Gen F ers, continuing their daily trudge across the sands — an unending processional spreading as does a malignancy through its host.  Sig shifts his attention from the surf and watches as more and more of them, flaunting their government-bought bodies and hybrid genitalia, mindlessly follow one another, flowing out and further blemishing the beach.   

      The shoreline is surveilled by cameras as well as throngs of police who have taken their posts not just along the sands, but aloft in towering chairs once reserved for ‘lifeguards.’  They wear thick, golden sashes across their loose white uniforms.  Black utility belts harness clubs, stun guns, and a debilitating spray, all for the effect of ‘crowd preparedness,’ ready to ‘disperse and summon’ at a moment’s notice.  Yet these officers are reluctant in their duties; these sparse-remaining Elders working during what should have undoubtedly been their ‘golden years.’

      “Savant!”  The old man finally notices his friend’s approach, and gestures enthusiastically.  “Come!  We shall drink!”

      Sig reaches deep into his cooler and pulls out two ice-cold bottles of Nectamber; the sweetest brew ever to grace one’s palate!

      “My friend,” welcomes the old man, thrusting the beverage into Savant’s hand.  “It is so very good to see you this day.” 

      Savant grins and accepts the beverage, situating himself in the sand.

Sig opens the other bottle for himself.  “Come, talk a while!” he says, grabing Savant’s phone and burying it deep inside his cooler.

      “Hey!”

      “It will be safe in there until you go,” Sig explains.  “We have much to talk about, and much to drink.  We don’t need that thing tingling every eight seconds.”

      Savant grimaces.

      “Tell me --” Sig gestures towards the cooler, “have you looked up anything about the book I told you about?”

      “It’s not easy finding websites relating to religion -- at least not the kind you're talking about.”  Savant takes a long draught, near finishing the brew.  “Most all of that kind's been redacted from the Web.”     

      Sig frowns at his response, drinking.

       “I found threads, but they led me mostly in circles.  And from what I could figure of them, they were only pieces of what you told me about.  I kept getting kicked out, my phone shutting down.  Seems it was very large, this Bible you talk about.”  Savant looks at him funny.  “Why don’t you look it up yourself?”

      “I have no need,” he replies.  “I already know the Good Book.  Every chapter and verse.  I will gift you mine.”  

      “And what will I do with that?”

      “Read it.”

      “ Everything anyone ever needs is stored on the cloud.”

      “Not everything.”  Sig looks skyward.  “Besides, there is more to clouds than computing.”  

      “I’m sure my phone’s been ticketed because of this search you had me do.”  Savant frowns.  “Now that I’ve looked into redacted documents, it’s been slowed down a lot.  Virus, you know.  Everything now takes a lifetime to load.”  Savant exaggerates, his comment striking an emotional cord within Sigmund.  A lifetime, indeed!

      After years of meeting with Gen F ers, finally Sigmund has found one who could be understood; who had intelligence about him.  At this time other Gen F ers have been passing by Sig and his friend, knowing better than to interrupt the two while in conversation.

      “I will bring it, tomorrow,” Sig says, handing him another brew.  “I’m sure it will help you better understand these times we now find ourselves.”

      “What times are those?”  Savant guzzles half the bottle.  “It’s barely noon.”

       Sigmund has to be careful choosing his words; the youth still lacks much in the way of innuendo.

      “Easy on that stuff,” Sig warns.  “We must last the day.”

      “From the little I was able to read,” Savant states, “it was an entirely different culture back when that book was documented.”

      “Over two thousand years ago,” Sig clarifies.       

      “I pray your eyes will be opened,” he comments; bearing in mind the book of Revelations: the beach a metaphor of such.  “Humanity’s only chance lies amidst this ocean of iniquity.”

      Savant agrees unknowingly.

      A gust of wind brings with it the ominous thumping from down the beach, the penetrating bass wreaking havoc upon the innards.  Some Gen F ers chant to its malevolent beat.  More sojourners arrive, as do more stereos:  all of them tune into the same frequency, the same ill-boding sound.  

       “I long have known your generation; conscience having been omitted from their development.”

      Savant smiles nervously, unsure as to just what Sigmund spoke; thinking, the old man is no doubt living in an ancient past himself—a place somewhere in that book he wants me so badly to read. 

 

* * *

      The essence of Ambrosia wafts in the wind.  Nearby, an F er using a device, inhales copious amounts of the aphrolucinogen deep into her lungs, and then exhales large plumes of it from her lips.  A sensually intensifying experience.

      Savant smiles and reaches for his phone (voyeurism the marquis experience of all Gen F ers) yet remembers Sig having buried it deep inside his cooler.  Youths gather around the girl, recording her intense climatic experience . . . she sitting there, eyes closed, her body writhing.  The recording of orgasmic events was common -- Sig was still mystified whenever Gen F ers pleasured.  The practice had replaced all manner of intimate exchange and was by far less salacious than outmoded sex.  Elders too, partook of the practice, yet refrained from doing so in public.

       “Have you – “

      “No.  I have never.  I’m a Voyerist.  But it seems you have taken that from out of my hands.” 

      Savant turns his gaze towards the ocean.  

      “You are very unlike any of them I have ever met.”  Sig drinks.  “Very unlike them.”

 Ogling F ers continue their recording.  Several look to Sig for comment, but politely he refrains from conversation, asking them to perhaps return another time.  All attention then shifts back to the girl’s pleasuring.

      Sig drinks long from his bottle and finishes it, belching, thinking of days past as a husband and how he missed his wife – how the art of lovemaking had totally been corrupted.

      “The interpolation of sins,” Sigmund comments, reaching for another bottle; Savant’s still being half full.  “Entire industries were once based on promiscuity and alcohol.”  The old man studied the bottle from which he drinks.   “They’ve now reduced all such matters to designer drugs and sweet brews.”

                                                                   

                                                     

* * *

 

      There is a time of silence between the two friends — save for the music, which now surrounds them as do thickening hoards of Gen F ers.  

      Savant looks to the old man with question.

      “You crave your phone,” says the old man.  “Don’t you?”

      Savant continues to stare blankly.

      “You’ll not find truth there.”

      “And why not?” returns Savant.  “Certainly, all knowledge is contained in it.”

      “But not all knowledge is truth.” 

      “Why must you twist my words?  Why must you take my phone from me?”

      “For your undivided attention.”

      Savant drinks.

       “Your time with me, away from your phone will prepare you.”

      “Prepare me for what?”

      “For when the world runs down and we are no longer here.”

      “What has that got to do with my phone?” 

      Savant, like all Gen F ers, could not see but a day ahead into the future.

      “Your generation is totally dependent on your phones.  They are like the narcotics that keep all of you tolerant of your  lifestyle — or give you orgasms.  Like me, and this cursed beverage.  Surreal is your existence; all too real is mine.  Your bodies crave every byte that comes across your phone’s screen.  You exist only to serve it — as if it were some type of god.” 

      “What is wrong with that?”

      “Who do you think creates all that information on the phone?  Places it into the cloud your generation worships so? 

      Savant could not answer. 

      “My people,” Sigmund informs him.  “My generation, who have advanced themselves to the point where they went and created you.”  Sig kept his temper in check, not wanting to offend the youth.  “We all keep it running, though you see few of us.  Servants to our creation . . . your Generation.  We still enable this planet to function, to carry on near to how it once was.  Our minds, our creativity; our souls are what keeps things going.” 

      “It sounds to me that you think of your own kind as gods.”

      Sig quiets.

         A roving Coroner’s patrol stops several yards in front of the two, checking on an unmoving body.  After looking it over, recording it from several angles with their phones, they rolled the body onto a tarp and deposit it into their vehicle. 

            Sig makes the sign of the cross. 

            “Why must you always do that when you see them take away a body?”

            “It is an old religious gesture.”

            “Again, from your Bible?”

            Sig didn’t answer, though thought about his childhood years, of going to church, being amidst adults who were careful of what they said and did; who had shown morality.

            Savant gives the matter no further thought, looking at the bottle from which he drinks:

                                                            ‘Nectamber’

                                                        For What Ales You

           

            He smiles at the slogan; though understands not the depth of Sigmund’s comments.  Further down the beach a gull pecks at another lifeless body, lying at the

edge of the surf.  Other gulls surrender the currents from above to come down to join in on the feeding. 

            The Coroners catch sight of this and hurry towards the gulls, wanting to recover the corpse before damage is done – the Growth Houses prefer the use of recycled eyes, they giving the newer F ers a sense of having been.

            In his mind, Sig compares Savant’s generation to that of the gulls’ — scavengers feeding off the dead.

             “In the morning,” Sigmund begins, the music continuing to blare all around,  “before the sun rises, I read the news from my tablet.  I’ll sit right there, out on my deck” – he looks behind and indicates his house far up on the bluff — “reading what the media feels is in society’s best interest.”

            Savant looks in that direction, sensing a tinge of jealousy as he does every time his attention is brought there . . . where the element once known as “money” built a shelter, uncrowded by others.

            “That is what helps keep me focused,” Sig continues.  “My mind trying to untangle the injustice.  I know there is nothing further from the truth than what the government, the media, wants everyone to believe.  Whatever I see, whatever I hear, I know that somehow it has been altered — tainted.  And so I, relying upon my old ways, ways of what were once called ‘common sense,’ tend to think the opposite.  Why you – “

            Sig catches himself.  Not wanting to insult the youth, or perhaps the surrounding others . . . those who had wandered up just to stand and listen.  Sig drinks and smiles.  When he had calmed himself sufficiently, he addresses the gathered F ers.  Politely, he askes if they could come back another time.  Other Elders, who are nearest to Sig, were always uncomfortable of such. 

            Savant knew where the conversation was headed, though still he continues to look back, studying Sig’s house.  Its roofline was a series of hard angles with tall glass windows allowing in every bit of the ocean’s beauty.          

            “Is that what it means to prosper?”  Savant asked.“

             “In a sense.” 

* * *

            The sun, having climbed high overhead, is now blaring down with all its fury.  The surf is alive with frolicking bathers, all yelling and laughing as the waters refresh them from the brutal heat.  The Elders, however, just lie upon their blankets or lounge in their chairs, shielded beneath umbrellas from the sun’s scorching rays.  Sigmund, like few others of his generation, sits unprotected, sizzling in the heat, enduring the burn, serving penance.

            At the water’s edge an F er screams.  Apparently, an Elder was trying to help her up after collapsing.  The two friends look on, surmising as to what the trouble could be.  The F er, in a frenzied state, calls to the police, insisting upon the old man’s arrest.  Officers quickly arrive on the scene where they all look at their phones, downloading footage captured from the cameras.  

            After analysis, a decision is made.  The old man is led away, hand cuffed and humiliated.  

             “Backwards.  It’s all become so backwards!”  Sig comments.  “Morals and common sense have become Mirror-Image Laws.”

            “Negative of what is right and just,” declares Savant.

            Sigmund smiles.  His friend’s understanding pleases him; their days together beginning to yeild results.

 

 * * *

           

            It becomes later.  The air has become deathly still.  The sun continues its blaze overhead, scorching the earth, and all that lay beneath it.  Not far off, Sigmund notices two Gen F ers with long beards and scar-riddled bodies.  Their skin oozes with pustules; diseases senior Gen F ers acquire that science hasn’t yet overcome. 

            The one F er, his head shaven save for a scroungy ponytail, is holding a glassine tube, and passing a flame beneath it, causing its contents to dissolve.  The other F er then draws up the liquid into a needle and plunges it into his arm.  Immediately he nods out, though somehow remains upright in a sitting position. 

             -- An instant later he springs to his feet, the needle still dangling from his arm.  With his eyes ablaze, he looks off and begins inexplicably storming towards an Elder, an old woman who’d been reading a book, lounging in her chair, minding her own business.  Flailing vulgarities of an indeterminable tongue, the Gen F er reaches the old woman and begins to vehemently lash out at her.  She falls to the sands, attempting to protect herself from this raving maniac.

            A crowd gathers around the two, recording the incident, immediately uploading it to where it is live-streamed worldwide.  The F er rants wildly, spittle flowing from his mouth, he mocking the old woman – taunting her to fight.  She screams for her life, screaming for him to leave her alone.

            Several police come down from their posts.  The officers are not much younger than Sig – themselves Elders – and get between the two and into the ruckus. 

             “You test-tube freaks have no respect!” the old woman continues her frantic screams, near louder than the music.  “Do you even know what respect is?  No—Not your kind!  You’re lazy, manipulative, and deceitful.”  Her body trembling as she faces up to the crazed youth.  “Disgusting disease infested vermin that smells god-awful.  Damned product of the devil, that’s what you are.” 

            “All right old-timer, that’s enough,” says one policeman, getting between the two.  “Let it go now.  Just move along.”  He gestured for the youth to leave the old woman.  “Ma’ am – “

            “Don’t call me that,” screamed the woman.  “My name is Percy.”

            Several police confer with one another, discussing evidence obtained from off the cameras.

            “Yes, well whatever, Percy,” says the officer, now looking at the phone another was showing him.  The two officers give the nod.

            “Percy,” the one officer says, holding the old woman by the arm.  “I’m needing to arrest you for ‘callousness and insensitivity’.”  He looks to his fellow officers.  “You’ll need to surrender your phone.”

            “I haven’t got one of those damned contraptions.  They’re the devil’s work and you know it!”

            “So be it,” states the officer.

            “You’re arresting me,” the woman cries in disbelief.  “Never thought I’d see the day.  Did you hear what that creature was saying to me?  He was going to slice me up, he was.”   

            “Ma’ am – Percy.  He never touched you.  Code of conduct states . . . “ The officer began recounting the law in a dry lament.

             “ . . . At the expense of the offender,” Sigmund reiterates to his friend, he having witnessed this injustice on many occasions, “Proof of illegalities are hereby the burden of the victim . . . ”  

            “Take me away!  Just take me away!” the old woman laments, putting up no struggle.  “Anything’s better than living on the beach.  You bastards have given these cretins everything.  I worked fifty years of my life and what do I have?  I sleep in blankets, wrapped up on the beach or under an overhang behind some warehouse.  Take me to jail!  At least I’ll get food and a bed.  Maybe there I’ll die with some dignity.”

            The officer wraps her wrists with a plastic band.

            “No one owns this beach, you know.”  Says the old woman as they walk her away.  “It’s public property!”

             Suddenly a chanting erupts, “Burn, burn, burn the corpse!  Burn, burn . . . !” the crowd of F ers reiterates, somehow bending/blending the words to go with the moribund music.  The police turn a deaf ear.

           

            “Everyone, just calm down,” call out several of the officers, having just arrived, brandishing their clubs.  “And you!” an old, yet heavy-set, officer indicates

the ossified F er who’d started the ruckus, “I know it was you—Stygin.”  He taps the chrome weapon against the palm of his hand.  “Yeah, I know who you are.  I just might have to summons you.  Or worse yet, ticket your phone,” he was stating this in an almost threatening tone.  “You want your download speed cut in half?  Would you want that?  Hah?”  But then the officer glances back towards a mounted camera which had pivoted in his direction.  He frowns and walks off towards the thick of the ruckus.

            “Damn you all!” screams the arrested woman.  The police car’s door closes her in, silencing her once and for all.

             “Everyone back to your blankets before we start collecting phones!”  

            From the ruckus a scurvy youth extends a kick to the face of the F er, Stygin.  Stygin crumples down stunned, blood trickling from his nose.  No witnesses to the crime.  Another of the crowd then lashes out at an Elder who’d expressed sympathy towards the old woman.  This too goes unnoticed by the police who are now everywhere.  This Elder is then left face down in the sand, unmoving.

            The crowd becomes more unruly.  Pushing and grabbing leads to punches and kicks, the chants, screams and yelling actually become louder than the entirety of the music along the shoreline.  Stygin is cursed by several of his own.  The woozy, half-conscious youth holds his head, trying to raise himself from the sands.  Someone slices his neck, severing an artery, leaving him to bleed out.  And so he staggers, delirious, reddening the sands with his jutting blood until finally collapsing dead, lying in his own puddle.  A multitude of other F ers join in on the melee, indiscriminately kicking, punching, and slicing one another.  Screams, blood, and bodies fall everywhere as everything erupts into a full-blown riot.  The two friends watch -- though not in disbelief.

            With blue lights flashing more and more police respond, hoping to disburse and calm the F ers.  No spray, no clubs; firearms having long ago been eliminated: Restraint of Force, the only weapon officers of the law are now authorized to use.

            The fighting continues until all F ers are exhausted, and the sands are red-soaked.  The police then are allowed to tend to the injured – and the Coroners to the dead.

 

                                                                   

* * *

           

            The afternoon has gone still.  Many F ers have left, though still there remain many waiting to welcome the twilight.  Uprisings amongst them have ended for well over an hour now, the injured and deceased all having been tended and carted away.  Just the raking of the sands to cover over the blood remains.  A large police presence is no longer necessary; the officers now able to stand down and go back to watching the sloth-like F ers, who’ve regressed into unfunctionable messes, sitting in puddles of their own incontinence.

           

            Still there remains a ringing in the minds of many.  Though the blaring stereos have all abated, they have been replaced by dirge-like thrumming’s, the lowered intensity acting as if perhaps a mourning pall for the dearly departed.  The skies have immixed their colors, redoubled in eeriness; despondency looms all along the shore, the eruption of the deadly ruckus a near common daily occurrence.  Coroners, having deftly deposited the casualties in mobile morgues upon the bluff, now render their final sweep of the sands, searching  for the last of death's deposits.  Besides the riot, the melee, the indiscriminate tussles of the day, Elders as well as F ers have continued to fall away in these past hours; no more, no less as per usual, dying from the heat, the drugs, and the drink. 

                                                                                                                   

* * *

            The sun sets upon the bluff.  Fires burn sparsely from those who remain on the beach.  Gulls scavenge freely as the waters now yield an unclean tide, corpses polluting its ways, though they having to wait ‘til morning for collection.

            The music has since faded into an eerie bell’s toll, summoning forth the stragglers for their night’s rest.  Along with the bell comes the whisperings of the F ers who remain . . . worshipping the darkness, delighting in deviltry.  World governance is overseeing mankind’s elimination— satanic adulation hurries it along. 

 

* * *

​

            With each day’s passing, so too do more Elders.  Sigmund’s spirit remains, witnessing, reflecting upon that which he was once part of; what he has now become: penance served for not having turned the tides.  For it was in his classrooms, his lecture halls of which he’d boasted, Sig had been integral to permissive governance, educating students to transpose tradition and lay waste to righteousness.  And it was only after his return from within our own world, his being a liaison to the sanctifying efforts of the otherworldly, that Sigmund took to the beach, to the sands, realizing he, and all his constituents, had been wrong.  Oh, so dead wrong.

 

* * *

​

            Savant remained, drinking away the days, telling of humanity’s cuckolding — the birthings of which were his very own generation.  Sigmund had been hopeful.  He had tried to stem the tide, to reach out and teach what he should have been teaching years before.  He was hopeful the enlightenment of Savant would genesis a movement amongst the F ers -- the apocalypse which now overwrought the world’s shores.  Sigmund had prayed that if more of the soulless were capable of developing an engram of conscience, as had his friend, that perhaps it would root and spread amongst others, raising them from their blankets.

 

* * *

​

                                    . . . “Sin laws, they once were called.”

             Savant’s hands fidgeted with the Good Book bequeathed him years ago. 

            “Sin laws?” repeated the student, his lips swollen and cracked; his naked body festered with sores and burned by the sun.

            “Yes,” Savant returned, drinking now water, which he shared with his friend.  “Once there were many laws by which people were to live, giving structure and direction.”  Savant looked about at the desolate coastline, heaped with rotting carcasses from which scavengers now fed.  “If people did not follow the laws, it was called sin.  People were punished for violating these laws.  Laws meant to keep justice and peace.  The balance between good and evil.”

             “What are the consequences of sin?”

                        The world as you see it today . . .