Omega (18) "No! No! I am not the Truth! The Truth is not I! No person however good and wise can embody the Truth. It is a thing beyond mere corporeal being. Beyond even the knowledge and wisdom represented by the Illiberal Socialist movement. The Truth is the embodiment, the expression and the undeniability of all that can be. It contains the essence of morality, government, wisdom, knowledge and power. It is all that has ever been desired. All that could ever be desired. The Truth is all that there is. Omnipresent, immanent and elusive. It is there. It must be there. Under all the superficialities of life, seen through the distorted lens of all the senses, there it lies waiting to be demonstrated, experienced and learnt from. And the Truth is what we shall all seek! "The Illicit Party is the only cause which admits that its objective is that of attaining the Truth. The other parties heretically claim to already be in possession of it. A Truth mysteriously found in the works of Mohammed, Marx, St. Paul, Hitler, Adam Smith, Confucius or the Buddha. The Red Party say that it lies in the redistribution of wealth and power. The Black Party in the certainties of dogma and prejudice. The Blue Party in the continuation of tradition and the practice of capitalism. The Green Party in the maintenance of the ecosystem. The White Party in who knows what. Only the Illicit Party is humble and modest enough to admit that it does not have sole possession of the Truth. Only the Illicit Party is willing to strive for the Truth, not trammelled by an ideology which claims prior knowledge. And on this greatest quest of all, all of us, of whatever species, race, epoch or mythology, are together called upon to seek it out. To look for the Truth. Wherever it may be. In the Country. In the City. In the Suburbs. Wherever! So when you leave today, let your thoughts be only on the Truth. After you have voted for the rightful succession of power by the Illicit Party's candidates, your minds should be focused on only one thing. And that thing is the Truth! The Truth!" "The Truth! The Truth!" obediently chanted the crowd. I stood in a degree of confusion. Had my quest been superseded? With so many people searching for the Truth, what chance was there in my quest being successful? And where would the search take all these thousands of Illicit Party supporters? "It has been said that possession of the Truth would make no difference to the conduct of government. Politics, Power and the State are entities wholly divorced from the theoretical constructs embodied by the Truth. Even with the Truth, it is said, there would be no change to the conduct of government. There is already sufficient wealth in the world it is said for everyone to be moderately well off and yet there is starvation. It is universally agreed that murder and crime are wrong and yet they are still prevalent. How should possession of the Truth make any difference? But here there is a difference in kind. The Truth is absolute. It is eternal. It is incapable of being denied. And in the custody of the Illicit Party, which, under my chairmanship, is committed to following the edicts of the Truth however unpalatable they may be, possession of the Truth will make all the difference. All the difference there can be! You have my word! So! All of you! From the smallest lamb to the largest wyvern, it is now that you must take the initiative. Follow the Illicit Party banner. And all in your vast numbers to seek out the Truth. To find it. Secure it. And then bring it back to me. And to the Illicit Party! Find the Truth!" "The Truth! The Truth! The Truth!" echoed the crowd. I gazed at the small distant figure of the koala as he gestured wildly at the crowd whose cheers crashed like waves in crescendos of volume and whose face on the screen expressed satisfaction through beady eyes shadowed slightly by his large hat. For several minutes the cheering continued, waxing and waning, now thundering, now almost a murmur. And then just as I was thinking that the speech was drawing to an end, he drew his arm out in a horizontal sweeping gesture which quite suddenly cut off the cheering and chanting like someone turning off the volume switch of a radio. "There have been many slanders expressed about the Illicit Party by our enemies and recidivists. From what I hear it would seem that it is the author of great injustices and crimes. And that I, as Chairman of the Party, am myself a vile criminal. Such slanders cannot remain unchallenged. It is not true that government in the Socialist Republics is maintained by terror and fear. It is not true that anyone other than the convicted criminal is ever arrested without trial. And it is not true, as some have said, that the Illicit Party is a racist or speciesist party. It is wholly contradictory to the policies and practises of Illiberal Socialism that any individual should be discriminated against on account of the number of legs they may have, the furriness or scaliness of their skin or their height. Such discrimination is wholly against the fundamental precepts of Illicitism. Ungulate or pachyderm. Saurischian or ornithischian. Cretaceous or Pliocene. Chimæra or dragon. All are the same in the regard of the Illicit Party. "However, the sternest critics of the Illicit Party are those who themselves discriminate against all species other than their own, and have done so since their inception in the shadow of the earliest pyramids. These are, of course, the Cats, who, under the leadership of their King so cruelly discriminate against Mice, Dogs and Sheep." The crowd gasped. "Death to the Cats!" chanted one section of it. "Death to the Cat Kingdom!" chanted another section. I glanced over at the Cat traveller who appeared untroubled by these remarks. "One reason why the Feline critics have libelled the Illicit cause is because we alone of all the parties have a constructive policy towards natural selection. The Illicit Party recognises that with time, the people of a nation become genetically inferior unless an effort is made to encourage the breeding of superior stock, and, at the same time, to discourage the breeding of the genetically inferior. In this way, the people of Illicit nations will be only the most intelligent, most physically fit and most loyal. Already the people of the Illiberal Socialist Republics are obliged to petition for the right to bear children and are awarded quotas of production according to their fitness to do so. For those who are especially well-qualified, these quotas are quite high and it is made plain that it is viewed as the individual's duty to achieve these reproduction quotas. For the least fit, the Illicit Party offers (free of charge!) methods to ensure these individuals are relieved of the ability to reproduce should they be so tempted. The demand for these services has been quite high, and consequently the treatment has been rather brusque and irreversible. It is also believed that for those who are not obviously fit or unfit, which includes many Illicit Party officials, it is necessary to demonstrate fitness to reproduce measured by devotion and loyalty to the Illicit cause. In this way, Illicitism will be maintained forever on the deoxyribonucleic acid of the people." The crowd seemed less inspired by this discourse, and the President Chairman may have noticed that the resulting cheers and chants were less than overwhelming. He didn't dwell on this subject, and instead raised his voice to bring the crowd to attention. "It is the view of the Illicit Party that there is such a thing as inferior stock, which results from millennia of inbreeding and unselective breeding. A prime example of this is the Cat. The Cat is a degenerate species that has lost many of the proud attributes of its ancestors. This is reflected by the primitive nature of government that the Cat has adopted. Whereas all other species have aspired to modern governments led by presidents or democratically elected individuals, only the Cat has opted for a form of government in which power is invested in a single individual whose qualifications to govern are merely to do with the 'nobility' of his birth. The Illicit Party is utterly opposed to such hereditary dictatorships and is therefore opposed to the very essence of the Cat Kingdom. "The Cat is also an inherently war-like species. While others have forsworn their carnivorous tendencies, the Cat has reversed the process in its fierce wars against the Dogs bordering the Cat Kingdom's frontiers and the Mice who live within. The Cat will never be satisfied until he has all other mammals under his merciless yoke, no doubt feeling free to feast on them. How can the civilised world permit the Cat to fix his teeth and claws in the flesh of his enemies? "Not only is the Cat exemplary of all that is wrong, as the result of centuries of inbreeding, but in all lands the Cat has cunningly and deceitfully amassed wealth which by rights belongs to other species. The Cat has become the archetypal capitalist and speculator, by his manipulation of the hard-saved earnings of those foolish enough to invest in their concerns or to buy at their shops or to wear the clothes they have made. How much of the wealth that should by rights belong to us all is held by the foul feline! The cunning cat! The manipulative moggie!" The crowd was more excited by Rupert's condemnation of Cats. I regarded the Cat traveller who seemed visibly nervous even from this distance: his tail wagging involuntarily and his whiskers twitching. He was presumably hoping that by keeping a low profile he'd be able to sneak away from the large crowd who were looking at him with hostile interest. "Not only does the Cat take your money! He takes the jobs that should go to sheep and others. How often have you applied for a job only to find that a contentedly purring Cat has taken it from you? How often have you applied for a bank loan only for a Cat in an office miles away to turn you down? How often has your life been ruined by the devious, inscrutable Feline malefactor? How long can decent people stand by while Cats take, take and take from others? How long can we continue to suffer the Feline yoke? How much more can we take?" "Death to Cats! Down with Cats!" chanted the crowd in unison. Then quite suddenly, the Cat traveller, who'd somehow remained standing in amongst the hostile crowd was knocked over onto the back of a ewe. He picked himself up only to be knocked over again. The area around him erupted into a whirlwind of aggression as people of all species descended on the Cat who could be glimpsed in the scrum. His clothes were torn off and the rags remaining were thrown up into the air. The President Chairman paused in his address and impassively viewed the proceedings, but notably made no attempt to calm things down. The last I saw of the Cat was of a battered naked figure with a torn ear, blood running from where his eye might have been and a crooked waving tail, fur pulled out in chunks revealing his bare flesh and mewing piteously. Then before I could really make out more details, the battered figure was once again submerged under a mass of hooves and claws with flaying limbs and blood. In the scramble for the unfortunate Cat I could hear the bleating of lambs being pressed by the mass of their neighbours and saw a dragon steward rescue a pelican who'd been trampled by the mob and whose white feathers were a mess of blood and whose wings were painfully broken. While this was happening, the orchestrated chants and cheers continued unabated, accompanied by a frightening more primæval roar of aggression. "Death to Cats! Kill all Cats! Down with the Cat Kingdom!" shouted the crowd. Gradually, the chant became more positively: "Rupert! Rupert! Rupert!" and the references to Cats appeared to be forgotten as easily as the passion of hatred had began. President Chairman Rupert commenced his speech after calming the passions of the crowd with another gesture, but I had lost my appetite for the rally. I couldn't help wondering whether the wrath of the crowd might soon be directed away from Cats and towards people from the Suburbs. So while he continued his speech I struggled out through the crush of the crowd to the quieter streets beyond the public square. It was not easy threading through the tightly pressed bodies and it was with considerable relief that I found myself at last in the relatively deserted streets beyond. It seemed as if everybody in the town had been at the rally. There was a small café open several streets away, so feeling hungry as it was now past midday I entered and ordered myself a hamburger and chips from the counter where I sat. In very little time my order arrived in a small plastic container and I paid the shilling and sixpence that the meal cost. The café was not unlike similar fast food places in the suburbs, but the walls were pasted with Illicit Party posters, and a massive portrait of President Chairman Rupert dominated above the plastic laminated pictures of muttonburgers, beefburgers and french fries. The person serving was a small young dragon wearing the green costume of his job with a paper hat carrying the symbol of Mutton King, the title of the store. His name was written on a plastic badge on his lapel amongst a plethora of badges bearing Rupert's face. "Have you been to the rally?" he asked me. I nodded as I bit into the hamburger and removed a strand of onion from my teeth. "I wish I could have gone, but Mutton King just wouldn't understand. I'd love to see the Great Leader myself. He's been speaking, hasn't he? What did he have to say?" I reflected on what I could remember while chewing on the meat. "He had a lot to say about the Truth." "The Truth!" mused the dragon thoughtfully. "So the great quest is on! I heard it would be! And so close to the General Election as well! The Great Leader is so wise! I hope to join the search for the Truth myself." He scratched his chin with a claw while a small cloud of smoke billowed from his nostrils. "Are you going to be searching for the Truth, too?" "Yes, I am," I admitted positively. "I've been searching for the Truth now for several days." "You're certainly ahead of me! You're sure to find it before anyone else! You must be a very true supporter of the Illicit Party." "Not really," I admitted. "I decided on my quest for the Truth before I knew that the Illicit Party was also doing so." "Really!" said the dragon, clearly quite impressed. "How wonderful! But of course it will be the Illicit Party who will find the Truth. As is only right. It is the prerogative of the Illicit Party to find it before anyone else can. Only the Illicit Party is able to fully utilise the Truth for the greater good of everyone. How did you decide on this quest before the Great Leader showed us all the way?" "I'm not sure. It just seemed like a good idea." "And of course it's a good idea. It must be! Otherwise, the Great Leader would never instruct us all to follow it. Do you have any idea where the Truth might be?" "I don't know. I left the Suburbs with just that question." "The Suburbs! I've heard rumoured that the Truth may be there. But you obviously don't believe it is?" "In the Suburbs? That would be the very last place I'd expect to find it. I'm sure it's elsewhere. Perhaps in the City. Perhaps in a distant country. I really don't know." "And have you any idea what the Truth might be?" "None at all. People have told me all sorts of things about what they think it might be, but I've yet to come across anyone who can convince me. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll know it when I find it." "That's what I hope, too! I'm sure that if I'm the one that's lucky enough to find it, I'll recognise it. And when I do, I'll so gladly come galumphing back to the Great Leader carrying it like booty and presenting it to him so humbly. 'Here it is!' I'll say. 'It's yours to do with whatever you like!' Wouldn't that be wonderful! Perhaps he'd make me a Party Official. Maybe a member of the Inner Party. And then I would be able to stand in his presence all day long. What do you think?" I finished my beefburger and left a few of the more soggy french fries lying in a puddle of brown sauce. I re-entered the street outside where I could distinctly hear the thunderous sound of Rupert's address reverberating from opposing houses. The streets were eerily empty in comparison to the crush in the square, and all the other shops were shut. I peered inside them, and noted that all of them had several portraits of the President Chairman on the walls. I didn't have to search hard to see his face, as it was also gazing down on me from the many posters and billboards surrounding me. I decided that I was unlikely to find the Truth in the borough of Rupert, so I wandered out from the town the way I'd come in search of a bus stop to take me elsewhere. I had no real idea where I wanted to go, but I felt sure that the Truth was to be found in quite a different arena. 10 Keeping in the direction indicated by signs of a silhouetted coach, I made my way to the bus station just by the main road outside the town. Although there were no buses or coaches, there was a reassuring assembly of travellers. I was unable to get past a group of bulls who had converged, stomping and disputing, in front of the bus timetable and so could not decide which bus to take. A small dragon in an official cap and overcoat was standing by a poster promoting holidays in the Illicit Republics. I contemplated approaching him to ask where the buses were heading, but I was somewhat intimidated by the smoke billowing from his nostrils. I looked around in some perplexity. Where should I go next? And would I be travelling nearer to or further away from the Truth? I stood on the tip of my toes and scanned the depots in the hope of seeing some helpful signs or indicators. A Gryphon approached me, carrying a newspaper under his claws. "You look lost, young man. Can I be of help?" "I was just wondering where the buses went from here." The Gryphon cawed slightly. "Is that all? Well, I can assure you they go to quite a few destinations. And if you are willing to change at particular destinations, you will probably be able to reach any point on the globe you choose. Where is it that you actually want to go?" "I'm not sure," I admitted with embarrassment. "You're not sure? You must have some idea. It is just not possible for one to have no destination at all. Do you want to go to the Suburbs? To Lambdeth? To the City? To the Country?" "Lambdeth sounds a very agreeable destination."
Go to part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
Copyright © 2000 Bradley Stoke |