Thursday, November 29th, 2007
The Failure of Revolution
(A Poem In The Form of An Allegorical Novella)
I.
Smoking pot, the big questions, surfing, and girls were his main interests in life. Revolution was living the good life in a small, upper-upper class, coastal town where he had no responsibilities and plenty of time for thinking. He could never really pin down the feelings he had about the nature of things and he was often troubled by the clouds that lingered in his line of sight. He peered out from behind young eyes into a mist that would just not clear, though he would often catch glimpses of what lay behind that unsettling curtain. He was saddled by unfocused emotions and the incredible desire to know that is thrust upon the steed of youth.
Stability was a close friend of Revolution and they spent many days straddling fiberglass and many nights drinking and carousing. Often they’d be the last two up on those summer nights, sharing a joint and philosophizing, while Sleep tried to get into Awake’s pants. Stability was always an optimist at times like this and saw the world as a place that was already perfect, good, and just, while Revolution saw the world as filled with self serving old men, who ruined things for the rest of us. He saw it as a place that needed to be changed in order for people to be happy. Stability would often get intensely angry when Revolution railed against Government, the fawning Masses, and Corruption. Revolution would gnash his teeth at what he called “dried up old crustaceans and lizards.” Stability would come back with the argument that “one day you too will be an old man who desires to provide for and keep his children safe.”
“You may be, but not I,” retorted the ever prophetic Revolution.
II.
They’d hang out and watch cable news networks and read the newspaper during the winter months. Revolution always thought that 99% of the arguments being made and the stories that were being reported were to further the status quo. He’d get angry about the pointless things that so often fascinated the populace and often ask him self what happened to the spirit of Journalism. Stability thought it was better than ever and loved hearing about celebrities driving cars drunkenly into swamps and getting eaten by alligators. This was wonderful to him and amused him to no end. He didn’t want to hear about how poorly the peace effort was going or how another nuclear arms race was being conducted in far off places.
“When I’m running this country, I’ll be privy to those details,” said Stability, and without a trace of sarcasm continued, “Have trust in Politics and Military, they’ve never failed us before.”
Revolution simmered with frustration at what he saw happening to his friend, but resisted the temptation to argue or hit him. He also started to see something dangerous not only in Stability, but in his other friends as well. Music, Morality, and Education were also propagating such views. He didn’t understand what was happening to these people who he used to look up to and whom he thought represented the best in humanity. That’s why he was drawn to them in the first place.
Revolution always felt that the things he was occasionally grasping hold of in his midnight trysts with Poetry and Philosophy were too distant and obscure. When he tried to believe in something modern and current it was always attached to a Jim Crow lie or a liposuction sky. He felt the world he was living in was artificial and malicious.
III.
The next summer after school had ended and Revolution had enrolled in a well-respected, liberal arts college in New England, was a time when he distanced himself from his old friends, especially Stability. Revolution went off to stay with his aunt and uncle, who were called Literature and History. He listened to them talk for hours as they’d sit on the beautiful wrap-around Victorian porch which faced a lake that turned purple in the summer dusk. He felt mature and grown-up when they listened to what he had to say and let him drink red wine with them. He regained some hope in the presence of the wonderful people his aunt and uncle knew.
He learned a lot in those three months, but sometimes thought about Stability who had been accepted to Harvard on his father’s merits. He looked forward to telling him all about the people he had met. What had most surprised Revolution was that these people he now admired so much were ones that were ridiculed as being eccentric and unrealistic or too different to be of any relevance. Things he thought esoteric sparked new creativity and passion in him. He latched on to what he had been exposed to and absorbed whatever he could that he felt was meaningful. He also met Love that summer and she changed him every bit as irrevocably as his exposure to Wisdom, Knowledge, and Enlightenment.
While he had become friends with his aunt and uncle’s neighbor, Hope, Revolution heard something devastating at the same time. On his last night with his aunt and uncle, they sat him down and told him they had something important to tell him. His parents had called that morning and told them that Grandmother Society had been attacked and ravaged by Disesase in the night. She laid side by side with Death now, his arms around her and his tempting offers filling her unconscious mind. There were also rumors that Stability was somehow involved, but Revolution refused to believe this and nothing did ever come of it.
So while he had learned to sing, to write, and to embrace the beauty in those different from himself, Revolution went off to college terribly upset. He had grown a lot, but he now had a kind of fierceness about him, as if behind those friendly blue eyes was a fire capable of burning down whoever tried to take away one more thing he held dear. He felt sorrow for his grandmother, but when he saw her he realized that broken things are incredibly beautiful when they have no chance of being fixed.
IV.
People go off to college, lose contact, and often get jobs in places that only further separate them. These two friends followed this very path and though they were already distant, due to their volatile ideologies, grew into men who barely recognized each other. Revolution was a poet and a writer, one that had not broken through on the national scene, but who was beloved by Academia and his fellow writers. He thought that if he had been accepted by Pop Culture, he probably wouldn’t be very good anyway. He thought she had terrible taste. So he wrote subversive, inflammatory, angry novels and enjoyed the company of his peers. Some claimed he had lost his fire and his spark, but he didn’t pay any attention to them.
Stability, on the other hand, became a political hero. He fought in the peace effort overseas, got his Law degree from Yale and several years later ran for office. He was about as cliché as any other politician and was very successful at what he did. He never lost one election and by this time held a very prominent position in the Presidential Cabinet. Somehow the two old friends met at a social function that would probably be the last of its kind that Revolution would ever be invited to.
Revolution had been trying to get a word with his old buddy all night, but Stability sidestepped him at every juncture. Finally, when Stability had partaken in just enough champagne for the lights to be sparkling merrily and the marble floor glowing exuberantly, it could not be put off any longer. Revolution was drunk and Stability was engaged in conversation with Lobbyism and Greed, when Revolution came up behind him and clapped him on the back. Their eyes met for a brief moment as they shook hands, and then Anger came and stood next to Revolution. What followed was a tirade that would see Revolution in danger of losing his life, but at the time there was no one to stop him from berating his childhood friend.
“Tell me old friend, how do you sleep at night?” questioned Revolution, “I saw you selling your ideas to Common Man earlier, but you know that later, when his son is dying in a hospital cancer land, you’ll tell him he bought the cheapest insurance plan.”
Stability was indignant, but attempted to defend himself and look as if he was in the right. He stood closer to Morality, hoping for support. Lobbyism fled the scene, hoping no one would notice his hand had been stuffing greenbacks down Stability’s underwear. Nationalism, with his black sunglasses and cane, began searching for the door. Stability muttered something and Weakness and Embarrassment came and stood with him.
Revolution continued his tirade, yelling louder as Haughtiness and Gossip put their delicate fingers to their painted red lips. They made astonished noises as they left in a huff; make up crackling and tumbling from their cheeks, their hideous masks crumbling as their wrinkled faces revealed them for the witches they were. Revolution would not stop shouting.
“Tell me my old friend, what happened to you those years that I was gone? Was it all that free coke dumped on you by pillfiend lobbyist radio hosts, which turned you from what you used to be looking for? Now you wade in the dregs of a political garbage dump, while your old friends whom you promised the world, are living in ranchhouse shacks, separated from you by rusty suicide train tracks and all those people you call ‘wetbacks.’’ People like you are the reason we’re all gonna die, in the worst possible way.”
He would simply not let up with his tirade and in an attempt to soothe him, Stability made two-faced pleas, offering to listen to whatever Revolution had to say, as long as he calmed down. At the same time he nodded to Cronyism to go fetch Law. Some of the people at the party stood near Revolution as a sign of support, among them were Youth, Counterculture, Intellectualism, and Academia. A large crowd had gathered to listen, sipping their drinks in their tuxedo uniformity, as Revolution railed against Stability further.
“You used to trip in the dark with us,
And we’d watch the Aurora Borealis behind our eyelids
While euphoric jazz played on the little black radio,
But then you bought into the death chants
And the money worship cults.
Now you’ll pay the price
And watch your senses burn
When your miniscule morality turns
To dust.
When you are the last old man alive
And your name has been changed from Stability to Stagnation
And Innocence has been killed by nuclear fallout
You’ll know you sold out.”
Just as Revolution spoke the last word, Suppression and Secrecy burst into the room. They brutalized the now exhausted Revolution and dispersed the crowd. Revolution wasn’t seen for days until he showed up at his home, where his wife, Love, was worried sick. They soon moved to Europe, much to the dismay of their friends who now saw their friend as a legend for putting himself on the line and standing up for their beliefs. They were worried about what would happen to their movement without Revolution to guide them.
V.
When the last ray of sunlight had been buried beneath the cold, dead, Earth an everlasting twilight fell upon the weary lands. The once green grass was replaced by a permanent frost. Revolution and the few survivors left were living in hovels in the remnants of Paris, which had been the last free city to fall. Revolution, Inspiration, and Duty sat pondering, in the time left allotted to them, what had happened. They huddled together trying to keep their aching bones warm, holding their hands out to the small wood burning stove, and drinking vile broth from cracked cups, as they looked despairingly at the world around them.
“Was it a must?” asked Duty of his friends, “Did those responsible ever ask us if we wanted death clouds for a sky?”
“It never crossed their minds as they rolled in their political mud pit, bureaucratic pig-sty,” declared Revolution, “that those of us with open eyes might not want to watch our families die in useless oil tantrum deaths.”
“They called them martyrs and defenders of freedom,” recalled Inspiration.
He continued by remembering aloud, “Flag waving poodles pointed furry fingers, inflicting guilt on those who asked the most innocent question.”
“That was me who asked the question!” exclaimed Duty, “I was just a child when I asked my father, Law, if killing was wrong, even though I already knew it was. I grew a bit older and started asking that question again, of Government and Stability, who told me I didn’t belong. They said I should get the hell out and not return until I wore bars and stars for undergarments and learn to not question the necessary deaths of our enemies.”
“That’s when they declared anyone who asked the question the enemy,” interrupted Revolution, “Their conclusion was to purge every child who asked if what they were doing was bad. Only then was there no one left but those who were clad in good deeds and patriotism.”
Duty spoke again, “I remember hearing Media say ‘That’s all we want here,’ while interviewing Congress who proposed capital punishment for all crimes.”
“Kill all the lawyers, was the motto of the unelected king,” recalled Inspiration, shaking his head and closing his eyes.
A few moments later Revolution spoke. “You forgot the part of Seven Deadly Sins, who after the king had spoke his delightful little proposal, would cry out ‘And everyone else, too!’ Or was it his Cabinet who was made to sing? I can’t recall. It’s all the same now.”
“Nevertheless, it happened and we didn’t do anything to stop it,” Duty spoke softly, with his head in his hands.
Revolution looked out from his lean-to tent at an atomic winter that would never see Spring and sighed to himself.
“We can’t just blame our elders and our enemies. We didn’t even raise our fists when the death squads came. We were already here in Europe, walking in the Louvre with fancy ivory canes, sitting at cafes in Paris pretending to be sane. I did nothing but write junk about rebellion from a coffeshop, while I thought I was safe from the soldiers killing children and mothers in distant places. We were the cowards who didn’t live up to our words. We are just as much to blame for this flickering flame that is all but snuffed out.”
Revolution spoke with a steady voice and then rose. Inspiration was silent. Duty sat patiently awaiting a cause that would never come. Revolution walked outside, and fired his first and only shot of a war that had taken all he valued. The revolution had ended before it had even started.