Post by redsycorax on Dec 20, 2023 22:16:08 GMT
On Earth-109, this is the story of Christmas Day, 1962. It is now two months after the heroic sacrifice of the Justice Guild of America during the Cuban War and after Ray Thompson seized control of the remnants of Seaboard City, their former headquarters.
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SEABOARD CITY DEPARTMENT STORE:
"Sorry, folks. There are repairs that need to be done upstairs- structural weakness in the roof. Not to worry, though. As you can see, we have Santa all ready to say hello and reward little girls and boys who've been good this year. And what's your name, sweetheart?"
In actual fact, there was no 'little girl' seated on Santa's knee. Ray Thompson had provided the consolatory illusion of her continued existence from his engorged cranium and its prodigious psionic abilities. The real "Teresa Armstrong" had perished with her brother and sister in the ruins of her parents home nearly two months ago. Almost all of Seaboard City's very young children were particularly vulnerable to radiation poisoning and had died in the ensuing two months. This "Teresa" was a confection of her grieving parents minds and in reality, the two of them were dressed in tattered and dirty remains of their suburban finery, watching nothing more than an illusion of what might have been.
The little girl spoke up: "Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol."
Out of sight of the survivors, an angry Ray Thompson snarled in sudden rage:
"I'm afraid we don't quite have that one, dear. Is there any other book we do have in stock that you'd like instead?"
"No. I especially like the part where Old Mr Scrooge repents of his past evil and provides Tiny Tim and his family with a beautiful Xmas dinner."
Ray Thompson's head pulsated and he concentrated on the figure of the small girl, who vanished from sight abruptly. As for "Santa", he was frozen in motion like a frame in a jammed movie reel. Sudden darkness closed in on the Armstrongs and they clutched at their hearts, falling to their knees. There was an outburst of sound from an ambulance and the two 'collapsed' figures were taken to Seaboard Hospital. Only they were dead, not merely unconscious, and the 'ambulance' was a black maria, speeding to the outskirts of Seaboard City. Its deceptively clothed figures were seen to rush the Armstrongs into the front doors of the hospital. In reality, the two bodies were deposited in a pit.
No-one spoke about what had just happened, but from that day forward, everyone 'forgot' about the Armstrongs and how their little girl had asked Santa that awkward question about that book that didn't exist in today's Seaboard City. To take their minds off the submerged trauma of the real-world war and their survival in this deceptive lotus land, the survivors and illusory friends and their families swarmed outside several hours later to watch their beloved heroes, the Justice Guild of America, take their part in a Christmas Parade, smiling and waving out at the 'crowds' before them. As they watched Tom Turbine, Black Siren, Catman, the Streak and Green Guardsman on their floats, emblazoned with their emblems, the covert master of ceremonies, Ray Thompson, jumped up and down and whistled enthusiastically. But if you looked too closely, you would notice that their gazes were vacant and devoid of knowledge and real emotion. And for that matter, where was Cassandra, the Guild's sixth member? Or any memorial to her, other than her grave in the Seaboard City Cemetery?
Most of the crowd joined in, frightened of what might ensue if their capricious child tyrant overlord retaliated against perceived unease, ambivalence or rejection of the ostentatious spectacle before them. Truth to tell, though, given what they had endured two months ago, others accepted the phantasmagoric display of ersatz seasonal cheer because it was an erasure and rejection of what had really happened two months ago. Now, it was as if that apocalypse had never happened and all there was was an idyllic, exuberant and joyful present. After all, it was Christmas- or Hannukah, if you were Jewish like Jake Allon, the Streak, and his family.
If you looked closely enough, though, there were signs that this was all nothing more than collective hallucination. People learnt not to mention certain books (like Dickens' Christmas Carol) or films (like It's A Wonderful Life), or the eternally beneficent weather, or the possibility that the 'chicken' and 'turkey' that they ate for their seasonal dinners was actually stockpiled military spam. They lived in a wonderland, or neverland, of consolation and obliviousness. And on the day of days, the inhabitants of Seaboard City crammed into their churches and synagogue, eager to hear the news from their priests about today's blessed antiquity. The ministers and rabbi were resplendent in their gleaming, immaculate clothes and spoke of love, joy, plenty and the holy significance of the current week in question.
In reality, the ministers and rabbi had facial burns, several were blinded in an eye, two or three stood on crutches, and their sacramental robes were hastily cleaned and laundered patch jobs. Similarly unkempt parishioners sat alongside fantasies of children, elderly relatives and neighbours who had perished in the nuclear holocaust.
And so, later that night, they all retired to bed, stomachs full, minds clogged with cloying and deceptive sentiment about the way things should have been, instead of how they actually were.
And outside Seaboard City, storms howled, poisoned rain thundered down and emaciated and injured fellow survivors sat down amidst crackling campfires. The lucky sheltered in caves or rocked their traumatised children, or substitutes for them. Many harbored burns, wounds, damaged limbs, blindness or deafness. Many were dying or surrendered to a personal daydream idyll, rejecting the reality around them. And for them, there were no comforting illusions as there were for the inhabitants of Seaboard City. And in the devastated wastelands that had been the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, nothing moved, spoke, thought, breathed or lived. Nothing would for thousands of years afterward, apart from desolate winds that howled through skeletal trees, ruined buildings and deserted land, with nothing left to hear the eerie spectacle.
However ornate and decorative the bars of a gilded cage are, however, they are still a cage.
THE END [11.15 am, December 21, 2023]
++
SEABOARD CITY DEPARTMENT STORE:
"Sorry, folks. There are repairs that need to be done upstairs- structural weakness in the roof. Not to worry, though. As you can see, we have Santa all ready to say hello and reward little girls and boys who've been good this year. And what's your name, sweetheart?"
In actual fact, there was no 'little girl' seated on Santa's knee. Ray Thompson had provided the consolatory illusion of her continued existence from his engorged cranium and its prodigious psionic abilities. The real "Teresa Armstrong" had perished with her brother and sister in the ruins of her parents home nearly two months ago. Almost all of Seaboard City's very young children were particularly vulnerable to radiation poisoning and had died in the ensuing two months. This "Teresa" was a confection of her grieving parents minds and in reality, the two of them were dressed in tattered and dirty remains of their suburban finery, watching nothing more than an illusion of what might have been.
The little girl spoke up: "Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol."
Out of sight of the survivors, an angry Ray Thompson snarled in sudden rage:
"I'm afraid we don't quite have that one, dear. Is there any other book we do have in stock that you'd like instead?"
"No. I especially like the part where Old Mr Scrooge repents of his past evil and provides Tiny Tim and his family with a beautiful Xmas dinner."
Ray Thompson's head pulsated and he concentrated on the figure of the small girl, who vanished from sight abruptly. As for "Santa", he was frozen in motion like a frame in a jammed movie reel. Sudden darkness closed in on the Armstrongs and they clutched at their hearts, falling to their knees. There was an outburst of sound from an ambulance and the two 'collapsed' figures were taken to Seaboard Hospital. Only they were dead, not merely unconscious, and the 'ambulance' was a black maria, speeding to the outskirts of Seaboard City. Its deceptively clothed figures were seen to rush the Armstrongs into the front doors of the hospital. In reality, the two bodies were deposited in a pit.
No-one spoke about what had just happened, but from that day forward, everyone 'forgot' about the Armstrongs and how their little girl had asked Santa that awkward question about that book that didn't exist in today's Seaboard City. To take their minds off the submerged trauma of the real-world war and their survival in this deceptive lotus land, the survivors and illusory friends and their families swarmed outside several hours later to watch their beloved heroes, the Justice Guild of America, take their part in a Christmas Parade, smiling and waving out at the 'crowds' before them. As they watched Tom Turbine, Black Siren, Catman, the Streak and Green Guardsman on their floats, emblazoned with their emblems, the covert master of ceremonies, Ray Thompson, jumped up and down and whistled enthusiastically. But if you looked too closely, you would notice that their gazes were vacant and devoid of knowledge and real emotion. And for that matter, where was Cassandra, the Guild's sixth member? Or any memorial to her, other than her grave in the Seaboard City Cemetery?
Most of the crowd joined in, frightened of what might ensue if their capricious child tyrant overlord retaliated against perceived unease, ambivalence or rejection of the ostentatious spectacle before them. Truth to tell, though, given what they had endured two months ago, others accepted the phantasmagoric display of ersatz seasonal cheer because it was an erasure and rejection of what had really happened two months ago. Now, it was as if that apocalypse had never happened and all there was was an idyllic, exuberant and joyful present. After all, it was Christmas- or Hannukah, if you were Jewish like Jake Allon, the Streak, and his family.
If you looked closely enough, though, there were signs that this was all nothing more than collective hallucination. People learnt not to mention certain books (like Dickens' Christmas Carol) or films (like It's A Wonderful Life), or the eternally beneficent weather, or the possibility that the 'chicken' and 'turkey' that they ate for their seasonal dinners was actually stockpiled military spam. They lived in a wonderland, or neverland, of consolation and obliviousness. And on the day of days, the inhabitants of Seaboard City crammed into their churches and synagogue, eager to hear the news from their priests about today's blessed antiquity. The ministers and rabbi were resplendent in their gleaming, immaculate clothes and spoke of love, joy, plenty and the holy significance of the current week in question.
In reality, the ministers and rabbi had facial burns, several were blinded in an eye, two or three stood on crutches, and their sacramental robes were hastily cleaned and laundered patch jobs. Similarly unkempt parishioners sat alongside fantasies of children, elderly relatives and neighbours who had perished in the nuclear holocaust.
And so, later that night, they all retired to bed, stomachs full, minds clogged with cloying and deceptive sentiment about the way things should have been, instead of how they actually were.
And outside Seaboard City, storms howled, poisoned rain thundered down and emaciated and injured fellow survivors sat down amidst crackling campfires. The lucky sheltered in caves or rocked their traumatised children, or substitutes for them. Many harbored burns, wounds, damaged limbs, blindness or deafness. Many were dying or surrendered to a personal daydream idyll, rejecting the reality around them. And for them, there were no comforting illusions as there were for the inhabitants of Seaboard City. And in the devastated wastelands that had been the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, nothing moved, spoke, thought, breathed or lived. Nothing would for thousands of years afterward, apart from desolate winds that howled through skeletal trees, ruined buildings and deserted land, with nothing left to hear the eerie spectacle.
However ornate and decorative the bars of a gilded cage are, however, they are still a cage.
THE END [11.15 am, December 21, 2023]
