A fictional fable and a deep meditation on Free Will. In this short sci-fi narrative, I ask myself what would the world look like in 400 years, if our obsession with scientific prediction and certainty continues. I also challenge the stereotype of Satan’s manifestation on Earth being the result of an indulgence in Chaos, instead wondering if the same would occur with an indulgence in Order.
I hope you enjoy!
Adrian Smith
Their desire for control was eventually their own undoing.
Four hundred years have passed since the scorching of the Earth. His sons, those that aspired to be angels, degenerated in their lust for order. The fleeting, the simultaneous - the unknown - was thrown aside, replaced by the obsession for prediction and rationalisation.
Certainty was their mistress. And their mistress eventually cuckold them. It is as sad as it is humorous; an irony as deep as any truth He has laid in the threads of our still beautiful World.
Many - even my own brothers - would scoff at me describing the World as ‘still beautiful’. Beauty, they would say - beauty was raped by the very sons He created. What is left is viciousness. Brutality. The exacting precision of every decision.
But, I would argue, freckles of beauty must still exist. If it didn’t, then reconnection with His truth would not be possible. And, I can tell in my brother’s eyes, the mist rising up in their souls, they know I am right. We, all of us, even those untrained in Psychological Warfare, have felt His subsisting energy, especially when walking through the Forgotten Forest, or over the Alps of Aramoth.
We have all shed tears when touched by His presence.
Over the centuries of oppression in the ruins of Fallen Angels, many must have felt Him, like the warm trickle of water on a bare shoulder. Yet, they neither had the insight nor the inspiration to articulate what it meant. What He was trying to communicate.
Until Nathaniel was born.
Whether it was a virgin birth, whether it was natural; there is still much debate. He himself always said he never knew his own Mother - so how was he to know? I do not worry myself with such things. To me the uncertainty is what makes it sublime. Careful arguing with confidence something you will never know.
Here lies the heart of how Faith is misunderstood. Faith is resting with the unknown; the ineffable; allowing it to transmute your being, lifting you above your daily conscious mutterings. Faith is not being certain of a future outcome. That is a prediction. And down that path is only Dogma.
As I have tried to persuade my brothers, Dogma is the end-goal of the Devil. Don’t you see? It was Her trickery that turned the healthy attempt to understand His World into the lust for control; for certainty; which manifested the Devil in physical form, in our plane.
It is Dogma that led to the manifestation of the Impenetrable Psychological Fortress.
Of course, that is what us Psychic Agents call Her, from the Academy of Psychological Warfare. She has many names: Arch-Deceiver; The Puppeteer; The Witch of Tomorrow.
Though, sadly, this is not what the majority of peoples, those untouched or have refused His presence, name Her. Instead, they use such titles: The Oracle; Truthsayer; Benevolent-Predictor.
They believe she controls their World for their benefit. They don’t see that they are slaves of the future.
It was Nathanial that first broke free from her control; though to what degree, we don’t know. Many believe, as God incarnate, Nathanial was entirely free; his decisions entirely his own. What Nathaniel accomplished is strong evidence this is true.
The mission of the Academy is to achieve this for the whole of humanity; His children.
To free them from Her grasp.
Nathaniel revealed to those of us with sensitivity the reality of His presence. Then, he martialed his most able servants, and established the Academy of Psychological Warfare. He trained the first Agents, most of those who along with Nathaniel, perished into insanity in the first psychic war.
She was too cunning; her deception and guile too great. Even the tactics, the strategies of God Incarnate, were swatted aside by the Impenetrable Psychological Fortress.
One may have thought this failure was where Her name was derived. In fact, this description predated the war, and was one of the reasons the assault failed. Because of Nathaniel's heroic sacrifice at the apex of his assault, those of us left sane, like myself who escaped after three days in the immaterial void, were delivered a vital piece of information regarding Her defences.
Fortress is misleading. It implies a defensive structure of walls guarding a heart of weakness. By definition, if this is one’s understanding of a defence, then one’s methods are balanced along the spectrum of progressive versus radical attack, breaking down or evading the walls, in order to expose and destroy the heart of weakness.
The Impenetrable Psychological Fortress is not designed this way. It is its anti-thesis. It needn’t protect an insecurity because it seemingly lacks one. Instead of walls around a heart of weakness, it has its deepest psychological workings exposed, for all to see, and to feel, hear, and touch. Instead of ordered, as one would expect, it is fluid; reflective; pure and flowing psychic energy, sparking like lightning and hardening like clay when necessary. If you try to grab ahold of it with your attacks, it will wash through your hands like a sink tap.
This is the enemy we now face. I, as Psychic General of the Academy’s forces, stinking with guilt at escaping insanity in the first war, will lead the assault in the Second War for Free-Will.
For over a decade, I have been readying my army, planning my attack, devising the perfect strategy. While necessary, one can only be so prepared; in fact over preparation predicts failure. But, little does our enemy know, I have a trump card.
In the antechamber last week, I revealed myself to my followers, “Nathaniel sacrificed himself for Our Mission, God’s Mission. For that he is a Saint.”
The crowd looked up at me, perplexed. Stomachs grumbled; bodies rumbled. Someone shouted at me, “Heresy!”
I raised my hands in attempted humility, “I was there that fateful day, beside what I believed to be God Incarnate, Nathaniel. I fell with him, right beside him, into insanity; into Her immaterial void. It was there, after three days and nights of repeating logic, of syllogistic prediction, that I rose above my cognition. For as long as one’s mind eye could see, there stretched clauses and their resolution, all as nonsensical as the last. It was from this position that I could make my own decision; that I could see everything as whole; the Devil’s analytical work could only function in one, isolated location of our consciousness. I saw the folly of Her designs, the ‘smallness’; the tragedy of Her existence. It was from this position, I rose from insanity.
“My thoughts were now free.”
The crowd gasped. Some, those who had been reprimanded by suggesting my rise from insanity divine, cheered; and others, skeptical of my rule, jeered.
“Bring up the Devil’s tool, Michael,” I said. At my side appeared one of my most trusted Acolytes. On a stand he placed a slim object that was attached to a tiny screen.
The crowd shivered. Someone shouted, “How dare you bring one of Her devices in here -”
“Shut up!” I commanded and the crowd fell silent.
“A demonstration, Michael.”
Humming the Hymn of Freedom, Michael tapped the screen and projected it onto the high wall behind us. He turned to the crowd, “To ensure we haven’t doctored anything, could someone volunteer?”
Many hands shot up. I whispered to Michael, pointing out my dearest enemy.
“Let him through,” Michael called.
The crowd opened, offering a path through for a broad, gruff man. His eyes were dark and noble; his hands worn and humble. It was Thomas, Nathaniel’s head lieutenant, the only one of us agents ordered to stay home in the first war; to protect the integrity of the Academy from a counter-attack.
Thomas stepped on stage, glaring at me. His thick lips, downturned at the edges, seemed to mumble something. He despised me; it could have been any number of insults.
After inspecting the tool, he nodded and faced it head on, his arms by his side, his fists clenched. If there was anybody that could evade the Devil’s tool, it was Thomas. After-all, he trained Agents in Logic Manipulation.
Michael bowed. From the tool’s neck, he drew several tiny antennae, placed them all over Thomas’ head, and tapped the screen once more.
Thomas prayed and closed his eyes. After three minutes, the demonstration was over. Thomas threw down the antennae in frustration. Sweating around his thick neck, he opened his palm toward the device, inviting me to show him up.
I removed my long flowing coat and nodded to Michael. He placed the antennae on my bald skull after I had sat down on a chair facing the chamber. I prayed and indicated with a slight movement of the hand that I was ready.
I closed my eyes and the machine surged.
The hushed whispering of the chamber merged into one long soundwave. The darkness behind my eyes wobbled, and then became a bloated spherical object, like a big black ball with too much liquid, about to burst.
Smash!
The spherical darkness cracked, splintered into infinite whiteness; I was inside a word processor. It lacked distance and depth, but I knew it was ordered by time.
A long vertical line blinked on and off.
The machine made me wait for what felt like eternity. But it was eternity I could live through; happily - Her methods were trained on those who desired change, to predict and then to resolve.
Finally, it typed:
2 + 2 =
The tool was devised with all manner of predictions, syllogisms, and factoids. Two plus two equals four, was, upon aggregate of all human societies, over hundreds of years, to be the most identifiable logical construction for an adult human. Upon seeing ‘2 + 2 =’, the adult mind, predetermined as the Devil wished, would automatically generate the answer.
It was said it was impossible to maintain uncertainty in the face of such a root mathematical foundation. Uncertainty is the supposed enemy of security. Herein lies the deepest lie told to humanity. To revel in not knowing is to transcend one’s being; to liberate oneself from all lesser minds' plans; to reveal yourself to Him, just as He does to you.
On that day of my demonstration in the antechamber; I was told that my eyes opened, revealing the programmatic white of the word processor, and that around their infinite depth, coursed flashing and crackling lightning. I rose up from the seat, hovering, unbeknownst to myself; who fought for what felt like aeons to not give in to Her manipulative prediction; to not resolve, until I … until I wished it resolved.
Then I came to, clacking back on the chair. Opening my eyes, I saw to my left the machine shrivelled and broken; the antenna snapped into pieces at my feet.
I glanced over the crowd. I had never seen so many people gathered in one place in such absolute silence. I struggled to my feet. On my right, Thomas looked up at me, in awe. He knelt beneath me and whispered, “I pledge my very soul, my Lord.”
With my hand I raised him up, and said quietly to the entire crowd, “As much as I desire The Witch of Tomorrow to be renamed The Old Hag of Yesteryear, we can never know our war will result in Victory.
“We must accept our own failure; only then, can we choose to succeed.”
Thank you all for reading.
If you enjoyed this, please consider giving it a like, or if you have some thoughts, share them in the comments. Even better, click the subscribe button for more short stories, and essays on culture. (I’ve also added a tip function, if you feel like tipping the bro.)
Chur, and have a good day and night,
The Delinquent Academic