Challenge #02203-F013: Pride Goeth...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M -- Anon Guest
[AN: Offensensitivity warning for anglo-saxon four-letter words in the lyrics]
If there is any sign of a sickening nation, it is national egotism. Every time a nation gets a metaphorical big head, it is destined for collapse. Britannia did, once, rule the waves. Then it's empire collapsed in a rash of independence after the nation nearly collapsed due to two multinational wars in rapid succession.
America, once, was a great nation. Then it pretty much ate itself via greed and avarice. It lingered in pretending greatness whilst sliding inexorably towards collapse.
Just as France, Rome, Egypt, Turkey, and Mongolia once ruled significant portions of the world. All fell victim to egotism and an illusion of untouchability before their collapse. Other symptoms vary, but a nation doomed to collapse is always egotistical about its own prowess before crawling steadily towards decay.
One would think, with all the examples of history, that Humanity would learn from the past examples of cultural identities that were doomed to failure and make an effort to create better models. Alas, such is not the case. Humanity has a non-unique ability to believe in that which it wants to be true, no matter how many iterations have previously proved it false. Hence their tendency to 'double down' on atrociously bad ideas.
"Forget making this nation great," said their leader. "That chance is gone. There's too many of Them in charge."
The audience booed. They knew entirely too well who They were. The people not like them. The people who came in and insisted that they were wrong. The people to blame for ruining everything that was about them. The people who insisted they were equal when the audience believed that they had no right to live. You know. Them.
"However, we have a chance. There's a whole bunch of new worlds out there. Worlds we can make in our own image. Worlds we can make for the people, by the people, and of the people. Worlds without anyone else in them."
Now they cheered. They could have a world of all the right people in it. People who were the right types. With jobs for everyone and rugged individualists who could make something truly great. They were behind it one hundred percent. A world made of their own beliefs. Where benevolent corporations would make the right decisions without Big Government butting in...
Where, despite numerous examples from the present and the past, they would make their own undoing...
But they didn't care about that part. They just knew that they could get it right this time. They gave all their money for the cause. Packed up their beliefs and their holy books and their goods and chattels and families... and went.
As it began, it seemed like a paradise. The colonists could live the pioneering lifestyle of their dreams. Open lands that didn't have to be warred for. Seemingly endless resources. The ability to spread out and do as they pleased. A significant lack of limits... Every single one of them could sate their greed and even have too much to handle.
Generation two began to have central locations. Families were still enormous and the frontier towns had more technological advancements than the ones of the tall tales, but everything was still good for everyone. Those who had needs could fulfil them with ease. Some even lived in the towns for the convenience of it.
Generation three started to solidify things in concrete and stone instead of wood. Factories began to spring up and they made great use of automation so that there was plenty for all. Those who worked worked hard and had great rewards. Cities grew. Bit by bit, those who served the needs of those who consumed lost little portions of their status.
Generation four had people who had never seen a tree living in their cities. Education became a thing for the wealthy, as one didn't need much education to press a set of buttons in a routine fashion. Make-work began to be an occupation. Paper-chasers and cold-callers. Shelf-stockers and floor-moppers. As always, the rich had more and the poor got the blame for their situation.
Generation five was the one that was convinced to sell any remaining holdings so that their farmlands could be managed by a contiguous corporation. They re-invented serf labor and slavery. Those who were too poor to fight had no choice but to accept it. The age of the Company Store had begun.
By generation six, there was a small faction of elites, then everyone else. There was faith, but it was twisted. The ignorant poor were lead to believe that their deity had blessed the elites and that they deserved their fates because they were sinners. If they labored long enough, worked hard enough, paid their tithes and taxes, they could one day rise into the heavens-on-earth where the elites lived their lives in glittering luxury.
At the end of generation seven, the effluvium and vapours from the factories began to make their impacts known in the populace.
Five Hundred Years of glorious progress later...
"We need more people," their glorious leader was saying. "People in the fields. People in the factories. People with mops and brooms. They're the real heroes, here. We're just the schlubs who keep them pointed towards progress."
Eli cheered with all the rest. She was twelve. She broke off coughing because of her emphysema and concentrated on waving her noisemaker as she fought for air. Her mother helped her stay upright, lest she fall under the feet of the enthusiastic crowd. Fainting was perfectly normal for these rallies, as was death by mass enthusiasm.
Sam, her younger brother, laughed and yelled, "Eli wet herself!" at the top of his lungs. Pointing out the dark stain on Eli's stockings. "It looks like poo!"
Eli looked down. It wasn't poo. It was blood. She was officially a woman.
Daddy, there only because he was sick from his work, whipped out a special signal light and hollered, "We got a bleeder!" at the top of his lungs.
Everyone knew what that meant. Especially at a rally. This was Eli's moment. Law had it that a woman was a woman at the moment of her first blood, and could be sold to the highest bidder by her father. Mama cheered and held Eli aloft. This could mean that any of the Seeyos could bid on her. "Fresh woman," Mama screamed. "Fresh woman. Guaranteed virgin!"
Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis noticed the hubbub up in the nosebleed stands and quickly directed the spotlight at them. "Well. Wonder of wonders," he said. "We got us a new lady in the audience. You ready to do your duty by your country, darling?"
Eli's heart nearly burst. She could help her family so much with this. Even though she was terrified, she nodded. The milling crowd was already getting disturbed by the armed security forces, honing in on her and Papa. This was the first time the gleaming, black suits and faceless helmets had been trained on her and hers and she had to trust that they were there for her family's protection.
She went limp when two soldiers grabbed her by the arms and drug her off of Mama. She did remember to say, "Bye-bye, I love you," like a good girl. Woman. She would never see her Mama or Sam or any of her brothers and sisters again. For the greater good of her family, she would be sold to the highest bidder. For the greater good of the nation, she would be bedded with that new husband and have his babies until she died. She might even get lucky and he would pay for her medicine and care while she lived.
So she smiled on the stage as Daddy conducted the auction and Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis dialled up a lot of his friends and touched her in places that no man had touched her before. With blood leaking down her legs and staining her school uniform. She let it all happen and didn't question a second. Only listening with half an ear as Daddy started calling higher and higher numbers. He needed help after 'million' from Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis because numbers had never come that high for them before.
Glorious Leader Seeyo Mathis got some of his friends on a conference call, up on the big screen for all to see, so they could bid, too. The numbers got beyond Eli's scope of understanding. Trillions. Quadrillions. Up to ten Decillion dollars.
Daddy had made a ten Decillion-dollar baby on Mama and Eli had never been so proud of him. She thanked him and kissed his cheek and let the soldiers carry her off into a guarded vault because she was worth a fortune.
...paid out in small instalments and heavily taxed because people like her family didn't really deserve such a magnanimous windfall. A large portion of it was eaten away before anyone got to spend it at all.
Teams of people came to strip her bare and shave all the hair off her body and dress her up again from the skin out. Including the chastity belt that had helped keep her pure until that day. She got a special belt that caught her blood and more special underwear to make sure she didn't pop out in the wrong ways and other special underwear to be sure she popped out in the right ways. People put stuff on her nails -hands and feet- and stuff on her face and did things to her hair and pricked her with sharp things and then it all went dark.
Soft bed. Softer and more comfortable than any space she'd ever slept in. She was resting on top of a very pretty bedspread, like the kind she'd only seen on TV. The rest of the room was bare of furniture, but the walls were pretty and so were the lights. Not a naked light bulb in sight.
A door across the way opened up, and there was a man of about thirty with a man as old as her Grampa[1], who had only just passed away. "Happy birthday, son! I got you a fresh one. Made her just how you like 'em."
The new man was old enough to be her Daddy, but Eli controlled her fears and put on her best manners. "Howdy," she said. "Am I your'n?"
He laughed, and not in a nice way. "Do us all a favour and don't say anything until you know how to speak better," he said. "You're mine. That means you do what I say and what I say is 'shut up'."
He started taking his clothes off. He also said, "Don't cry," before he got up and did his business on her.
She did as she was trained to do. She went limp and let him. This was her duty. This was a woman's lot in life. She didn't cry until after he was gone, when the teams of people came to fix her up and some tried to coach her in what to say and do.
It went like that for always. The teams would pretty her up, feed her and teach her, and the man would come and do his business and it would start all over again. Almost all of it stopped when she went to pee and her toilet water turned blue. The teams now only just fed her and took her blood and made her do different things from then on. They didn't even tell her that she was with child. She had to figure that out herself as her middle started growing.
Her man should have been proud. He should have been happy. She couldn't know that for sure, but she wanted to believe it. He could have a Decillion-dollar baby growing in her. He could have a son to carry his name. Nobody would know until it came out.
She was getting big when one of the teams said something strange to her. They said, "Did you want this?"
It was such a bizarre question that Eli stumbled on the treadmill she had for exercise. She did not say, "Say what?" because that was the Dirty way to talk. Instead she said, "I beg your pardon?" like she was supposed to.
"Did you want this?" they said again.
This stranger in the team had a funny look to them. Like no other person Eli had ever seen. She knew every word they said but in that combination, it made no sense at all. She said, "Why should it matter what I want?"
Two days after that, a different team came. They took her and like fifty other women outside of their suites. Outside of their gilded cages. Outside of the country mansion on the pristine island that her man was due to inherit. Outside of the whole planet.
Where strangers of all kinds of colours treated her kindly and gave her choices and kept asking what she wanted. Where other people asked her to do things and asked to touch her and asked and asked and asked for permissions. Where she met the other women her man had kept and got pregnant. Where the strangers taught her to read, and ask questions herself, and start to do things for herself. Where they introduced her to concepts like "too young to be pregnant."
Where she had her baby without pain, and was allowed to cuddle and feed her from her own body. She cried because she thought she was ruined, but the strangers taught her different.
Where Eli learned about things like 'bodily autonomy' and her right to decide what she did, where she went, and how she spent any money she earned. Where she learned that owning people was bad.
She and the other women who had once been owned by rich men formed a collaborative household where all the babies were more or less raised in a creche. Together, they could prop each other up on bad days and help out on good days. Together, they could pool their resources for a better future. Together, they had leverage.
They had never known that they had options before. Especially not the option for man-like freedom.
The old system collapsed as those without options suddenly got them. Eli did her best for her own family, even though they said she was evil and didn't want to talk to her. They may never understand how she and her sister-ex-wives made their lives better, but that was okay.
At least their lives were better.
An egotistical group identity died. What it was replaced with was new and strange and frightening for the majority, but it was better. In less than a generation, the lowest people on the social ladder would start to live past Seventy.
It was a slow start, but all signs pointed towards an actual great world in less than a century.
[1] That would be in the early-to-mid Sixties.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / jarino47]
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