Shadow Timbers: Where we show you what life should be about.

MEMO

To all staff and personel:

Greetings valuable managers and security staff. This will be brief, as there is lots to be done, and little time to do it, as you'll no doubt see. While I would normally begin with what a fine job you're doing at Shadow Timbers (ST) and attempt to build confidence and enthusiasm in you all, this is not a normal situation, and requires immediate attention. Allow me first to remind you what our little 'Gated Community' really is, so that we can begin to address the problem.

The Gate

I'll begin with the security gates themselves. Do any of you know what it took to persuade the tenants of ST to install those security gates using money from their own pockets? How did they decide that the guarded gates would keep them more secure? And secure from what, exactly?

Let's look at it another way. Imagine if there were no gates into the community, and the tenants were free to roam in and out, with their friends and family enjoying similar liberties. If we were to suddenly install an entrance gate with a security guard, it would be seen as oppressive and unjust by all, and there'd scarcely be any way to talk the enraged tenants into paying for it's construction. The management of ST would most likely be seen as the enemy by the residents of the area.

We are not in the business to make enemies. Instead, we fabricate the phantoms of the tenant's imaginations, and naturally our Perception Management Team is trained to package and present these fabrications as an outside threat. The creation of threat and danger is an ongoing job for our team. Of course, we don't just want the common tenants to simply adopt our fearful little lies, we want the residents of Shadow Timbers to become the wet nurses to our plans-- to willfully birth and feed our version of the world as if it were their own. What's the brochure say, "We tell you what life should be like", something like that? Love it. Anyway, once conditioned, they actually begin to imagine that flimsy gate as an essential part of their happiness, peace in the valley etc. Once corralled, the happy 'Homeowners' will start to get comfortable, and so will then need to see the constant presence of my Security Force.

My Security Force

I can vividly recall a time when a community like Shadow Timbers would be expected to create their own security forces, and indeed they did occasionally elect a 'peacekeeper' for their communities, but it was quickly seen as what it is: an unnecessary occupation, and certainly not a full-time job. We of course already know that most people behave well most of the time, while those rare few who do occasionally misbehave are rarely doing their crimes in plain sight. Given this, the abundance of 'security' at Shadow Timbers really shows the fine work of the Public Relations office in persuading the whole community to accept the unnecessary police presence without question.

Before I go any further, I'd like to offer my praises to the Security team which protects me and my staff here in upper management-- not only for your excellent training and bravery in the line of duty, but also for your so cleverly convincing the tenants that you were there to protect THEM. To be able to actually BOAST in the brochures that the property has thirteen armed guards roaming the streets creates a delightfully ironic mixture of both fear and safety on so many levels that it is a masterpiece of marketing, in my opinion. This brings us to the issue at hand, which will demand some attention at once.

Generation WTF

It has come to our attention that the tenants-- having been well conditioned and trained to be so delusional that they actually call themselves "home owners", are giving birth to children, as was the plan. These children were cute for a little while; learning to ride bikes, and more-or-less free to wander around the community as they pleased, ultimately mimicking the parents in the prescribed behavior patterns which allowed for a consensus reality of general contentment, with a dash of unease. The children learn quickly how to conform to the 'Homeowner's Rulebook', how to fit in to the community, while always being reminded of certain threat by the presence of the patrol cars. Standard business, no need to go over those details, but I offer it as contrast to what we have going on now in the Timbers.

disrespect

The stories are pouring in, and of course the internet is to blame, but we are hearing the reports of children, as young as fifteen years of age, blatantly disrespecting our security force with questions, and they are now universally and irreversibly doubting your very authority. Each day another of those little devils is clicking onto websites which describe our very operation in all of it's levels, and as they grow in numbers and in age, they will undoubtably attempt to either escape, or to fight us, or worse-- to make us obsolete.

You've kept the older tenants preoccupied with the so-called "property-line easement" dispute with my adjoining neighborhood on the North end, but this new generation has already discovered that both properties are owned by the same person, they simply haven't figured out who that is quite yet. That is only a matter of time, and meanwhile, young detainees on the side of the road have the audacity to ask if they are being detained, as if to claim authority as their own natural right. This rhetoric is becoming more frequent, and when these young people become the public at-large here in our little gated paradise, you uniformed security guys are going to be targets, having failed to befriend the youth in any authentic way before they discovered your deception of their perception-- but you'd lost their trust long before they'd pinpointed your fraudulence.

So far I have been the creator of the graffiti, and to any boiling anger we have provided the vent, controlling the valve always-- we are the misleading guide to the subculture's subconscious, and as creators of many urban myth and coverup, we must take care that our names be kept from the narrative. The Homeowner's Association and the Shadow Timbers residents must always be the focus, with the preservation of a "Democracy" as their fruitless inwards battle. This formula would no longer work if contaminated with our names and our orchestrations.

This has already become too long, and it is mostly a note from upper management to all managers and security: to be prepared for these changes in the tenant's behavior, to know that this was predicted and is being monitored closely, and for now we will continue business as usual, unless you are specifically notified otherwise.

Respectfully,
Cedric Cash, Shadow Properties and Affiliates

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thanks for reading along, any resemblance to an actual community, neighborhood, state or outfit is purely intentional. Cedric Cash is not intended to represent an actual person, and is purely fictional.

images above thanks to Pixabay free images

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