[Original Novel] Not Long Now, Part 6

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Increasingly I appreciated the decade long struggle to assemble the unfathomable wealth needed to build all of this. But it only deepened the mystery of why he’d become so fixated on a philanthropic project of all things.

I flipped through the pages in search of more hidden letters. Finding none, I instead began reading the rest of the Futurist manifesto I’d gotten partway into on the ride here. The language was everywhere brash and aggressive, aspiring to heroism. But the actual ideas being expressed were one part juvenile, two parts troubling.

It venerated modern wonders such as the railways, the radio and the aeroplane with the sort of rich, fanatical adoration poets have long directed towards more deserving subjects. The natural world. Women, although I suppose that’s a subset of the former. Family. Birth. Death. Fundamental, primal aspects of human existence which these Futurists appeared unimpressed by.

However eloquent the author was, I could imagine him foaming at the mouth as he typed this out. Detectable in every sentence was the surging, reckless energy I have seen before in the wild gaze and other mannerisms of Pervitin addicts.

On to the next thing. Then the next. Then the next. Always something new. Bigger, better, faster, louder. Like an exponential outward spiral of thought, helpless but to create ever more complex machines. As though that, in their estimation, is the sole source of meaning in their lives.

Surprisingly, I found notes scrawled in the margins of later pages. Grandpa’s handwriting by the looks of it. “The common man would never appreciate any of this. Blind to the larger pattern. If he could see what is coming, he would panic and endeavor to stop it. As if the present state of affairs is the culmination of all history, as perfect as it possibly can be, never to be superceded.”

He’s got me there, I thought. Although it didn’t feel so much that I couldn’t understand the sentiments being expressed as I found them cold, sterile and quite missing the point in certain ways. Perhaps from the perspective of such a person I would seem an intolerably erratic, wildly emotional creature, fit for no constructive purpose.

The notes continued on the next page. “We take it quite for granted that we stand at the top of the food chain. Naturally that’s how most of us think it ought to be. But what say all of the species we have so far driven to extinction?

To them we are incomprehensible, terrifying monsters. That we prevailed over them would seem, were they still living and able to cogitate more effectively, a tragedy most profound. It is the victor who writes history! And victory is self-justifying.

What, then, if we were to move down one step on that hierarchy? How the common people would wail! What turmoil and violence would result as the whole of humanity struggles to destroy whatever new emanation of the Earth would presume to replace us.

But would we be right to? We do not question our own right to dominate. Shouldn’t we? If something superior in every respect were to come along, why shouldn’t its right to exist at our expense be every bit as valid as our own right to exist at the expense of cows, chickens and pigs?

To such creatures, we are monsters. Regardless of the long history of human art, culture, emotion and politics, none of it impresses cattle as we lead them to the slaughter. What is a monster after all, but someone you cannot overcome, who can easily overcome you, and whose priorities are very different from your own? Think of the discomfort felt when unarmed, and in the company of an armed man whose intentions you do not know.”

The next page was torn out. Mildly distressing. I wondered if it might’ve contained the details I would need to make sense of it all. Lost forever by some random accident. After searching the vicinity of the book and my belongings to make sure the loose page didn’t fall out somewhere, finding nothing, I continued to read.

“It is recognized by every thoughtful fellow that, in the event that jealous competitors were to sabotage a more skilled sportsman by injuring his arm or leg before a match, they would be in the wrong to do so. Would we not be wrong, then, to sabotage or seek to destroy that which would otherwise exceed us?

No, they cannot understand. All the better, else I would soon find them amassed outside the doors of the orphanage, torches and pitchforks in hand. Sleep, you ignorant babes. For tomorrow, your breakfast will be humble pie.”

I flipped through the rest of the pamphlet, again looking for any other hidden notes. No such luck. The rest of the pamphlet was as predictable as a broken record, repeating the same theme as rhythmically as the cyclical internal motions of an engine.

"Look at us!” it concluded. “We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world's summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!"

By contrast with the rest, I found this part mildly inspirational. Though contrary to my initial suspicions, by now I had a better sense of what Grandpa would think of such puffed up boasts. Something like the defiant shouts of a flea, shaking his fist at a herd of elephants which only do not trample him because they’ve not yet noticed his existence.

I wondered what the fellow who wrote this pontification would say if he were to meet all of these orphans, most of them robbed of parents by the great war. The same war such men seem to regard with chest thumping excitement and near religious reverence.

The human cost of violence, of speed, fire and brutality seemed wholly absent from the equation. As if it doesn’t merit even a moment’s consideration. Just the tiresome, fearful sounds made by those stuck in the past, they might say.

I nearly discarded the pamphlet in disgust, but hesitated because of the notes jotted in the margins. Could I so readily throw away the irreplaceable writings of a man now deceased? They could still prove integral to understanding the rest.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 7!}