Mandatory Volunteerism
By E.S. Wynn
“Mandatory Volunteerism” The soldier sneers, and as my eyes drop to his boots, I can see the spirits seething there, guiding his steps. Skull-grin faces leer up at me, the soft tan glow of long-dead Nazis and the glossy black iridescence of oppressors’ jackboots. A hand grabs me roughly, shuffles me into a train car full of frightened spirits and the corpse-like bodies of the nearly dead.
I struggle to hold my breath. All around me I can feel the press of weak bone and thinning flesh. Cruel teeth chatter, the smell of death and age reaches out and tests my skin. All around me, hungry insects abandon their dying hosts and move toward me, a tide of vicious exoskeletal jackals. Beyond them, goading them on, urging them toward fresher meat, I can see the spirits of lepers and scavengers, vulture men whose pointed teeth clatter as loudly as the tracks passing beneath the train car.
In the darkness of the far end of the car, a screen flares, turns vision to a painful, enthralling light. Diseased eyes swivel sickly toward it, peering toward that window to electric reality, snared even as empty, lipless mouths drift open, abandoned by minds that seek desperately to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Crowded by the leavings of pestilence, I choke, eyes watering, and ultimately realize that the screen is my only escape. Distracted by the light, the insects give pause, but by the time they shuffle closer again, I am already gone, my mind seized, erased and lain open, vivisected by the screen.
“Mandatory Volunteerism.” The planetary governor breathes, and the silver clouds of nanite recorders disperse on his exhale like tiny dust motes, scurrying to avoid his corrosive words. Even through the portal of the screen, I can see the spirits of Nebuchadnezzar and Nero battling across his heavy-creased forehead, the footsteps of Azazel around his heart. The same spirits that seethed at the soldier’s boots are here too, threading themselves through the Governor’s corpulent flesh, the damp folds of his nanite-cleaned suit. Alive, hungry, wild and drunk from excitement, they encircle him wildly, surge within him, build and build until the pressure in his sagging jowls can no longer be contained and his mouth pops open like a virulent blister. His words are a graveyard poison, infectious, burning with half-truths and oozing with the words of doctors and men corrupted despite the armor of their esteemed educations, men who, like Icarus, abandoned morality, abandoned duty, and flew too close to the sun, flew too close and were burned by the power they sought. In his eyes, I see the glow of an ancient Fuhrer, of a handful of genocidic dictators that feed upon the hate each exudes in turn. In his flesh, they stir in a swarm like violent flies, lose themselves in their conflicting principles to exhale nothing but venomous intent into this their chosen body, breathing plans that serve as vicious solutions to problems that should not exist.
“Mandatory Volunteerism” He says again, and the canned voices of a thousand adoring slaves rattle around him. His fat face lifts into the cruel curves of a sick smile, and in the corners I see the hands of Loki’s own handmaidens, spirit fingers tickling pockmarked flesh into a semblance of joy and life. Illness takes root in the pit of my stomach, and though my eyes are wet and blurry, I cannot lift my arms to wipe them, cannot brush away the tears of betrayal and pain. The living dead stir restlessly around me, desperately trying to believe in this appointed governor, this God of the body politic, but the shades, the memories of a better life and the moaning souls of lost love ones that circle their ears and flit through the fronds of their thinning hair refuse to give them the surrender they so desperately wish they could succumb to.
Beneath us, the train rattles on, a cog in the grinding gearwork of one man’s progress, one nation’s mission, one world’s goal. Ein Volk, Ein Reich. I swallow despite the acrid fire clinging in the depths of my throat.
- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of the Pink Carbide Trilogy and the long running series The Cygnus War. He lives in rural California and is slated to graduate with his B.A. in English in May of 2010. He works as a part time author, part time editor, part time sword salesman and part time broker for Pre-Paid Legal services.
By E.S. Wynn
“Mandatory Volunteerism” The soldier sneers, and as my eyes drop to his boots, I can see the spirits seething there, guiding his steps. Skull-grin faces leer up at me, the soft tan glow of long-dead Nazis and the glossy black iridescence of oppressors’ jackboots. A hand grabs me roughly, shuffles me into a train car full of frightened spirits and the corpse-like bodies of the nearly dead.
I struggle to hold my breath. All around me I can feel the press of weak bone and thinning flesh. Cruel teeth chatter, the smell of death and age reaches out and tests my skin. All around me, hungry insects abandon their dying hosts and move toward me, a tide of vicious exoskeletal jackals. Beyond them, goading them on, urging them toward fresher meat, I can see the spirits of lepers and scavengers, vulture men whose pointed teeth clatter as loudly as the tracks passing beneath the train car.
In the darkness of the far end of the car, a screen flares, turns vision to a painful, enthralling light. Diseased eyes swivel sickly toward it, peering toward that window to electric reality, snared even as empty, lipless mouths drift open, abandoned by minds that seek desperately to be somewhere else, anywhere else. Crowded by the leavings of pestilence, I choke, eyes watering, and ultimately realize that the screen is my only escape. Distracted by the light, the insects give pause, but by the time they shuffle closer again, I am already gone, my mind seized, erased and lain open, vivisected by the screen.
“Mandatory Volunteerism.” The planetary governor breathes, and the silver clouds of nanite recorders disperse on his exhale like tiny dust motes, scurrying to avoid his corrosive words. Even through the portal of the screen, I can see the spirits of Nebuchadnezzar and Nero battling across his heavy-creased forehead, the footsteps of Azazel around his heart. The same spirits that seethed at the soldier’s boots are here too, threading themselves through the Governor’s corpulent flesh, the damp folds of his nanite-cleaned suit. Alive, hungry, wild and drunk from excitement, they encircle him wildly, surge within him, build and build until the pressure in his sagging jowls can no longer be contained and his mouth pops open like a virulent blister. His words are a graveyard poison, infectious, burning with half-truths and oozing with the words of doctors and men corrupted despite the armor of their esteemed educations, men who, like Icarus, abandoned morality, abandoned duty, and flew too close to the sun, flew too close and were burned by the power they sought. In his eyes, I see the glow of an ancient Fuhrer, of a handful of genocidic dictators that feed upon the hate each exudes in turn. In his flesh, they stir in a swarm like violent flies, lose themselves in their conflicting principles to exhale nothing but venomous intent into this their chosen body, breathing plans that serve as vicious solutions to problems that should not exist.
“Mandatory Volunteerism” He says again, and the canned voices of a thousand adoring slaves rattle around him. His fat face lifts into the cruel curves of a sick smile, and in the corners I see the hands of Loki’s own handmaidens, spirit fingers tickling pockmarked flesh into a semblance of joy and life. Illness takes root in the pit of my stomach, and though my eyes are wet and blurry, I cannot lift my arms to wipe them, cannot brush away the tears of betrayal and pain. The living dead stir restlessly around me, desperately trying to believe in this appointed governor, this God of the body politic, but the shades, the memories of a better life and the moaning souls of lost love ones that circle their ears and flit through the fronds of their thinning hair refuse to give them the surrender they so desperately wish they could succumb to.
Beneath us, the train rattles on, a cog in the grinding gearwork of one man’s progress, one nation’s mission, one world’s goal. Ein Volk, Ein Reich. I swallow despite the acrid fire clinging in the depths of my throat.
- - -
E.S. Wynn is the author of the Pink Carbide Trilogy and the long running series The Cygnus War. He lives in rural California and is slated to graduate with his B.A. in English in May of 2010. He works as a part time author, part time editor, part time sword salesman and part time broker for Pre-Paid Legal services.
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