Matt A
12-15-2004, 05:20 PM
This is the third of my four short stories.
I'll just say right now that there's no point whatsoever trying to figure out what's going on, 'cause I'm not all that sure either.
Just so's you know, the formatter's being strange again.
Monkey Tennis
You’ve seen that sign before. Well, you would, really, seeing as that sign is on just about every empty wall in the city, if not the country. Maybe even the world. But that’s not it. Saying that you’ve seen it in your dreams is kinda obvious, seeing as the sign is all that anyone ever dreams about. No, it seems to speak to something in your soul, something even deeper than that superficial bit that it’s aiming for. A deep, dark, dank corner of your being, something so primeval that it shouldn’t be able to make sense of what it sees. But it can. If only you could understand what it’s telling you…
“World Monkey Tennis Superbowl Grand Final, Chairman Drek Stadium, 8pm Tonight, Tickets £1.50 On The Door”, the sign says. It’s always said that, probably since before you were born. Strange that. A grand final on every day. Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek really is a very nice man, giving you a quality sporting event every day of the week. You wonder why that is. Hmm, who really cares?
Yippee! It’s 8 ‘o’ clock again, time to watch another game of Monkey Tennis. Ha ha ha. Who’d have thought that watching two monkeys trying to lift up a racket and hit a speeding ball could be so exciting? It’s not as if they get hit by it or anything. They’ve never, ever missed the ball, not once in the countless years that you’ve been watching them. But it’s always so tense, the audience clinging onto the false hope that it could finally go horribly wrong. Why, though? On second thoughts, why does that question even matter?
As you enter the stadium, all doubts are once again expelled from your mind. As if you had any, anyway. How could you have had any doubts about your great leader, Chairman Drek? You look around the stadium, big enough to make Nuremberg look like a village meeting hall, until you find the seat designated to you on your card, number 113215. You eventually find it, not far off to your right, about ¾ of the way up. Not the ideal seat – that’s reserved for Chairman Drek – but it’s as good as you were hoping for. As you climb into the spacious leather armchair that is your seat, you feel cold concrete digging into your back. You instantly dispel the feeling from your mind, as you’ve been trained to do. Sorry, as you’ve trained yourself to do. The differences between those two statements cannot be expressed clearly enough.
As the two monkeys walk into the stadium, you can’t help but cheer wildly along with the rest of the audience. They take their positions in the centre, with the tennis ball-firing machine placed a hundred yards away from them. As they struggle to pick up the racquet, you feel a worryingly familiar sensation beneath your feet. It’s warm and soft, almost powdery. But you’re wearing shoes, aren’t you? Maybe that’s why it’s worrying. You let your soul go where it’s begging to be allowed to go.
* * * * *
Tang’gritt looks up at the vast pyramid towering above him, a monument to the might of the pharaohs…and the priests. Oh yes, the priests. The real rulers of the Old Kingdom. That’s the way these things work, isn’t it? The pharaoh ponces around in his palace all day, sleeping with whichever one of his 200 wives takes his fancy at this exact second, but he doesn’t actually have to do anything. No, he leaves all the actual work to his priests. They’re the ones who have the power. The pharaoh’s just a puppet. Not that he cares – as long as he’s got a steady supply of sex and grapes then he really doesn’t give a damn. So, where does that leave people like Tang’gritt?
The answer to that is obvious. They do what peasants have always done, and always will do: vast amounts of hard labour for bugger all thanks, let alone pay. Slaving over monstrosities like this, this heinous wart sitting on the desert plain. The Great Pyramid. As if there’s anything great about having 70,000 men break their backs for five years, going through so much pain and anguish for an edifice to arrogant pomposity that’ll probably never get used. Under even remotely normal conditions, even the most masochistic nutjob wouldn’t hesitate to tell you to bugger off if you told them to do that. But these aren’t even remotely normal conditions, are they? After all, they’re creating a tomb for the pharaoh, who just so happens to be a living god. And if your god told you to do something, you’d do it, wouldn’t you. Well, would you?
That’s a question that Tang’gritt will probably never get to have answered. As if he really cares anyway. For him, the case is simple. Anyone with even half a brain can tell Cheops is just a man, and not even a particularly good one at that. But that’s what today’s all about. Educating the people. Making them see through the charade that’s been built up over the centuries. Tang’gritt feels the warm sand under his feet, a sensation he’s known all his life, and his resolve hardens even further. Just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean that you have to keep it.
He wanders over to the trees, where his supporters are gathered. Over a thousand men, sitting where the world can’t get them. This is the day that Tang’gritt has been waiting for all his life, the day when the common people rise up and bite the big fat backside of the leader that’s been sitting on their face all this time. They will make their stand, here and now. Thinking this makes his heart swell with pride, that only he could organise an event as momentous as this. The name of Tang’gritt will go down in history. The champion of the workers, the revealer of the truth, the saviour of reality…
His ego-fuelled rant is halted by the arrival of Yussef, Cheop’s Grand Vizier. He’s everything you’d expect a Grand Vizier to be, and more besides…he’s as cunning as a fox, and as slippery as a fish. A right crafty little bugger. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s got several million aces up his sleeve. Not that they’ll be doing him any good…
“What are you doing?” Yussef’s as forthright as ever.
Tang’gritt stands up, looking tall, proud and very, very angry. “What do you think we’re doing?”
“Well, to me it looks like you’re sitting around doing nothing.”
“We most certainly are not! We are making a stand against our oppressors. People like you.”
“Hmm, interesting…and what are your demands?”
“We will not move from this spot until you make an effort to improve our living and working conditions!”
“Well, if it’s food you’re talking about…I suppose I can sort something out.”
“This is about more than food!”
“What is this about, then?”
“This is about, well, that!” Tang’gritt points to the vast pyramid being built in the distance. “That travesty of taste, decency and common sense!”
“Oh, that. I should have guessed, really. Of course, I hope you realise that we still have 69,000 men working on it, so quite frankly you guys don’t actually make much of a difference. Besides, your entry to the afterlife is riding on aiding in the construction of our pharaoh’s final resting place.” Yussef smiles, whilst Tang’gritt simply stares at him, eyes completely agog. It feels like the bottom has just dropped out of his world. If his followers cotton to what he’s just said…well, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
The general murmurings behind him confirm Tang’gritt’s worst fears. He’s got just one chance to save his reputation, and, more importantly, his life.
“Ha, peasants like us don’t get an afterlife. You and the priests have seen to that.” The peasants are back on Tang’gritt’s side now, but for how long?
“Of course you get an afterlife! You’re all free men, after all.”
“Oh, really? Then why can’t we choose to work on the pyramid?”
“You’re building it for the gods! What reason would you have to not help?”
“Because there are no gods! Just an old tosser with an over-active sex drive, his prick of a Grand Vizier (Yussef pulls a face at this) and thousands of scheming, whinging priests!”
Tang’gritt smiles in triumph, but the expressions of his followers quickly make sure that he looks worried instead. He should have kept his trap shut, not let his ego run away with him. He’s said completely the wrong thing, and now he’ll be lucky if he gets out of this alive, let alone with any kind of reward…
Luckily, Yussef can read the look on his face, and turns to face the peasants.
“It looks like you guys are going to be getting your rations after all.” This gets a big cheer, which Yussef acknowledges proudly. “We’d appreciate it if you head back to work once you’ve got them.” That hint’s not suppose to be subtle.
Once the meal of garlic, radishes, bread and meat (a luxury even for the pharaoh) has been delivered, the peasants stand up and leave. Tang’gritt watches them go with horrified fascination. After the many months he’s spent trying to teach them the truth, seeing how it had changed them, the fact that they’ve simply swallowed all the lies again his simply to big for him to grasp. He’s close to tears, but he’s too shocked to do anything other than let the numbness set in.
Yussef turns to leave, and signals for him to follow. Wearily, Tang’gritt trudges after him. He’s in trouble now. The first strike in recorded history has ended in abysmal failure.
* * * * *
Suddenly, you’re thrown back to the real world. You look around you, trying to get a handle on what’s going on. You’re still in the stadium, which is good. What’s bad is that the two monkeys are on the ground, ambulance crews swarming all over them. Even from this distance you can tell that they’re dead. So, the monkeys finally missed a ball, eh? To bad they both just happened to get one in the head.
Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek stands up in his exclusive V.I.P. chair and reaches for his microphone. The bellowing audience falls silent. Finally, Chairman Drek is going to speak! He clears his throat melodramatically.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, in what can only be described as a politician’s voice, one that strangely befits the pinstripe suit, greased-back ponytail and Cuban cigar that Drek’s sporting, “I have some very strange news for you. Me and the other members of my government did not come from this world. The world we came from is simply too polluted to be inhabitable, so we have been forced to construct a new world for our people. We already have the core structure, but we don’t have anything to put on it. That’s where you come in. For the last ten years we have been plundering this planet, removing anything that we feel will be of use, short of the crust itself. Obviously, we couldn’t have you getting in the way, so we set up the World Monkey Tennis Superbowl as a medium for brainwashing you into thinking that everything was lovely and rosy. Now we have taken everything we need, we feel that we can turn you out into the big wide world once more, and as we will no longer be able to keep up this little illusion, we have really had no choice but to tell you all this. Otherwise, we would be perfectly happy to leave you sitting here, lost in your own little fantasy. That’s why the monkeys are now dead – so you will always know just how it could all have been so much worse. Personally, I suggest that you get on and salvage whatever kind of society that you can, whilst you still can. I personally apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Thankyou, goodbye.”
Drek and his government walk out of the stadium, leaving you and the other 60,000 people in the crowd to process what he’s just said. However, as you’re doing it, the world around you slowly starts to change. The leather armchairs become cold concrete steps, the glistening metropolis beyond becomes many ruined, bombed-out buildings, and the starry night sky becomes a violent storm. Too late, you realise what your sub-consciousness was trying to tell you…it was a warning, from your ancestral memory, from Tang’gritt himself. They swallowed the lies then, and they couldn’t stop you from swallowing them now. You look up and laugh at the howling storm clouds, having finally gotten the joke that has eluded you and your ancestors for millennia – all those who tried to change the universe are as forgotten now as you, the blindly following sheep, will be soon. The true believers in the betterment of mankind and reality have really got absolutely f**king nowhere, and you might as well just live the fantasy, man. Yeah, the world’s waiting for you, and in it’s ravaged and cheated state it still wants more of the fantasy. Go and provide, if you want, as if it’ll make a difference. People say that it’s only today that fantasy and reality are becoming blurred, but they’ve always been Siamese twins. You’ll never separate them, so they’ll both always be there, waiting for you. The goosestepper. The fool. Just waiting to be made to look so bloody stupid. That’s the punchline, really – we’re all naturally ignorant fools, so why not just be natural? It didn’t hurt you, now did it?
I'll just say right now that there's no point whatsoever trying to figure out what's going on, 'cause I'm not all that sure either.
Just so's you know, the formatter's being strange again.
Monkey Tennis
You’ve seen that sign before. Well, you would, really, seeing as that sign is on just about every empty wall in the city, if not the country. Maybe even the world. But that’s not it. Saying that you’ve seen it in your dreams is kinda obvious, seeing as the sign is all that anyone ever dreams about. No, it seems to speak to something in your soul, something even deeper than that superficial bit that it’s aiming for. A deep, dark, dank corner of your being, something so primeval that it shouldn’t be able to make sense of what it sees. But it can. If only you could understand what it’s telling you…
“World Monkey Tennis Superbowl Grand Final, Chairman Drek Stadium, 8pm Tonight, Tickets £1.50 On The Door”, the sign says. It’s always said that, probably since before you were born. Strange that. A grand final on every day. Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek really is a very nice man, giving you a quality sporting event every day of the week. You wonder why that is. Hmm, who really cares?
Yippee! It’s 8 ‘o’ clock again, time to watch another game of Monkey Tennis. Ha ha ha. Who’d have thought that watching two monkeys trying to lift up a racket and hit a speeding ball could be so exciting? It’s not as if they get hit by it or anything. They’ve never, ever missed the ball, not once in the countless years that you’ve been watching them. But it’s always so tense, the audience clinging onto the false hope that it could finally go horribly wrong. Why, though? On second thoughts, why does that question even matter?
As you enter the stadium, all doubts are once again expelled from your mind. As if you had any, anyway. How could you have had any doubts about your great leader, Chairman Drek? You look around the stadium, big enough to make Nuremberg look like a village meeting hall, until you find the seat designated to you on your card, number 113215. You eventually find it, not far off to your right, about ¾ of the way up. Not the ideal seat – that’s reserved for Chairman Drek – but it’s as good as you were hoping for. As you climb into the spacious leather armchair that is your seat, you feel cold concrete digging into your back. You instantly dispel the feeling from your mind, as you’ve been trained to do. Sorry, as you’ve trained yourself to do. The differences between those two statements cannot be expressed clearly enough.
As the two monkeys walk into the stadium, you can’t help but cheer wildly along with the rest of the audience. They take their positions in the centre, with the tennis ball-firing machine placed a hundred yards away from them. As they struggle to pick up the racquet, you feel a worryingly familiar sensation beneath your feet. It’s warm and soft, almost powdery. But you’re wearing shoes, aren’t you? Maybe that’s why it’s worrying. You let your soul go where it’s begging to be allowed to go.
* * * * *
Tang’gritt looks up at the vast pyramid towering above him, a monument to the might of the pharaohs…and the priests. Oh yes, the priests. The real rulers of the Old Kingdom. That’s the way these things work, isn’t it? The pharaoh ponces around in his palace all day, sleeping with whichever one of his 200 wives takes his fancy at this exact second, but he doesn’t actually have to do anything. No, he leaves all the actual work to his priests. They’re the ones who have the power. The pharaoh’s just a puppet. Not that he cares – as long as he’s got a steady supply of sex and grapes then he really doesn’t give a damn. So, where does that leave people like Tang’gritt?
The answer to that is obvious. They do what peasants have always done, and always will do: vast amounts of hard labour for bugger all thanks, let alone pay. Slaving over monstrosities like this, this heinous wart sitting on the desert plain. The Great Pyramid. As if there’s anything great about having 70,000 men break their backs for five years, going through so much pain and anguish for an edifice to arrogant pomposity that’ll probably never get used. Under even remotely normal conditions, even the most masochistic nutjob wouldn’t hesitate to tell you to bugger off if you told them to do that. But these aren’t even remotely normal conditions, are they? After all, they’re creating a tomb for the pharaoh, who just so happens to be a living god. And if your god told you to do something, you’d do it, wouldn’t you. Well, would you?
That’s a question that Tang’gritt will probably never get to have answered. As if he really cares anyway. For him, the case is simple. Anyone with even half a brain can tell Cheops is just a man, and not even a particularly good one at that. But that’s what today’s all about. Educating the people. Making them see through the charade that’s been built up over the centuries. Tang’gritt feels the warm sand under his feet, a sensation he’s known all his life, and his resolve hardens even further. Just because you’re used to something doesn’t mean that you have to keep it.
He wanders over to the trees, where his supporters are gathered. Over a thousand men, sitting where the world can’t get them. This is the day that Tang’gritt has been waiting for all his life, the day when the common people rise up and bite the big fat backside of the leader that’s been sitting on their face all this time. They will make their stand, here and now. Thinking this makes his heart swell with pride, that only he could organise an event as momentous as this. The name of Tang’gritt will go down in history. The champion of the workers, the revealer of the truth, the saviour of reality…
His ego-fuelled rant is halted by the arrival of Yussef, Cheop’s Grand Vizier. He’s everything you’d expect a Grand Vizier to be, and more besides…he’s as cunning as a fox, and as slippery as a fish. A right crafty little bugger. You can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s got several million aces up his sleeve. Not that they’ll be doing him any good…
“What are you doing?” Yussef’s as forthright as ever.
Tang’gritt stands up, looking tall, proud and very, very angry. “What do you think we’re doing?”
“Well, to me it looks like you’re sitting around doing nothing.”
“We most certainly are not! We are making a stand against our oppressors. People like you.”
“Hmm, interesting…and what are your demands?”
“We will not move from this spot until you make an effort to improve our living and working conditions!”
“Well, if it’s food you’re talking about…I suppose I can sort something out.”
“This is about more than food!”
“What is this about, then?”
“This is about, well, that!” Tang’gritt points to the vast pyramid being built in the distance. “That travesty of taste, decency and common sense!”
“Oh, that. I should have guessed, really. Of course, I hope you realise that we still have 69,000 men working on it, so quite frankly you guys don’t actually make much of a difference. Besides, your entry to the afterlife is riding on aiding in the construction of our pharaoh’s final resting place.” Yussef smiles, whilst Tang’gritt simply stares at him, eyes completely agog. It feels like the bottom has just dropped out of his world. If his followers cotton to what he’s just said…well, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
The general murmurings behind him confirm Tang’gritt’s worst fears. He’s got just one chance to save his reputation, and, more importantly, his life.
“Ha, peasants like us don’t get an afterlife. You and the priests have seen to that.” The peasants are back on Tang’gritt’s side now, but for how long?
“Of course you get an afterlife! You’re all free men, after all.”
“Oh, really? Then why can’t we choose to work on the pyramid?”
“You’re building it for the gods! What reason would you have to not help?”
“Because there are no gods! Just an old tosser with an over-active sex drive, his prick of a Grand Vizier (Yussef pulls a face at this) and thousands of scheming, whinging priests!”
Tang’gritt smiles in triumph, but the expressions of his followers quickly make sure that he looks worried instead. He should have kept his trap shut, not let his ego run away with him. He’s said completely the wrong thing, and now he’ll be lucky if he gets out of this alive, let alone with any kind of reward…
Luckily, Yussef can read the look on his face, and turns to face the peasants.
“It looks like you guys are going to be getting your rations after all.” This gets a big cheer, which Yussef acknowledges proudly. “We’d appreciate it if you head back to work once you’ve got them.” That hint’s not suppose to be subtle.
Once the meal of garlic, radishes, bread and meat (a luxury even for the pharaoh) has been delivered, the peasants stand up and leave. Tang’gritt watches them go with horrified fascination. After the many months he’s spent trying to teach them the truth, seeing how it had changed them, the fact that they’ve simply swallowed all the lies again his simply to big for him to grasp. He’s close to tears, but he’s too shocked to do anything other than let the numbness set in.
Yussef turns to leave, and signals for him to follow. Wearily, Tang’gritt trudges after him. He’s in trouble now. The first strike in recorded history has ended in abysmal failure.
* * * * *
Suddenly, you’re thrown back to the real world. You look around you, trying to get a handle on what’s going on. You’re still in the stadium, which is good. What’s bad is that the two monkeys are on the ground, ambulance crews swarming all over them. Even from this distance you can tell that they’re dead. So, the monkeys finally missed a ball, eh? To bad they both just happened to get one in the head.
Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek stands up in his exclusive V.I.P. chair and reaches for his microphone. The bellowing audience falls silent. Finally, Chairman Drek is going to speak! He clears his throat melodramatically.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, in what can only be described as a politician’s voice, one that strangely befits the pinstripe suit, greased-back ponytail and Cuban cigar that Drek’s sporting, “I have some very strange news for you. Me and the other members of my government did not come from this world. The world we came from is simply too polluted to be inhabitable, so we have been forced to construct a new world for our people. We already have the core structure, but we don’t have anything to put on it. That’s where you come in. For the last ten years we have been plundering this planet, removing anything that we feel will be of use, short of the crust itself. Obviously, we couldn’t have you getting in the way, so we set up the World Monkey Tennis Superbowl as a medium for brainwashing you into thinking that everything was lovely and rosy. Now we have taken everything we need, we feel that we can turn you out into the big wide world once more, and as we will no longer be able to keep up this little illusion, we have really had no choice but to tell you all this. Otherwise, we would be perfectly happy to leave you sitting here, lost in your own little fantasy. That’s why the monkeys are now dead – so you will always know just how it could all have been so much worse. Personally, I suggest that you get on and salvage whatever kind of society that you can, whilst you still can. I personally apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Thankyou, goodbye.”
Drek and his government walk out of the stadium, leaving you and the other 60,000 people in the crowd to process what he’s just said. However, as you’re doing it, the world around you slowly starts to change. The leather armchairs become cold concrete steps, the glistening metropolis beyond becomes many ruined, bombed-out buildings, and the starry night sky becomes a violent storm. Too late, you realise what your sub-consciousness was trying to tell you…it was a warning, from your ancestral memory, from Tang’gritt himself. They swallowed the lies then, and they couldn’t stop you from swallowing them now. You look up and laugh at the howling storm clouds, having finally gotten the joke that has eluded you and your ancestors for millennia – all those who tried to change the universe are as forgotten now as you, the blindly following sheep, will be soon. The true believers in the betterment of mankind and reality have really got absolutely f**king nowhere, and you might as well just live the fantasy, man. Yeah, the world’s waiting for you, and in it’s ravaged and cheated state it still wants more of the fantasy. Go and provide, if you want, as if it’ll make a difference. People say that it’s only today that fantasy and reality are becoming blurred, but they’ve always been Siamese twins. You’ll never separate them, so they’ll both always be there, waiting for you. The goosestepper. The fool. Just waiting to be made to look so bloody stupid. That’s the punchline, really – we’re all naturally ignorant fools, so why not just be natural? It didn’t hurt you, now did it?