Genesis 1776
Nelson Lowhim
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and God became lonely and made the first human and said to it, look what I’ve made for you. And the human looked around and shrugged and said, eh this is okay. God was taken aback and, feeling hurt, went to work on filling the earth with other creatures, trying to find solace in Its work and ignored the human.
Then one day It saw the human splashing around in the water and coming out with a bucket full of creatures and God asked it what is that? And the human tsk’ed and said they are crabs. This is a bucket to hold them. For a god you don’t know much.
God, all gritted teeth, retorted: Well, human, I do know that your crabs are about to crawl out. And the human tsk’ed again and said you fool god, they are crabs, if one tries to escape this bucket, the others will pull them back in. And the human left and God was left alone. More alone than ever before.
Annoyed by this creation of Its own making, one that would not listen or respect its maker, God said aha, I shall make more humans, but they will be like the crabs and not the first human and I shall be happy.
And so it was.
We came to the edge of a series of houses. Inside were two men walking on all fours, with feet for hands. How they must have suffered. And what from? Depleted Uranium? That other crime we don’t talk about? Later in our patrol we saw an IED go off half a mile away. The resulting mushroom cloud spread high into the sky. It took a few seconds for the shockwave to hit us. Air filling our chests full of glad we weren't closer. Later, much later, I talked to a fellow soldier who didn’t remember this patrol at all. He only wanted to complain about all the shit he had to burn in Iraq and the health issues that arose from that, the frequent visits to a maze of paperwork and blank faces all designed to make him question if he were ever, truly, in Iraq burning shit.
I was going to write a story about rats. Well, about a man who had these genetically modified (GM) rats. Well, not just any man, but a man who was an ex-general. Well, I suppose it didn’t have to be a man. A woman would have sufficed. Or they. Nor was the general part important either. The job title was merely a stand in for our elites today. In that sense, a venture capitalist or some CEO or someone like a hedge fund manager or high-end politician would have sufficed as well. Think of the board members of Theranos. Kissinger and General Maddog Mattis and CEOs and Senators all eating from the same grifter’s trough (and is anyone really surprised?). Or think John “only adult in the room” Kelly and how he moves from directly carrying out laws for inflicting pain upon immigrants to being on the board of a company that profits from such laws.
A story told about the “good war,” the initial push into Afghanistan. You know, horses and beards and victory. So a Senator visits a team out there and doesn’t say much except that they had to switch out their tires from ones that worked to ones that were manufactured in his state. You can win a war but you better know what pays for it. Or the real reason for it. In Iraq, we would take showers where, if you touched the wrong knob, you felt electricity pushing through you. It felt like a small force expanding your insides. Later a soldier died from being electrocuted in a shower. But don’t worry, none of the profits the American contractors who were paid to make these showers was affected.
Thing is, I was trying to have a stand-in for the mindset prevalent today amongst the rich and powerful (and among the peasants too, given their need to ape the powerful). So I settled on a general. Especially given the level of trust in the military (as opposed to other institutions). The GM rats weren’t necessary either. It could be something else, like AI robots. Perhaps I could have revisited the theme I’ve written about before (quantum swarms coming home to roost). But the point was this stand-in for the masses should have humanistic properties. Where the story went, I wasn’t exactly sure.
Going to veteran writing workshops held in the shadow of MFA courses can be trying. Each time you try to present things as they are, someone mentions how offensive that could be. Like it’s an entire course on mythologizing the experience of war. It’s not hard to understand. Just read Captain Blackman, one of the best books to come out of the Vietnam War and see why it’s rarely touted in many circles. Myths sell. Don’t write a veteran who can’t be sympathized with. Right, like I could ever be sympathized with.
Now back to the story I was talking about. Essentially, a veteran would come in, perhaps a bodyguard, perhaps looking to network or curry favor with the powerful. Either way, they would earn the general’s trust and be shown this world the general had created. And that’s when they would come upon a large model-world, sectioned off by clear plastic, from which you can watch our rats live and fight.
This is all a little on the nose, but I hope you understand. Or maybe I don’t.
In Iraq, during patrols through the filth and poverty of Baghdad, our squad leader, a Filipino guy, would tell me that he saw the same situation in his home country. That he understood these people and their conditions. That they deserved none of it. That they were just trying to survive. You understand that? Do you? Have you read the Wretched of the Earth yet? Or do you gorge on conspiracy theories that satiate your need for American Strong Myths?
In post-ISIS (or ISIS that doesn’t hold ground and is a pure guerrilla force) Baghdad it was said that the corruption was making the place stink. Street children were everywhere. Prostitutes too. I had heard about the Sunni-camps where prostitution was required to survive (gain favors, food, from those who ran the refugee camps) and how this was feeding another cycle of vengeance. Sounded like the city wasn’t that much better. Sounded like so many cities around the world where the dollar is king. IMF impositions. But don’t worry, those in charge of the Death Star are learning to better fight in slums should these people, these street children, these wretched of the earth, ever get it in their minds not to scrounge for their daily bread, not to accept that logic and find a different tune to arrange the world in front of them and use that to rise up against the actual empire holding them down.
Back to the rats: some would be well-fed, creating beautiful art. While others would be starved and used for weapons targeting by our general. These would learn the logic of violence and become brutal themselves. This would go on, the general making the usual technocratic excuses one hears from our elites concerning mass murder (via bombs or more innocuous economic policy), followed by the moralization of a set of those policies. In other words, making it the victim’s fault for suffering, mixed with “they don’t have it so bad” in terms of suffering or when compared to some previous wars. The veteran would believe this at first, swallow the general’s tripe and paycheck and respect. Suppose if you’d put your life on the line for a ribbon, you’re always ready for some kind of story. Then the veteran would slowly come around and perhaps provide a Socratic foil to these points.
But some say there’s a different take about our beginning. They say Eve saw right through God’s gaslighting and slowly got Adam to see it too. When they confronted God with this information, It laughed at them and said there you are with your facts and here I am with my minions all over the world who will repeat what I say until even your own spawn won’t believe you. It was then that humanity knew what they were up against. And so they fell silent.
Looking to educate and make money — always hustling, our elites — the general livestreams this world. People would comment on the brutal ones, claiming they were horrendous, the rats must all be killed, or definitely deserve their fate of being targets of weapon tests.
Do you understand what I’m trying to say, to highlight? Do you see this in the discussions we have today?
This thinking isn’t completely new to the zeitgeist. I remember reading someone claim that they had watched Hunger Games and had the epiphany that this was how the world worked, that we did this with our wars, our bombs, our sectioning off certain parts of the world, our forcing people to run, or else, die. And yes, I agree, especially since we have the power to make the entire world a Warsaw Ghetto. This random interneter quit their job because of this.
I remember cruising the internets, in military forums, and how a discussion about veteran suicide had a veteran mentioning that this life after war was like watching a movie. That you know how it’s made and how it ends and you just want out.
They say the National Guard was going to fix bayonets when sent to a BLM protest. The war at home, right? Our colonel had us fix bayonets during the Sadr Uprising. Said it was good for instilling fear, the flash of that metal. As if our bombs and guns hadn’t been enough. He also said that the British had used that method against the Zulu. Funny thing to hear it spelled out so clearly. That the people in charge of us were clear that this was another effort at “civilizing” like that British one that came before. I would still keep silent when fellow soldiers asked me which side was my brown ass really on? So when I heard about our soldiers using bayonets against the largest civil rights movement this century, I felt the ground move beneath my feet and that familiar lump in my chest… well, you get the idea, right?
I’m not going to lie, I don’t know what to do with such a story anymore. How do I write it so that it’s not just another dark story? How then to help the rats overcome?
Do you really see what I mean? Like the above situations, one can see divisions amongst the masses, but also see that we need to unite and write about reaching across divisions that, if left unhealed, would leave us as crabs in a bucket. What I mean is we need to see the show, the war, for what it is.
Another veteran on the internets said they know what the war is for: the lifestyles of us rich Americans and we don’t care that we’re killing massive amounts of innocent people for it.
The Military channels had ads about not stealing from the military because that’s how Rome fell and also ads about not shaking your baby. If it wasn’t that, lots of TVs were left on playing Fox News.
I’m hoping Hollywood will help me figure out how exactly my rats will start their insurgency. Perhaps it will be a matter of a kind of animal-rights activists meeting them, talking to them, freeing them. Maybe that’s what we need, less species-centric thinking. I mean, this is the age of the Anthropocene, isn’t it?
Just have the veteran help the rats escape?
Is that instructive to any of us and our predicament? Somewhat, I suppose. Many revolutions work with someone on the side of the powerful deciding to work for the powerless, right? You need that inside knowledge, usually.
That’s when I get sad. Seems like everyone in the elite halls is trying to network while making the usual hand waving for justice. No room for real class betrayal in their minds.
So how do we allow them to properly usurp? Because that’s what they need to survive. Hell, it’s what we need too.
Smuggle them books about their true creation? Ours as well? Tell them our weaknesses? In a world of total surveillance, does that make a difference? Does this mean our own end? I don’t actually know, reader, so I’m asking you to see what’s going on. What next? What next?
They say it was a stupid god that made this earth. The other gods said don’t do it, you aren’t ready. But that only drove this god to make it and then It created humanity and the creatures in the world and just enjoyed torturing them, then loving them when they were driven too far into despair. Thus was this abusive relationship created. When the other gods went to humanity and tried to help, this cruel god whispered to his abused children that the other gods were devils not to be trusted.
And so here we are. Using the very tool of our destruction to try to stop it.
