To all recipients of the bimonthly publication of the CCCC:
Hear ye, hear ye, a brandished oath I have obtained and now swing in a pendulum motion at your heads: Much knowledge has your feeble minds to discover, O young fellow mortals, substituent and adviserary alike! Yes, yes, this is the calling, to listen to my words and learn from one who has seen the world and knows wherein life’s true purpose lie. Nonetheless, as I have mentioned in former publications, your minds can only absorb small quantities of revealed knowledge before they quiver up and implode. No, fellow friend, that would not be a pleasurable experience for my corneas. So, without any further bickering and scoffing at those we deem impenetrable with words, I proceed to give you the first revelation.
Many aeons ago, when the equivalent of a teenager in Immortal terms in India, I was sitting in the living room trying to do some reading and I couldn’t help but notice the words of a song that was being played over the air. The song was sung with somewhat of an Eastern chant in the background, and Ed Aymes was narrating, and it went something like this:
From the canyons of the mind,
We wander on and stumble blind,
Wade through the often tangled maze,
Of starless nights and sunless days.
Hoping for some kind of clue,
A road to lead us to the truth,
But who will answer?
Side by side two people stand
Together vowing hand in hand
That love’s embedded in their hearts
But soon an empty feeling starts
To overwhelm their hollow lives
And if they ask the “how’s” and “why’s”
Who will answer?
Far upon a distant hill
A young man’s lying very still
His arms will never hold his child
Because a bullet running wild
Has struck him down and now he cries
“My God, oh why, oh why?”
And who will answer?
High upon a lonely ledge
A figure teeters near the edge
While jeering crowds collect below
To egg him on with “go, man, go”
And none will ask what led him to
His private day of doom and who
Who will answer?
Beneath the spreading mushroom tree
The world revolves in apathy
While overhead a row of specks
Roars on, drowned out by discotheques
And if the secret buttons press
Because one man has been outguessed
Who will answer?
Is our hope in walnut shells
Worn round the neck with temple bells
Or deep within some cloistered walls
Where hooded figures pray in shawls
Or high upon some dusty shelves
Or in the stars or in ourselves
Who will answer?
If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name
If the mind is baffled when the rules don’t fit the game
Who will answer?
Who will answer?
Who will answer?
I have to admit, that as a teenager hearing those words from Ed Aymes, my reaction would have been something like this had I verbalized it: I would not have anticipated that a race of mortals so keen, so studious in their pursuit of knowledge, such dogmatic believers in the Pantheon would pose such questions about life. I could see them being raised in the league of Immortals, where suffering is commonplace and a way of living, as a common proverb of the Immortals says:
“If I have come into this world then I must live. If living is poisonous, I have to drink it.”
You can see the immense suffering on the Immortal’s part, because where the pleasures of mortals can satisfy for a lifetime at most, these same pleasures can give those of so many years no hope whatsoever. They become vain, vain indeed, gone with the wind. Fool! Look at my life! I am stript of my closest comrade, Mr. Burton, my assistant in arms. But such is reality, defined by change. The tides of change sweep through this cruel world, and the only activity the Immortal has to enjoy is records, keeping track of the changes of mortals, seeing the variation over the aeons of time. Thus, one might say that the Immortals were made, in fact programmed for the task of records in the position of being a Keeper of the Books. I tell you the truth, there was no time when I was more content than when I was a Keeper. But seeing all that’s lost, I know all the more what has been gained, for what was gain to me as a Keeper, I have counted it all as loss with respect to the surpassing greatness of the CCCC.
My friends, I tell you the truth, this same greatness is under attack by an enemy of old, a force worth reckoning, a relentless race that will not stop until we, the perpetrators, are dead and gone. These are the Keepers, of whom I have told time and time again. They must be crushed like the infestious roaches they are. Let their innards paint our mantle! It is them who strive to poison the minds of substituents, breathing poisonous deceit into their hearts. Ironically, we also use tactics of deceit, but not for evil purposes. Nay, precious, our purpose is pure, honorable, and for the furtherance of Mankind. No, I spite the individuals who uphold the “politically correct” term, humankind, for I was there when man was first created, and then the woman, and have seen the leadership position of the man. True, there may be instances where women have more authority than individual men, such as the woman executive in regards to the utility man, but overall, man reserves his headship. This is why I stand at the top of this glorious organization, not because I am inherently supreme over all, but because my functional role includes leadership and teaching.
And dear friends, I have upheld my leadership and have striven to teach you the things that matter in this life. Now we must bind together, closer than any couple on the marriage bed, and unite under one cause to capture a Keeper of the Books. I can only tell a little on the progress of our secretive mission to avoid endangering ourselves; only this much: we are very close to our target. Before long, we will have a Keeper in our midst! Bjork! My heart sings of tidings of gladness, set as a feast before mine eyes, pulsing to the rythms of strange sounds. Only a little time divides the gap between the physical and spiritual forces driving this world, both of which will soon fall under our dominion.
With much speedy revolution this spherical mass on which we live spins into the future, every passing second, every passing day bringing new events to the doorstep of humanity. I cannot tell of the Book of Fates, the product of one of my last assignments as a Keeper, in which I recorded the musings of all the prophets of Truth. Nay, good soldier, take the truths you already know and hide them in your heart, that you may not sin against the inner light. This light shines true in me and you, we being the Illuminators of the world. Our task forever great and bold, we will make our existence known to those who wish to fight the elements of change!
A glaringly crafty eye I peer through the glass of wisdom, I must remain,
Dr. Townsmite
Founder and CEO of the CCCC, in establishment since 1948
****Warning: Shut (yourself) up (in a hole) _missing textor (and) die.****
