DeletedUser92
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“Grandpa,” the little boy whispered, slipping an arm around his grandfather’s leg innocently enough, the elder’s chair creaking as it careened back and forth on the ski-like skids along its bottom.
The old man reached down and lifted the child into his lap. “What seems to be troubling you, young man?” His voice was gruff, the opposite of the falsetto whisper of the youth’s confusion. The dim lighting in the room was echoed by a voice on the radio rattling off statistics next to his old rocking chair. The grandfather turned the radio off with the turn of a dial. “Tell me.”
“Well, Grandpa, Billy said to me today that we weren’t free. That we didn’t have the freedom we used to. It scared me.” It was a common trend; people were used to it being a ‘free country,’ and children especially used such a defense to excuse all sorts of actions that might intrude on another’s well-being. Cutting someone in line? Taking their fingerpaints? Even, on occasion, jacking them up for their lunch money! All of these offenses were covered by this freedom. Ahh, but this was no country on Earth – it was a world in a game.
“What were you talking with young William about?” The old man always did that; used full names, called them young men or women. It was a peculiar trait to the boy, but what did one expect? To the man who was older than mommy or daddy – who was mommy’s daddy, even! - anyone was young.
The boy hesitated for a moment, than frowned. “He said something about not being allowed to recruit from anyone we want. He said we can’t just take people in and expect others to be okay with it. But I don’t know why not! If they want to join us, why should anyone stop?”
The old man’s laughter made it seem like the boy had just told a joke. He patted the boy’s head reassuringly. “You see, grandson, there was a time, a long long time ago, called World One. They hadn’t even invented the word Fugitive, yet. You could recruit darn near anyone at the start of world one. There were tribes, oh I could tell you the three biggest ones! ANBU, FT, and CAN. They were all nice tribes, all rank #1 in fact! And they recruited, and nobody stopped them. It was a time of true freedom, when one tribe tried not to step on other people’s toes. It didn’t even matter if they were already in a tribe that wasn’t at war – anyone would recruit from anyone, since everyone wanted to grow.”
“But,” the old man continued, “eventually other tribes came to power because those ones let too many people be dukes, and someone got mad and deleted them. And these other tribes were much stricter. They attacked people, too!” This drew an astonished gasp from the boy. “And when they were attacking someone, if some other tribe tried to recruit that victim, they didn’t even think of stopping.”
“How barbaric!” the boy shouted in disbelief. The grandfather simply chuckled in a deep, throaty manner. It sounded as though he might even smoke the occasional cigar, provided it was the right flavor.
“Well, yes, it was. They even started to argue that it didn’t matter if they were attacking that person, as long as they were attacking their tribe. No, to them, you had to pass up on that person. You had to let them die. And these rules about so-called refugees came into place, and other tribes will try to tell you to let their food sit around and wait to die, rather than pick it up and put it to use. For most people, freedom had been killed. It’s quite sad.”
The boy chewed on this for a while. His eyebrows wriggled in thought as he tried to grasp why someone would be that cruel as to insist on finishing someone off. It took a bit to come to the conclusion, but he finally spoke in a cheery voice. “Well, nobody can stop us from recruiting who we want, right? We’re in the land of freedom! We don’t have any problems.”
The old man laughed softly, again with that throaty chuckle. “Of course,” he said as he rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s listen to the radio.” With the click of a knob and the hum of a transistor, a new voice crackled into the room. “Ahh. It’s the leadership of our good friends and neighbors! Let’s listen!”
”…So, that’s the deal,” spoke the emperor in a perfectly neutral voice. “Once again, that old saying of ‘recruit our food, become our food’ comes into play. We asked them a while ago to clean out any of that ugly pink in our K’s, but they didn’t. So now its official – The Hellestarian Empire is at war with FREE. As you may imagine, we’re gonna take our time. We’re first gonna eat the fugitives in our turf. Then, we’ll swing south when we feel like it, and we’ll take the rest out. They can’t stop us, anyway. They’re too soft. Like a nice pair of---”
The old man shut the radio off. The boy sniffled. “What happened?” he managed to whisper out. All the elder could do was hug the boy, reassuring him that he would be okay, back home in K23, K33, and wherever the hell else his homeland had chosen to recruit him. After all, the old man in the land of the FREE had no idea that his newly adopted grandchildren in the Northwest might one day upset the great Empire therein. Oh, no, the old man had no idea. And he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away the boy’s sniffles, fully aware that they had both best prepare for the costly defense of that lovely rocking chair and the house it rested in, in a small little village in a continent painted pink by the beauty of their once-upon-a-time freedom.
The old man reached down and lifted the child into his lap. “What seems to be troubling you, young man?” His voice was gruff, the opposite of the falsetto whisper of the youth’s confusion. The dim lighting in the room was echoed by a voice on the radio rattling off statistics next to his old rocking chair. The grandfather turned the radio off with the turn of a dial. “Tell me.”
“Well, Grandpa, Billy said to me today that we weren’t free. That we didn’t have the freedom we used to. It scared me.” It was a common trend; people were used to it being a ‘free country,’ and children especially used such a defense to excuse all sorts of actions that might intrude on another’s well-being. Cutting someone in line? Taking their fingerpaints? Even, on occasion, jacking them up for their lunch money! All of these offenses were covered by this freedom. Ahh, but this was no country on Earth – it was a world in a game.
“What were you talking with young William about?” The old man always did that; used full names, called them young men or women. It was a peculiar trait to the boy, but what did one expect? To the man who was older than mommy or daddy – who was mommy’s daddy, even! - anyone was young.
The boy hesitated for a moment, than frowned. “He said something about not being allowed to recruit from anyone we want. He said we can’t just take people in and expect others to be okay with it. But I don’t know why not! If they want to join us, why should anyone stop?”
The old man’s laughter made it seem like the boy had just told a joke. He patted the boy’s head reassuringly. “You see, grandson, there was a time, a long long time ago, called World One. They hadn’t even invented the word Fugitive, yet. You could recruit darn near anyone at the start of world one. There were tribes, oh I could tell you the three biggest ones! ANBU, FT, and CAN. They were all nice tribes, all rank #1 in fact! And they recruited, and nobody stopped them. It was a time of true freedom, when one tribe tried not to step on other people’s toes. It didn’t even matter if they were already in a tribe that wasn’t at war – anyone would recruit from anyone, since everyone wanted to grow.”
“But,” the old man continued, “eventually other tribes came to power because those ones let too many people be dukes, and someone got mad and deleted them. And these other tribes were much stricter. They attacked people, too!” This drew an astonished gasp from the boy. “And when they were attacking someone, if some other tribe tried to recruit that victim, they didn’t even think of stopping.”
“How barbaric!” the boy shouted in disbelief. The grandfather simply chuckled in a deep, throaty manner. It sounded as though he might even smoke the occasional cigar, provided it was the right flavor.
“Well, yes, it was. They even started to argue that it didn’t matter if they were attacking that person, as long as they were attacking their tribe. No, to them, you had to pass up on that person. You had to let them die. And these rules about so-called refugees came into place, and other tribes will try to tell you to let their food sit around and wait to die, rather than pick it up and put it to use. For most people, freedom had been killed. It’s quite sad.”
The boy chewed on this for a while. His eyebrows wriggled in thought as he tried to grasp why someone would be that cruel as to insist on finishing someone off. It took a bit to come to the conclusion, but he finally spoke in a cheery voice. “Well, nobody can stop us from recruiting who we want, right? We’re in the land of freedom! We don’t have any problems.”
The old man laughed softly, again with that throaty chuckle. “Of course,” he said as he rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s listen to the radio.” With the click of a knob and the hum of a transistor, a new voice crackled into the room. “Ahh. It’s the leadership of our good friends and neighbors! Let’s listen!”
”…So, that’s the deal,” spoke the emperor in a perfectly neutral voice. “Once again, that old saying of ‘recruit our food, become our food’ comes into play. We asked them a while ago to clean out any of that ugly pink in our K’s, but they didn’t. So now its official – The Hellestarian Empire is at war with FREE. As you may imagine, we’re gonna take our time. We’re first gonna eat the fugitives in our turf. Then, we’ll swing south when we feel like it, and we’ll take the rest out. They can’t stop us, anyway. They’re too soft. Like a nice pair of---”
The old man shut the radio off. The boy sniffled. “What happened?” he managed to whisper out. All the elder could do was hug the boy, reassuring him that he would be okay, back home in K23, K33, and wherever the hell else his homeland had chosen to recruit him. After all, the old man in the land of the FREE had no idea that his newly adopted grandchildren in the Northwest might one day upset the great Empire therein. Oh, no, the old man had no idea. And he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away the boy’s sniffles, fully aware that they had both best prepare for the costly defense of that lovely rocking chair and the house it rested in, in a small little village in a continent painted pink by the beauty of their once-upon-a-time freedom.
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