And now there comes a growl so low and menacing it triggers primordial terror in all who hear it. The bestial snarl of a great predator, as something rises above them and blocks out the sun. Simon jumps, turns. There is a lion standing on the lip of the rock behind them, backlit by the sun, crouched as if to pounce.
An African lion, resplendent, impossible.
“Holy shit,” says Cigarette Clown, raising his rifle. Big Red backs away. He’s staring at the lion with abject fear. You can see him doing math in his head. The rock is fifteen feet from the fence. There’s no way a lion could jump that far.
Could he?
Duane grabs Louise, pulls her toward him.
The Prophet stands in the shadow of the lion.
“The Lord has spoken,” he says. “We are under His protection. Let us go or die here and now.”
Big Red spits on the ground. He is embarrassed by his show of fear, emasculated in front of his men. He pulls the long gun from his shoulder, aims it at the lion.
“Clowns,” he says, “let’s go on safari.”
But then—before he can pull the trigger—a bloom of red jumps from his throat, splashing the asphalt. His eyes widen.
Crack.
The sound of the shot reaches them next, echoing across the mesa. Big Red gurgles, reaches for the wound, but falls dead before his hand can find it. For an endless moment the other clowns stare at him stunned.
“Shooter!” yells Acne Clown, looking around wildly. In the distance Simon sees a quick glint. Then a flash. Acne Clown falls.
Crack.
The pickup truck engine starts, revs. Cigarette Clown looks to his two dead friends, his brain trying to catch up. Hearing the truck shift into gear, he turns and lunges after it. The pickup fishtails, tires searching for traction on the heat-softened asphalt as the driver guns it. Dropping his gun, Cigarette Clown manages to grab the tailgate, one foot hooking the bumper. The wheels grab. The truck races off.
Above Simon the lion roars its primal challenge. Simon, Duane, and Louise duck instinctually, hurrying to put the van between them and it, but the Prophet doesn’t move. He looks at the dead men at his feet, the shadow of the lion between them. And it is here, Simon can see, that the righteousness of their cause cements itself in the Prophet’s mind.
They’re going to win.
Book 3
Half Earth
First of all, your author would like to apologize for the world he has created. He knows it is ridiculous. The fact that the world he lives in is also ridiculous is no excuse. The author’s job is to make sense of the senseless. To create coherence from incoherence. But if the author’s job is also to reflect reality as he perceives it onto the page, then what is he meant to do when the world he lives in loses all sense? Consider this: as he writes, 34 percent of his neighbors have gone to war against tiny pieces of fabric worn across the nose and mouth. They believe these tiny pieces of fabric are robbing them of their personal freedom. And so they have declared war against these pieces of fabric, even as scientists present evidence that those same tiny pieces of fabric will protect them from a deadly virus sweeping the globe, killing millions. But for the 34 percent, the fabric, not the virus, is the enemy. And so they lie dying in hospitals from a disease they argue does not exist.
In simpler times this would have been called irony, but your author would like to point out, dear reader, that the times in which he lives stopped being simple long ago. In the new times—the Age of Tribal Thinking, the Age of Inverted Reality—irony has been stripped of its humor.
And irony without humor is violence.
Or in other words—for your author—ridiculous has ceased to be a term of derision and has simply become a statement of fact.
Boo phooey.
When the author’s son steals a cookie and then says he has not stolen a cookie even though there is chocolate covering 60 percent of his face, well, in the old days this would have been called a lie. But in the Age of Inverted Reality, the-stolen-cookie-that-was-never-stolen is now known as an alternative fact. Proof is irrelevant. Reality has become a personal choice, denial of reality a weapon. If a man gives a speech in the rain and later insists that the sun was shining the whole time, and if he then wages war against those who show him photos of the rain, calling them liars, branding them as evil, he is not lying so much as asserting power over truth itself. He is the bully who has stolen your coat and is wearing it even as you shiver, telling you that if he sees your coat he’ll be sure to give you a call.
It would be funny if your death weren’t imminent. The lie is violence. You are its victim. Your injuries are psychological, emotional. Your condition is called anxiety and is defined as follows:
apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill : a state of being anxious.
medical : an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs (such as tension, sweating, and increased pulse rate), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one’s capacity to cope with it.
Reality itself appears to break down. And with it the mental health of your author and his neighbors.
*
In the old days there was a form of rhetoric called satire. The Encyclopedia Britannica defined satire as an “artistic form, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, parody, caricature, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to inspire social reform.”
There are many great works of satire in modern literature. Your author has enjoyed several over the years. Cutting works of wit and derision that once had the power to shame. But, in the Age of Inverted Reality, shame has transformed itself into pride, ridicule hijacked by the ridiculous and used to mock other human beings for their empathy and caring. To call someone a bully is no longer an insult. What crimes were once perpetrated in shadow are now committed in the open. What can this mean, if not that criminality is no longer a crime?
You see how irony becomes violence?