This is a fictional story, initially inspired by a recent event that occurred right after Halloween. I am bad at writing a fictional story. I am not a creative person. It is hard for me to invent something out of the blue. I didn’t have a plot outline when I started writing this story. However, like most people, I hate a story started without an ending. Hopefully, my desire to bring a closure to the story did not make it an abrupt ending. By the way, I have not proof-read the story, so you might see more edits, revisions and corrections to the story when I get to it.
Written by Elisa English, all rights reserved
Drafted on 11/8/2010 in Minneapolis.
Finalized on 11/30/2010 in Minneapolis
Source: http://elisaenglish.pixnet.net/blog/post/22399245
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A Brief Encounter (A Fictional Story)
She sat there motionless, looking out the window, as though her soul had leapt out of her body, following the breeze and ruffling through the grass to the pond on the meadow where the shadowy willows whispered a melancholy tune, speaking into her sorrow. A slight ray of light crept through the windows, illuminating a corner of the house and lighting up the once extinguished flame in her heart before she registered its existence, then fading into darkness, leaving her alone again in inky blackness.
Suddenly, the wind sneaked in through the windows, sending swirling mist and penetrating cold that gave her the shivers. She got up, stepped away from the windows and walked towards the fireplace to light a fire. The crackling of burning wood broke the silence that once filled the air, reverberating through the house. A sudden burst of flame tinted her pallid face. She gazed at the flickering flames with dances so mesmerizing and intoxicating that hypnotized her; unbidden, glimpses of the past, a remnant of her life, crept into her mind.
All senses drowned, her thought drifted back one week to the day when he committed suicide, which sight she quivered at, a haunting image she fought to discard. She hated his cowardly act. She shook her head and miserably casted her hollow gaze out the windows, trying to pull herself back to reality, only to find her thought drifting further and further away into the past.
She was attracted to him, or maybe more so to his passion, arrogance and superiority drawn from his persistence of ideology, shone forth in him with radiance. Though drawn to him, she often questioned how an intellectual like him could even tout the mythical belief his government painted that the departures of their teaching from Marxism were results from the highest stage of communism still to be achieved and that the dictatorship of the Communist Party, transitional, was a necessary evil to realize a free society of peace, prosperity, and freedom, a classless Communist society controlled by the workers without armed forces, governments, countries, or class divisions, where mankind would be free from famine and persecution, and therefore the end of history.
She never believed that there would be a true classless Communist society where state would wither away as a result of non-existence of class structure or a so called anarchy would ever exist when totalitarian dictatorship controlled the minds through media manipulation, distortion, and fabrication. In what way would Communism lead to complete freedom and equality when resistance to the party was met by mass executions, when individual rights, speech and religion were controlled or oppressed, and when all media was censored? How would a political system in a totalitarian society that allowed its government to centralize all power and wealth to relentlessly plunder their nation’s wealth entail a utopian society? In her mind, allowing Communism to escape from internal criticism created corruption in the system. She would never accept the principle that lies were sacred and that deception was the principal weapon as stated by Lenin.
There were constant debates between them. His life consumed with passion, a passion for his belief in whatever his government instilled in him. His work filled with advocacy of the ideology that he believed his government could offer. He grew up with such doctrine that all problems were social and that the fundamental problems were poverty and starvation. In order to reach a utopian state, he was taught by his government with propaganda that the end justified the means to the extent of eradicating all morality and that only radical revolutionary engaging in violence could solve the social problems facing mankind. In this Utopia, the government would own everything and would handle the proper redistribution of all wealth and resources. The society would be a classless society where government would eventually be disbanded. However, he neglected to admit that he was brought up to be utterly devoted to the cause of Communism and to believe in his leader as the embodiment of the sacred power.
However, beneath the light of truth which enwrapped him and within the heated debates were the innermost recesses of his mind expanding by her and her words. He was attracted to her, a vibrant soul full of curiosity and unrivaled elegance, for her free spirit and her constant challenges to his belief. With her, he felt free, but at the same time, furious at the brutality of truth she unveiled before him. Her incessant questioning for the justification of the massive ruthless massacres to reach the so called utopia society and his exposure to different media outside of his country, uncontrolled and uncensored by his government, gradually led to the crumble of his belief. He was oblivious to the fact that the people in power would grow to have an insatiable desire for more power which subsequently led to the corruption of power. Furthermore, it was in human’s nature to desire incentives, to have greed and jealousy; such was the unfathomable mindset that prevented the dissolution of the government and undermined the realization of the utopia society.
That uneasiness, knowing something was wrong, ignored and suppressed over the years inched up to the surface. However hard he tried to shield his eyes and ears, doubts continued to slip through his mind over the doctrine that shaped his entire life. He began to understand why his government thought of western influence a poison. He began to understand why all media had to be screened, controlled and manipulated. The doctrine was so ingrained in him that eradicating it became torturous. He refused to believe that the years of believing which built his ego and pride was nothing but a lie. Torn apart by the controversy presented in front of him, he was at a loss of what was real and what was fabricated, the so called truth he had lived for decades and the undeniable truth he was exposed to recently. He could no longer continue to excuse the 73 million innocent people killed by his government and believe the excuse of the "higher stage of Communism." This fantasy of the future became dim in his mind. He started to doubt that if there truly was freedom within Communism to allow people to freely choose their own future, without discrimination or dictation, without coercion or subversion and if a utopian society could evolve from a Communist society. If a utopian society was attainable, how long would it take to achieve and how many lives would it have to sacrifice? Again, were the means justifiable by the end?
He was greatly disturbed and confused. Were people truly incapable of making choices and controlling their own actions? Was it nothing but a great conspiracy that his government devised? Was the hatred infused into them a tactic to implement the great conspiracy? Had he been buried in the sand too long to become a sensible person? Where was his conscientiousness? What was the purpose of his existence? He started to wonder. Should all people be considered as one and mindless down to the lowest common denominator in order to develop a utopian society? Was it true that enlightened people seldom or never possessed a sense of responsibility as stated by George Orwell?
He stood at a crossroad when she walked in with the book “Animal Farm”. The novel, written by George Orwell, so cleverly pointed out the ideology twisted and convoluted under Communist Totalitarianism. It vividly drew out this hypocritical system led by its corrupted leaders and the hindrance to a Utopia from greed, myopia, ignorance, wickedness and indifference. No one could escape the fate of corruption after tasting the power. Thus the communist party created another form of inequality, bringing bloodshed and thriving on brainwash to maintain its dictatorship, where those deemed higher up on the political hierarchy were exempted from the rules and laws they established to control the others. The Communism exercised by his government was no longer true, for in a true Communist society, there would be no government, countries or class divisions. It would be an anarchist-communist society rather than a society filled with leaders acting like dictators. How naïve was he to conform to such a corrupted government! How arrogant was he to pride himself over fellowmen in other countries! How ignorant was he to talk about Communism being superior to other philosophy and as the only means to a Utopia! No longer could he feel proud of himself nor his country to echo merrily along his government. How late for him to discover such truth from George Orwell that political language was designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
The capitalism and democracy executed in the West which he was taught to despise turned up to be a lesser evil, which seemed to prove to be far more superior to a system of false equality mandated by the government. Though not leading to a utopia society, the governing system, capitalism and democracy, is not leading to hell towards which Communism was tumbling down. Facing the broken dream was harsh on him. His inability to change anything or make a difference further exposed his weakness. He could not face his conscientiousness to live on another day for the crimes in which he indirectly, involuntarily, unintentionally and unconscientiously participated. He could no longer stoop to becoming an accomplice in crime. He finally took his own life on October 1st with his internal struggle for the past few months jotted down on a piece of note, his suicide note alongside his manuscript of his discovery and realization of the great conspiracy.
The inclement weather suited her mood. With a ragged sigh, she drew in a deep breath and looked out the window again. Her grief awakened afresh. She was emotionally fragile with gut-wrenching sense of loss interminably enveloping her since that incident. She never knew that he carried such a great burden, which ultimately drove him to the point of no return. She was utterly shock to find him choosing the worst way to conclude his life. She often wondered what his life would turn out to be, had he not met her. She had not had much sleep since then and was overwhelmed with exhaustion. Finally, she drifted off to sleep. In her dream, she found him smiling at her. He had finally found his Utopia up in Heaven with his Father. Though an atheist - a result of being a strict follower of his government’s teaching - for mostly his entire life, he had gradually found comfort in religion for the days he was away from home in a foreign land. Suddenly, the birds’ chirping noises awoke her. She found the rainbow shining through the clouds with lights seeping in through her windows. The storm had passed. It was another bright day, she thought. Maybe it was time to let him go and to carry out what he couldn’t accomplish. Maybe his manuscript would save the souls of others. Maybe there was still hope for those whose minds were not deeply poisoned to wake up from their dreams of a false and unreachable Utopia promised by the Communist totalitarian government.
Written by Elisa English, all rights reserved
Drafted on 11/8/2010 in Minneapolis.
Finalized on 11/30/2010 in Minneapolis
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