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Contro
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And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Chances are you might have read that out aloud. Give it another try. This time read it to yourself, in your head. But whose voice is that, in your head reading aloud to you? Its not your own! Have you ever really given any notice to that voice? It is hazy, but clear enough for you to understand.
What if it belonged to someone..someone who lives in you free of cost with the sole purpose of helping you read? What if that being were to come out into this world and leave you “deaf”? What if this being is your anti-conscience and has all your bad concentrated in it? All about the bad thoughts that we think, the terrible things we want to do to the people we hate, but we never act of these impulses because hey! We are good people!
Our anti-conscience isn’t nice. Its evil. Let’s let it out now, shall we?
#
George made his usual cup of coffee that morning. He went to the door and opened it to retrieve the daily post and shut it. As he made his way to the table, he opened the post to glance at the headlines. And glance he did. And did so again. But he felt the same kind of lost we all do when we look at our watch the first time, but don’t pay attention enough to note the time. He confusedly sunk into his chair, still groggy from the night and tried to read yet again. He saw the text; he saw the pictures, but read he could not.
He gasped and tried to say the words aloud this time. Success! He read the headlines and the stories below them, just to be sure he hadn’t lost grasp of the English alphabet overnight. But there was still something quite not right for he read all this aloud and the moment he tried to read to himself, his ability to comprehend the text would vanish.
Little did he know we were all facing the same dilemma. But hell was yet to break loose.
#
“I need to staple shut my boss’ lips together so he can’t shout at me while I idle away in the office all day and he is forced to watch. That is one assignment I would not mind working overtime for!” ControGeorge said venomously.
“I hate the woman upstairs. She stomps around in high heel all day long, not to mention the noisy nights with her string of boyfriends. I want to drive her highest heels right into the depths of her heart and see her blood gush out as her life ebbs away.” ControMiriam cried.
“Now, now, ControMiriam. What did we say about violence? ControGary asserted.
”We don’t wish, we DO.” ControMiriam said with its tiny coiled head bowed low.
“Ergo, you don’t want that, you WILL DO that!” ControGary screamed.
“HEAR, HEAR!” shouted all the contros from down below.
There were hundreds of them. Oh no, wait sorry. I forgot to look up. There were thousands of them!! Oh yes, they could fly. Well, some of them could. They were tiny, about quarter the size of your thumb. Their naked bodies were just lumps. A lump for the torso, a lump for the head, and four stumps for their four limbs. But no two contros looked exactly the same. Their heads were bunch of grey tissues twisted together and bundled up with an occasional patch of nerves showing. Just like our brain.
Their insignificant voices collided together and formed a defending roar that echoed the streets. But the roar lasted for much less than your usual roar and the echo echoed for even less time. Their voices are evident only when you listen for it. Or else, it just gets lost in the wind.
Ahead, the cars are jammed up against each other. Horns are blazing and cutting across the crisp morning air. Pedestrians and yelling, the drivers are yelling, and the traffic officer is doing the same. But nobody really hears the other over the incessant horns.
Why the jam, you might ask.
Well, for starters, the tires of over three fourth the city cars had been punctured while they were on the move. It was almost as if the streets had been sprinkled with invisible pinpricks all over. A man’s bathroom door had been locked from the inside so he would be late for office one last time before they fired him. An ex-boyfriend’s suits and formals had been ripped to shreds. The beads fresh out of the rotary kiln and had smashed to dust. A girl’s hair had been dyed green at the salon, with the hair dresser claiming innocence.
Haha, hell had broken loose if you asked me.
How long till the inhabitants of the city of Pasadena figure out what had happened?
#
Kitti couldn’t read her test questions. As she sat squirming in the seat, she looked around inconspicuously. No one was writing. Kevin eyebrows were knit together in confusion, Sharla looked stressed out trying to comprehend the questions. Yes no one could read. What was going on here? Kitti looked up at Professor Montgomery. He was staring out of the window lost in deep thought. He didn’t look peaceful, but incredibly cranky, probably fussing about his ongoing divorce battle. Kitti felt bad when she had heard the news of his split-up with his husband of ten years. They seemed like the happiest couple out there. She quickly looked back at her test. Nope, still nothing.
#
The contras continued their quest of extracting revenge out of the people they hated. Not one person was left unharmed. The things their worst enemies had wished upon them were becoming a reality. Some pranks were minor ones like drowning people’s kindles in the lake, or water was spilled into their bedroom floor so their socks would get soggy and make that annoying squishy sound every time they walked.
And some were gruesome crimes. If I showed you the cold, lifeless, bled-out corpse of Miriam’s upstairs neighbor, you would get the idea.
To-do lists were checked off as the contros fulfilled their goals. They were diligent and very sneaky in their planning, though that was rather unnecessary as people hardly bothered enough to look around for miniature miscreants, much less when they were busy suffering the worst day of their life.
The contros that could fly, had a blast as they zoomed in and out of soon-to-be crime scenes in no time. As their victims tried to navigate through their day without tripping of their untied shoelaces, or spilling their drinks, the contros schemed away.
At the end of the turbulent day, the contros silently slipped back to their shelters and the folk could suddenly read again. And they surveyed the mysterious damage inflicted upon their city and its inhabitants, they wondered if it was a work of the ISIS. They failed to rejoice in their enemies’ downfall as they had their own downfall to grieve.
Miriam’s upstairs neighbour’s body was blue by now. ControFaith, for Faith had been the woman’s name, upon finding her human dead, silently burst into flames and all that was left behind was a tiny pile of ash, one-eighth the size of your thumb.
Author: Roo Torres
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Student at School of Liberal Studies (SLS).
Documentation Writer and Casual Index Reviewer.
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