Canto Forty-Nine – The Prison Pit of the Bone Head
The darkness was so complete that Farbick felt completely blind. He could feel the warm slumbering body of Starbright cuddled up against him. He could hear the blubbering of the deposed lizard overlord, Bahbahr. He could also hear the whispery breathing of Stabharh somewhere quite near.
“Are you awake, Stabharh?”
“Of course. My job has always been Bahbahr’s security. I am not about to sleep if I am on the brink of failure. There has to be a way out of this.”
“I wish I could believe as you do.”
“You don’t think you can overcome the present situation?”
“Of course I don’t. The Telleron people are usually lost whenever they face a difficult situation like this. We are inbred and sort of stupid.”
“What? You outsmarted Bahbahr!”
“He hasn’t been outsmarted before?”
There was a long cold silence. Then Stabharh said, “The reason Bahbahr is an overlord and one of the most powerful people on the planet is his ability to always be right and always make a profit. The men at the top of our meritocracy are always the most capable.”
“How does he always manage to be right?”
“I enforce his will. I remove those who see things differently.”
“And yet, he would eat you before he allowed himself to starve to death.”
“Yes. It is my function to preserve and aid him.”
“Including dying for his benefit?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain he is worth that sort of obedience?”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems to me that your overlord’s greed and lack of concern for his fellow Galtorrians is what is causing your society to break down, and your planet to be destroyed. His desire to beat his enemies has caused everything to go wrong.
“So, he has been relying on you to make him right and make him profitable. He would be wrong and broke without you. Has the ultimate result benefitted you, or made your life better? Especially if he ends up eating you?”
Again things went unnaturally quiet. The silence seemed endless to Farbick.
“Are you suggesting I should’ve done more for myself and less for Bahbahr?”
“I just think your boss should’ve cared more about his people, especially you, and less about his own comforts and desires.”
“I agree with you that your people are pointless and stupid… compared to the intelligence of the Zeta Reticulans they are babbling idiots. But I think you have accurately described the failures of our people. We are not stupid, but greedy. We are not incompetent… but we are too ambitious and selfish, and we overlook potential problems to get what we want as quickly as possible.”
“Do you think Senator Tedhkruhz has the same failings as Bahbahr?”
“He rose to power by telling everyone, Bahbahr included, what they wanted to hear. Whenever the opportunity came up for Tedhkruhz to betray some other powerful overlord or ruler, he stabbed them in the heart and destroyed them. He thought he had beaten us before when he bombarded Gundahl, but I got Bahbahr safely away and saved him until now.”
“How loyal do you think Tedhkruhz’s men are?”
“As loyal as me.”
“Are you going to back Bahbahr all the way to the death?” Farbick asked pointedly.
Again a long silence followed.
“Do you think Tedhkruhz’s minions might rebel against him?” Stabharh asked.
“I don’t know. I think it would be in their own best interests. But how could we do anything about it?”
“We need you to talk to them the way you are talking to me now. Your ability to make sense… well… I think you are not stupid or incompetent. I think if Tedhkruhz were smarter, he’d be deathly afraid of you.”
*****
Catch a Falling Star 
The Darkest of the Coming Darkness
Egghead might be slightly batty.
I do not claim to be prescient. But like any overly smart and perceptive person, I often see what’s going to happen before it happens. Sometimes it is almost as eerie as a Vincent Price movie. Sometimes eerier. After all, on the 60’s Batman TV show, Price played the ridiculous villain Egghead, and was completely creepy while doing it, but still, you know… Egghead.
One thing that I have to predict about the coming darkness is about politics. I mean, the current Republican administration, where it is decisions by all Republicans all the time, has become nothing more than a monster movie. Not merely a bad monster movie, but a super-creepy-bad monster movie with a gigantic orange rubber rooster as the main monster.
This is what the great orange rooster looks like in black and white.
The reason it is bad is because, basically, to become a member of the Republican Party’s elected elite, you basically have to have your heart removed. Heartless, soulless monsters have a tendency to do things like take away Meals on Wheels for invalid seniors, health-care services from Planned Parenthood, and any hope of ever having affordable health insurance that actually pays for health care.
Senator Ted Cruz grinning about taking away Obamacare
And now, the monsters who have taken control of the theater are pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement because… well, apparently clean air isn’t good for decaying, desiccated monster skin and shriveled monster lungs that don’t breathe air anyway.
So here are my predictions for the coming darkness.
What people like me will look like in the future. That’s me in the middle.
I won’t live to see it. My body is breaking down at age 60. My lungs are compromised by years of bronchitis and flu. I am diabetic, so my very body chemistry is betraying me. There is a family history of heart disease. And I have already gone broke once on health care bills that the health insurance people really don’t pay for. (They are in the business of collecting premiums, after all, not making people well.)
What a lovely oxygen-free environment we will have!
As the climate changes take away large parts of our food production and resources, and the sea rises to take away land and major cities, people will be at war increasingly over diminishing resources vital to a population of seven billion souls. Graveyards and unburied bodies will become a part of every monster-movie scene.
Kiss me, Baby!
Love will become more complicated, because people who are selfless and put others before even their own life will die out first. The heartless, selfish, and often stupid ones will have the best chance for survival because they put themselves ahead of everyone else, and so have an unfair advantage over those who are not content with mere survival and exhibit self-sacrificing love.
You’ve never had a friend like me. And I can always eat you later if need be.
So, if you find my black-and-white monster movie post upsetting with the darknesses I am sincerely predicting, please remember, this is a satire post in a humor blog. The way it is supposed to work is that you wake up to the factors that make it upsetting and decide to do something for yourself to change them. Everybody doing a lot of the same little thing to make the world better can move mountains and fly to the moon. Big things don’t happen without everybody taking a hand. Maybe we can dream dreams once again and make some good things come true.
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