Tag: Betrayal

What the Jackal Said: Duty to What? Loyalty to Whom?

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Jackal standing in dry grassland beneath a colorful dusk sky


I’d like to rummage around in the entrails of the story “The Jackal“, because what the Jackal in the story “says” is my own turning point, and one which I’ve not yet managed to complete. Any comments on this perspective would be helpful. I’ll leave it here in case it collects some thoughts.

Here is what the jackal in the forest said to the soldier:

He knows now that there are also are demonic forces in the world, but they are weak by themselves, and can only build on what we start. They take sustenance from our energy of resistance, which is always a resistance to a broader perspective, or a truth that undermines a sanctuary of self-enclosed illusion. He notices that every time he speaks to himself in his head – every thought – creates an artificial division in his consciousness, a kind of militarized border within him, which makes an enemy of his own rejected wisdom.

And demonic forces, weak though they are, encourage the formation of stronger and stronger borders within us, strengthening resistance by the perpetual whisper of what might happen, of what needs to be done, or who we need to become – compulsions that are unconscious panic.

And yet, the demonic forces are so weak they can only barely emit a whisper of memory, or a glimpse of imaginary danger. And then we supply the added energy and build the solid structures according to a demonic plan. Eventually, we are even convinced to give these demons a solid form of their own, by lending them our own bodies and dissolving into the whispering minds of the demons themselves.

And he recognizes the whole military chain of command, the whole enflamed world, its systems of government, its economics, even its institutionalized charities, its schooling, the way we make our living, the roads and housing we build, so much of it has been heedlessly and ravenously built by demonic plan, driven by the stolen, hypnotized energy of human beings, who have mistaken themselves for the reflections of their own small demons. These forces have possessed the world through a whisper campaign, which has no power in itself.

But they have whispered for countless generations that we are inherently evil and that nothing can change. And it is this small-minded message which has blinded us to ourselves. They have made a tapestry of small arguments in our minds, which wrap us into confusing patterns of argument and counter-argument. But it is a tapestry of illusion.

Despite its success, it remains utterly powerless to stop any single human being from doing what it could. Anyone, anyone at all – not special people, not geniuses, not experts, but anyone — who sees the illusion as an illusion, and recognizes the weakness of evil, and its ludicrous plans for the world, dissolves this illusion.

A human rebellion from this ancient enslavement to hell amounts to nothing more than walking away from every hand that clutches at your sleeve with appeals to honor, duty and decency. And you will see the fear and suffering, anger and panic in the eyes of the human souls bedeviled into trying to keep you chained.

But these are the last fragmenting strands in the tapestry of illusion. Because it’s the devil’s decency we are preserving, the devil’s duty and honor we are promoting. You feel the devil’s cries of pain and fear that he is losing you. And the poor, betrayed souls of human beings possessed by these demonic values will accuse YOU of betrayal.

Ignore them, ignore them for the sake of life itself, no matter what happens. You can’t save anyone. But in saving yourself, you’re not saving a separate human being. It’s humanity itself that awakens in you. It’s the dissolution of who you thought you were. And your example – though ridiculed and condemned – sends shock waves through the whole ocean of being. It is the only way to save the prisoners themselves. Walk away from prison for their own good, not yours. They won’t thank you, but you are breaking a chain around their necks, which they don’t see.

Leave, and bear the ignominy of desertion. There is no compromise with the devil. Betray this world fully, or humanity itself will remain trapped in hell. Only the dissolved individual, the anonymous human being, can free the world. They will not be known, even to themselves. But they will be an unprecedented agent of rebellion.

Jackal

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Jackal standing in dry grassland beneath a colorful dusk sky


[Part of a longer story titled “Jump“].

O Partha (Arjuna), happy are the Kshatriyas who gain such a battle that comes of its own accord, opening for them the doors to heaven.) — Chapter 2, Verse 32, Bhagavad Gita

He slept poorly and awoke early in anticipation of the mission that night. Then he threw up several times. It was a familiar dread, pre-jump jitters. Not just performance anxiety, or the fear of death, nor the heavy regret of knowing he placed himself in this extreme, and insane predicament voluntarily, nor the envy he feels at breakfast, seeing the carefree jocularity of the ground crew, and the meteorologists, who would never directly enter battle, let alone fly to the roof of the atmosphere itself, and leap into almost pure, frozen space, a half-assed astronaut, a momentary falling spacewalker, until the double-bag static line finishes unfolding, and holds him in a tug-of-war between the canopy pulling up, and the heavy load of his equipment, pulling down.

And then of course, what follows.

But something else was weighing him down now, and had been for quite some time, slowing his every step, as if he were sinking in sand. And it was preventing the boost of adrenaline he’d soon need.

A few hours prior to rigging up, he was hanging out with his “stick” (his paratrooper team) and they were ribbing each other and shooting the shit. Their last moments of relaxation.

But he could never banter very well. He sat on the floor with his back against a door-jam, enjoying the mild grinding pain of the spine against the edge of the jam.

This was his first serious combat jump, a HAHO deep into enemy territory to take out a relay post, and then bushwack back to safe ground, in what’s called an overland exfiltration. In about an hour, they’d start the elaborate procedures and checks and rechecks that took up the better part of 3 hours, prior and during the flight, which was going to be a long one.

Then they’d ride the canopy for a long way this time, about 30 miles, to a drop zone (DZ) in a narrow clearing in the fairly dense coastal forests and then make their way to their objective.

And only then would the real work begin.

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Jump

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For Walter Cybulski, exceptional poet and humorist bar none

[The Introduction will make this story a little clearer, maybe]

His Father’s Circus

1950s gas station with circus act, spectators, mechanics, and classic cars

As a very young boy, his father ran a gas station. He was a mechanic and always carried a gigantic wrench, that was nearly 3 feet long and twice as heavy.

And when he wasn’t working on cars or trucks or busses or tanks, he would swing his wrench, and throw it high in the air and catch it, like a heavy metal drum major. And people would drive long distances just to have him fill up their tanks with gas, so they could watch him perform. And he would do somersaults out to the tanks and backflips all the way back to his office. And when he wasn’t working on cars or tanks or trucks, and the lines at the gas tanks had thinned, he’d finally close shop for the day and wander into the bar across the street and ham it up with his friends.

And the small boy would tag along, at first attached to his mother’s bosom, then to her hand, and finally alone, behind his dad, just large enough to be hoisted on the bar stool by a rough hand, and then given a little boost, and finally able to climb the bar stool by himself and drink coca-cola dribbled over huge tankards of ice, chewing the ice, absent-mindedly, while his father laughed and whistled and wagered fortunes on how many pushups he could do in an hour, or whether he could withstand a sledge hammer to his stomach.

Once, a dancing bear happened to be in the bar, and challenged his father to an arm-wrestling match, and the bear won two out of three, but never came back to challenge anyone again.

When the boy was 8 years old, he quit school to become a soda jerk, and got a job next door to his father’s garage. And over the years, as the garage business grew, all the other businesses in town grew by proximity, and profits skyrocketed all around. You could hear the sonic boom for miles.

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