Prophecies of Yesterday

By Richard Paris

After a horrific famine and civil war, all that remains of the Unites States are four mega hospitals which have grown into city-states, and 10 million “healthies” forced to scavenge in the wilderness between.

In this age, man known as Henderson, the director of one of the remaining hospital libraries, goes on a quest to learn the true history of the past decades. The myth that he has been indoctrinated with is that “All healthies are irrational, for every human is born with imperfection. Therefore, anyone with health must have mental disease, hence the Agony.” But Henderson does not accept this truism, and so instead sets out on an epic adventure to seek out the origins of his broken civilization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Paris
• Release date: Mar 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311612199

Richard Paris

Richard Paris formerly taught Creative Writing and Rhetoric at Monmouth University. He is the author of a novel, Prophecies of Yesterday, two books of poetry, Last Covenant and Walt’s Place, and 24 plays (3 shamelessly revising the Theban plays, 3 on Iago after Othello, 3 on a rich guy who just wants to hang out with his old buddies, 3 on family life including Happy Marriage and Friendly Divorce, plus plays on evolution, psychosis, betrayal and the academy – not necessarily in that order).Educated at Cal, Berkeley (back in the day), he has worked as a groundskeeper, firefighter, union negotiator, and, briefly, a state bureaucrat. Kept sane (mostly) by his psychologist wife, Paris can often be found muttering about scenarios while wandering through town.

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ROPHECIES of YESTERDAY

BY

RICHARD PARIS

Cover by

Miklos Petravich

COPYRIGHT 2013 RICHARD PARIS

SMASHWORD EDITION

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Preface:

My apologies to readers for the delay in the publishing of this story. Indeed, it was completed some years ago, but life intruded, and the work of securing a publisher became secondary to necessities. Now, it can be viewed and readers will have the added benefit of seeing which of the prophecies became actual.

Chapters:

1) Henderson’s Library

2) Clues in the Wilds

3) Homer’s Mistress

4) Civilized Places

5) Children of CEMEDCO

6) Employment

7) The Colonies

8) America, The South

9) Rising

10) Labor

11) The Doctors

12) The Party Line

13) A Primitive Gathering

14) Improving the Species

15) Defending the Line

16) The Gift from the Jungle

17) Plague

CHAPTER 1 Henderson’s Library

They watched Henderson unceasingly. Their cameras followed his movements; their microphones heard his breathing; their sensors controlled his heartbeats. As he gathered his thin frame for the trip to work he could almost hear their voices, ''he's awake; he's coming; be alert; no telling what he might do today." They had not interfered with his activities in any direct way; no, they were far too clever; they would distract him, delay him; a detour here, a frustration there. Nothing Henderson could confront; after all, he is an important man, a hero to some; no use giving him an issue or making him a martyr - - unless absolutely necessary, unless he came too close: And so they watched and waited, prepared to contain the danger to the system as they would with any disease.

Looking north from his sealed window, Henderson saw the efficient chromium steel rectangles of the Warwick Center, the walls, and the rubble beyond. He turned his room oxygen down to the atmosphere level, checked to see if all were in place, then slid his plastic door open for the step to the hall conveyor. Ten meters to the elevator, down fourteen floors, two steps to the lobby conveyor, two steps to the sidewalk belt; Henderson smiled at the anachronism: sidewalk, in the old days people must have walked on the side. Residents nodded polite greetings, a child might point him out to a group of peers; he would try to look formidable no need to disillusion them yet, as he contemplated how we had come to this.

As Senior Librarian in the Warwick Center, Henderson supervised the sorting of all information for .. , for, to all intents and purposes, the entire United States. Those in Baurman record only production figures; Dawson cannot be bothered with mere facts; Mc Gregor verged on illiteracy and the other? Those outside? One couldn't know what they had, but if it were worth anything, they had probably burned it. The Board of Directors reminded him of his responsibilities at least once a month. Henderson felt the burden on his narrow shoulders bend his fragile spine. He couldn't give them more reason for suspicion; all duties had to be performed to standard while he worked, and now they've cut my rating Stage Five, no more than fourteen waking hours, no more than 1600 calories, no more than 80 heartbeats per minute. How much do they know about it? How much do they know I know? If he kept within his stage limits, Henderson could expect to reach 48 years of age before final resignation and he could expect to leave his project unfinished.

What else could they do to me? Stage Six? Stage Seven? My God, eight waking hours, 12 00 calories, sixty five tranquilized heartbeats. No wonder the resignation rate is 100 percent. Henderson shuddered at the thought of this living death, a life without purpose, his thesis unproven. The sudden appearance of the library's entrance startled him. Fourteen minutes, the scheduled commute - - time he had lost in fruitless speculation. Why did these personal concerns continue to plague him when critical evaluations remained to be made? ''Personal concerns? Self-interest? Of course, in the old days, their motivations would have been the same -- we are their children. He resolved to remember the crucial element and add it to his proof. They weren't all evil; some of them were charming and some quite amusing - - so many of their ties were social-- imagine, meeting at a party, what did they call it? Making contacts? Networking? - - but they all had that common trait. Why hadn't I thought of it before? Hellena? Hellena, so bright, so inquisitive, always wanting to know how doing, distracting me with her sinuous legs and musky scent; they called it? Making love? To make love with Hellena, riding through the night, touching her red painted lips, her blue shining eyes. Stop. Enough. I must cast her out of my library."

Hellena caused him endless anxiety, but he realized that she might not be entirely to blame - - one could never know completely - - the lurid aspects of his imagination, however, were becoming a recurring nuisance, intruding at the most inconvenient times.

Henderson adjusted his pacemaker before entering the cool morning air. He chose to walk the few meters between conveyor and plexiglass door - - a small rebellion which they would carefully note. His library, unlike those of the previous century had no rows of card catalogues, no dusty tomes to place on remote upper shelves. No cards, no tomes, no books: not a simple sheet of paper was housed in its humming interior. All information was recorded in chemically programmed microcells, a poor imitation of the human brain, he thought, but one which allowed a city of fragile hearts to quantify, calculate or project, taxing only the index finger which punched out recording or retreval codes. Henderson had the final say over what public information was stored in the memory tanks, but since it had virtually limitless space and resident discipline replaced censorship, his decisions usually involved a nod of assent. The library contained chemical Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton; trade and productivity, records dating back fifty years; technological data from the old days, enough information to satisfy every resident of Warwick, except one, the Senior Librarian.

Residents of the Warwick Cardiac and Vascular Treatment Center prided themselves on their discipline, their dedication to the organization and their meticulous adherence to regulations, as one would expect from the descendants of good patients. For, while few considered their state extraordinary all eight million residents worked, slept, ate, and exercised in a Medical Center, one of the four remaining from the twenty-first century's comprehensive medical system. The Baurman Center for Kidney Disease, the Dawson Arthritis Center, the McGregor Cancer Facility, with Warwick comprised the civilized world. Those outside, the Healthies -- no more than ten million by now, scattered about what had been the United States - - were concerned solely with survival. Thus the credos recited by each Warwick child before classes started: We are the bastion of modern civilization. We are the keepers of modern technology. We alone seek progress. We are as healthy as humans can be. Around them, the young found ample evidence of how Warwick genius had saved humankind from labor, climbing, walking, writing, breathing. And Warwick scientists had proven conclusively that no human being could exist in a condition of perfect health. Evolution had created every individual with a certain abnormality, for only in this manner could the natural process of selection continue. Had evolution produced a perfectly healthy being, that line would have rose and extinguished all others. The very existence of Warwick residents -- to say nothing of Bauman's, Dawson's or McGregor's -- showed this had not happened. Thus, those cursed with optimum physical health necessarily suffered from gross, if hidden, mental aberrations. Physically healthy people were absolutely incapable of rational thought or compassion. A long recitation of prejudices, persecutions and military involvements culminating in The Agony impressed every child with this certainty.

In the 1980's after long years of persecution, residents, whom Healthies called patients because of our ability to wait and endure, began to band together. We were led by the revered J. Warwick, hypertensive, who founded the colony which bore his name in the desert outside Dallas. For years, residents of all diseases had pleaded with the healthy population for decent care. For years, the Healthies responded by imprisoning geriatrics in nursing homes, denying productive employment to carcinomas and spending money instead on missiles and bombs. How the early settlers had suffered. They had to give up their homes and livelihoods, travel thousands of kilometers to reach a colony and then suffer indignities and humiliations at the hands of near-by Healthies, who greeted them with resentment and hostility, imposed horrendous taxes to force them out, denied them the amenities every city offered its population. As J. Warwick recognized, the only hope for residents lay in self-determination. The Dallas colony, like its sister colonies throughout the country, grew and prospered. We obtained political power and gradually forced the government to build new hospitals and a transportation system which would allow a resident to travel in a degree of comfort. Magnetic Levitation replaced bone jarring automobiles or costly airplanes. But as more and more residents drew together into affinity colonies like Warwick's in Dallas, Healthies became increasingly agitated. They claimed that residents were forcing them from their homes, seizing control of local governments and, most shocking; of all, using money for care which should have gone to weapons.

With their basically irrational personalities, whipping them up into a fury was a simple matter for an opportunistic, similarly irrational leader. The Agony began. Hospitals were stormed, residents dragged into the streets and murdered. Washington became the arch villain for its years of capitulating to resident demands and then sending troops to defend the hospital. The Healthies gathered, equipped themselves with weapons from their private hoards, attacked the city and the cataclysmic battle for the capitol took place. So every Warwick child had been taught for the past fifty years.

The hospital became keeper and sanctuary; to disobey, to question became symptoms of insanity, for what could be more rational than the preservation of one's productive life through the most efficient, effective means possible. To this end were all doctors dedicated, by this principle did the Board of Directors and their Organization control the actions of all who lived in the Warwick Center. An attack on the system was treated like a disease.

Damn doctors! What do they know? Nothing but mobile extensions of CEMEDCO. Stage Five. I've never felt better.

Good morning Henderson! You're looking a little tired today sir. Had he heard? No, probably not. And what if he had?

Is that so Harmon Retained your three, I heard."

Yes sir ….. was that a sign of a smile, a smirk? I've finished cataloguing the 83 trade vials. Should I start on the 84 ‘s?

That's fine. I'll check your coding this afternoon.

Henderson didn't dislike Harmon, though perhaps his uncommon height and unusually broad shoulders provoked a certain envy. Such physiques belonged to another time, another society. Warwick men grew as the product of carefully regulated genes and diets. Harmon seemed from a different line. I suppose he's as decent as any shark would be, pressing a little more than most, inquiring about the stage of my health, asking if he might not perform some small task to ease my way, a kilo of flesh, a kilo of bone - - nothing more than the customary moves a resident made to acquire experience and advantage toward promotion. Harmon might be ambitious but at least he seems completely orthodox. Still, he too watches very closely.

Henderson had won his promotion in a most unorthodox manner, the coup of the century as the Hospital's publicist were fond of calling it. While still a primary student, Henderson had demonstrated an aptitude for information processing. Six years of training, in the middle of his class, he was slotted for a middle management position in central cataloguing, not unlike the one Harmon had now.

But Henderson had seen the parade of earlier students filed into the Organization's bureaus and he decided on a different route. They looked at him quizzically; was he mad? or worse, discontent? No, I only want more inform at ion, he responded before realizing how hopelessly naive he sounded. I want to collect records of what was done to us; how we were persecuted and how we survived; utility might work. They let him go, calculating that, should the worst occur, he was expendable.

The newspapers, journals, minutes; the records, print-outs, memoranda; the novels, studies and essays had been decimated by The Agony. From their walls, Warwick residents could look down on the charred skeletons of what had been Dallas, the city library, like its offices, warehouses, homes, a pile of ashes. Most assumed all paper had received the same fate: hadn't Washington itself perished in the holocaust? The Warwick Library, then, had literature, histories from the old days but virtually nothing about the formative years, as they were called; no answers to why Healthies attacked the hospitals or why the hospitals existed at all, save those provided by the Directors' commissioned reports. Years later Henderson asked himself why he doubted, why he would not accept what all others apparently did. At that time, however, he only saw questions. They might not ask; they might not want to know, but he did and if he had to evoke the glory of Warwick to receive permission, Henderson thought it a small concession. Only recently had Henderson discovered precisely how much the Warwick Organization did not want to know, but back then, flush with graduate enthusiasm, he began a series of field trips.

After methodically sifting available records, Henderson theorized that certain areas of the late United States had been, perhaps, less savaged than Dallas. Borrowing a primitive gasoline powered vehicle from the Baurman Museum of Crafts, scrounging un-evaporated quarts with a battery pump from stations along his route, he traveled hundreds and on one occasion thousands of kilometers outside the hospital walls. And while a handful of ambassadors had journeyed to Baurman or Dawson along the partially restored Mag Lev System in defended trains, Henderson alone left the security of Warwick' s devices for the area known as the Midwest, then on to California.

Weeds had grown through the broadest of arteries, bridges had collapsed, tunnels, caved in. Finding his way was his smallest concern, however, for to reach San Francisco, Henderson had to cross the Rocky Mountains, the most hostile of unregulated regions. At any moment, completely without warning, marauding bands of irrational Healthies might brutally attack him; slay him for this store of biscuits and leave his body and all his precious information to decay in the harsh, chaotic natural environment.

Moving by day, hiding at night, Henderson survived. In the area called Oakland, he found a number of monstrous vehicles called Peterbilts coated with dust and a viscous grease, but apparently in a remarkable state of preservation. After deciphering the shop manual, Henderson located the hood release and gained access to the engine. Three hours of exploring led to the discovery of the oil filler cap, then the radiator cap. He crawled underneath the creature and found the oil drain plug which yielded to a wrench much to his blackened dismay. Prowling through the shop stores, he collected oil, coolant, a dry charge battery, battery fluid and in less than twelve hours had them correctly installed. Then, he slept.

The next morning, Henderson inserted the key, twisted and started a truck engine; the deafening roar sent his heart into fibrillation and he decided to take the rest of the day off before replacing the belts and hoses which had shredded after decades of disuse. Henderson had braved over five thousand kilometers of rain and snow, fallen trees and rock slides, emptying gas tanks and clunking pistons to reach Oakland and he confidently assumed he knew more about individual fossil fuel vehicles than anyone in the United States. His four wheel drive station wagon - - why a station wagon? -- had presented no problem he couldn't solve; he shifted it into park to start, drive to move forward, reverse to move backward; what could provide a greater challenge? Then he noticed that the Peterbilt had manually operated gears, fifteen of them. Henderson studied the problem thoroughly; an appropriate relationship amongst engine speed, gear selection and clutch engagement should cause the vehicle to move. A formula involving speed, load and gravitational attraction logically should yield a successful result. Without his computer, however, Henderson was at a loss. He mounted the Peterbilt, fired up the engine, jammed fifth gear into place and lurched into his station wagon, staving its boxy rear halfway through the hood.

Another man might have panicked, might have been paralyzed with fear; since all electrical generating systems were inoperative in the remote sections, Mag Lev was impossible. He had no means of returning to Dallas but the Peterbilt and it might take years to master. Henderson simply cried. For an hour he begged for his mother, promised to be good, shook his fist at the gods of engineering. Then, pulling himself together, threw up on the floor mat.

Let's think this through calmly, -- not quite sure with whom he was reasoning -- one must depress the clutch pedal before selecting the gear. Then? release the clutch? The test of this hypothesis cost five telephone poles and two Peterbilts. Backwards? The damn thing must be able to move backwards. And it was, directly through the shop wall into a fourth Peterbilt. Henderson found he could turn them upside down by running rapidly up an embankment, stick them in the mud by skidding off sharp left turns, float them in the bay by confusing accelerator and brake near the end of a pier. He watched the water rise, past the bumper, past doorsill, flooding the cab then stopping at his trembling knees. He climbed out the window, waded to shore and remembered with thanks that the bay hadn't been dredged for the better part of a century. In less than a week he learned how to hitch the tractor to the long wheeled box it towed and how to hitch boxes into a little train.

Maneuvering would prove to be a challenge - - Which overpass would withstand his load? But Henderson rejoiced in the amount he could transport and resolved to circumvent any obstacles. Henderson pulled out of the factory's lot leaving five of seventeen Peterbilts in perfect working order. Towing his trailers and a tank of diesel fuel liberated from the last of Standard Oil, he trumpeted around the Rockies and turned toward Dallas. In all his life he had never felt the exhilarating power controlling this smoke belching dragon brought him. The thunderous roar might make it impossible for him to travel surreptitiously, but who would dare stop him? Let the Healthies try; atop his Peterbilt, he was Apollo on the back of Typhon, a- -king of the road.

Indeed, he reckoned no one had driven a truck in near fifty years. His tour averaged seventy kilometers a day winding around rock-falls and shattered bridges, pausing to investigate a ruined school house, an old media station -- wherever the prospect of paper or tape looked promising. As Henderson had surmised, all records had not been destroyed, though one had to be willing to search. His trailers filled, the neo-logoist approached his hospital.

Eight million residents, hailed Henderson's return with tragic enthusiasm. With no advance warning, doctors had inadequate time to program extra tranquilizing agents through CEMEDCO. Scores perished of excitement and Henderson saw his triumph stained with the blood of his fellows. He had violated Warwick's primary law: maintain order. Yet the Organization afforded him a hero's welcome, he thought for the quality of his lode. His years of field work yielded tons of film, tape and paper - - how the twentieth century loved paper, part of their rituals no doubt, an attempt to achieve immortality. Cumbersome and flammable, Henderson's collection was stored in a warehouse in the southwest corner of the hospital complex, safely removed from core resident housing. Henderson was rewarded with the position of Documentation Librarian, one of tremendous prestige and one which would keep him from his data for most all his waking hours. In the years immediately following his return, Henderson was desperately torn between his duty to the Organization stimulated for the most part by its fulsome praise, and his desire to examine his discoveries, answer his questions. Flattery went a long way in allaying his suspicions; the Directors had created an occupation for him after he had destroyed so many productive residents.

The value of his appointment was confirmed by the resentment of the more experienced library staff. They had assumed Henderson would spend most of his time supervising the processing of his mountain as the data came to be called, and would leave library affairs in their hands. But the Directors, for reasons of their own, wanted Henderson in a highly visible position; so, seated in a chair in the library's lobby, he sorted efficiency reports while civic tours were conducted around him. Henderson's work day occupied virtually all of his Stage allowance; as his sorting skills improved, he was given more to do. The glow faded and he felt himself neglecting his mountain. It had made him what he was yet he had time for only the briefest evening visits. The doctors were extremely careful about monitoring his waking time, we haven't had any like you - - how many months in the wild? But as the years slipped by with the foothills yet unclimbed, he wondered even more painfully about what was on top.

As reluctant as he was to have anyone else touch his prize, Henderson placed a message in the Director's public access bank requesting two or three assistants to transfer data from its explosive condition to the more durable memory of the Central Library's tanks. He expected interminable delays, excuses about budget restrictions and, at best, one or two callow students in need of training on the most basic historical details. To his astonishment, the Directors approved three positions with an option for more, and sent applicants with remarkable maturity and investigative skill.

Henderson initially reacted with a flagellation of self-recrimination. Three years wasted! Why didn't I ask before? But as he looked these dedicated residents over their stiff backs, their keen eyes --as he sniffed about, he detected - - no, nothing as definite as that, he sensed, the threat of Organization. Paranoia? Too many years in the wilds? Or were they part of a pattern: An honor, to distract him; a position, to fill his time; determined investigators, to watch him and his mountain. What could they know that I didn't? Nothing, obviously or they wouldn't have to send investigators. Why not let me do the research?

Henderson puzzled over this for many months. Did they fear another disruption? Was the Founding different than all had been taught? J. Warwick, the revered, the one who led them here, who was he? Meanwhile he rationalized excuses for not hiring the handsome applicants who paraded into his office. You must understand, Director Harding; it’s not that I think these aren't fine young men you're sending over here. It's just, well, you know what I went through to collect it all, days in the blazing sun, lifting, driving. Maybe it took a toll of me, but I want someone who will treat this data with the same love and respect that I have for it.

Poor demented Henderson, old before his time. 'Fine young men?' He couldn't be four years older than the youngest of them. 'Love and respect?' It's a pile of yellow paper. Perhaps the Directors could be distracted by a mask of irrationality; the more favorable would view him as eccentric. Anyone who would travel abroad, away from care, had to be. The less favorable might view him as dangerously insane-- hereditary no doubt; everyone knew what had happened to his mother.

Over the next years, fifteen since he completed his explorations, Henderson took care never to cause alarm. He knew that the Directors' primary desire was order, continuance. They didn’t want to know what was in that tedious file of disordered scribblings; they simply wanted to insure that no one knew. By surrendering to eccentricity, Henderson became less formidable; by feigning disinterest, he retained exclusive access. Assistant investigators stopped coming for interviews; the guard at the warehouse grew older and pro forma over the years. Henderson worked hard, if erratically, in the library, became ‘absent minded’ -- amusingly so, misplacing his pocket terminal, locking himself into rooms, missing appointments. He began to mutter about images and scenes, laughed without apparent cause, cried over his ration of crackers. He spoke of himself in the third person, past tense or referred to himself as Henderson, leading those with whom he was talking to wonder who he was. Once a month, ritualistically, Henderson visited the warehouse, always wondering openly how he had had the strength to gather so much junk. He watched the reaction of his colleagues and smiled as they began to humor him. At times he grew so comfort able in his part that he had trouble deciding whether it was real. And they still watched him-- because he had survived too long? Because they had found something? He didn't know.

Henderson, you must take up a hobby, a concerned doctor suggested. You spend entirely too much time with library data. You need something physical on which to focus your mind. Nothing too taxing, but something you can see and touch, something with your hands perhaps.

Henderson had an excellent idea, though not with the appendage so thoughtfully considered. Touch, indeed. But he nodded politely and promised to look for something useful. Hardly a pairing in the Warwick Center was without a jeweler, weaver, potter, knot tier, glass cutter or stitcher who displayed his or her wares on apartment walls, tables, hutches - - Warwick clutter, Henderson muttered, making pets. He certainly wasn't going to take up knitting and he hadn't touched a tool since -- since he replaced the generator on the Peterbilt heading south from Old Colorado sixteen years ago. Looking at the soft white flesh at the rim of his palms, he reflected nostalgically on callouses. Something dignified, however, something useful and demanding: woodworking. In all of Warwick, a piece of wood might be found? Wouldn't it be fine to have a real wooden desk?

Henderson retained just enough prestige to acquire three pine logs - - well past their prime through an inter- center trade with Baurman. Nothing had been built from wood in over half a century - - plastics proving far lighter, therefore more desirable - - and his proximal residents feared for his safety. Did you hear what old Henderson is doing? Working with wood? Wood From trees? With dirt and dust and weight? Someone should watch over that man. He's suicidal." Depriving the colony of a productive member was considered a betrayal as disgraceful as wanton destruction of property, but the Psychological Monitors turned aside pleas for intercession and approved Henderson’s request for tools. Within a month he was happily at work, fifteen minutes per day, his electric saw and plastic hammer creating a fearful din. Everyone on his floor knew he was working and after a siege of complaints, resident supervisors were forced to add soundproofing. Henderson worked slowly but kept at it night after night, while around him concern for his well-being increased.

Henderson, you haven't messaged me in days. Is something wrong? Are you ...? She paused in his doorway, her blue eyes shining with concern, her raven hair tumbling in soft, silken curls over her shoulder down to the crest of her bosom. The hall bright behind her, Henderson thought he could almost see the curve of her hip, the pale down of her inner thigh, the alabaster and pink skin which ran its tender course from throat to fertile crescent. And he gazed longer than he should have - - she must have noticed - - but such moments of stolen pleasure were like blooming roses in the hospital white of Warwick. Oh,