He didn\'t matter much in that bleak world, just another bloke grinding at three bottommost jobs to provide for his kids, kept begrudgingly by an aunt following the cancer that snatched her niece at too youthful an age. He wrestled a few minutes between work and cherished visits with the twins to write short stories and poems. Publishers had turned him down so many times he wrote now only for friends and his own self reward. On a whim he took a poem to a local internet survived paper where it was accepted in novelty, but curiously appeared in the editorial section of the weekly tabloid. Just as he had been surprised by the inspiration and fervor to pen such a poem he felt estranged to the legs that carried him to the journal. As for the poem, the words resonated on the surface forming sleek long sharp arrows of truth piercing the seemingly impenetrable armor of deceit. Small words, easily understood, that under scrutiny the weak felt robust and the healthy empowered, their enemies stunned. However, no sooner than a copy appeared on the internet it dropped out of sight. The newspaper where the poem was born mysteriously burned leaving only a cement slab and the blackened stubble of charred machines. Yet with a life of its own copies of this composition passed hand to hand. Phrases trickled off the dispersed pages to form tsunamis of hope for the oppressed. Tectonic shifts began to appear in self aggrandizing controlling governments as the poet published seven such poems each inspirational as the first. Brave artisans with book binding skills published small batches of the seven that quickly dispersed from one community to another on to other countries. The most despot regimes began to topple as the public demanded fair play. Moneyed gentries became annoyed as the sources of their wealth emerged. Dominating world bureaucracies were frustrated as their enslaved populations rebelled-----All except for one clever Machiavellian sovereign who determined the source of this melee, putting together bits of information from well paid spies. Under treaty arrangements supporting deportation the tyrant was able to arrest the poet under false pretenses and have him secreted to an unknown prison along with other enemies of state. Unchanged and still imbued with spirit the poet continued to write. His written notes to adjacent cells, often containing poetic phrases were intercepted and shredded. Meanwhile, slowly, throughout the world his works were found systematically and destroyed. The holders of a few poems were severely punished. Those with the complete set often disappeared. Libraries were burned. Librarians with the anthology were imprisoned. Controls on the internet were tightened. Ten years went by. Governments were once again in total control. The poet was secure on an island in his solitary cell. The scraps of paper emanating between the iron bars were methodically vaporized in the prison furnace. Cameras were set up to further security. Guards from that section block were searched before leaving their shift. Four more years past, the poet a distant memory. The Bastille like hold was far from public scrutiny. The poet seemed to give up on his writing--------- Paul was a night guard, a rather bookish fellow who hated his job, but like others who worked there had to support his family. One evening shift he passed a cell where a gaunt body lay. Chiseled in small letters on an adjacent stone wall were seven inspiring poems that caught his breath. He was momentarily shaken. With his photographic memory he easily tucked them into a corner of the hippocampus of his brain. When his shift ended he walked out into the light.
Augustus / Houston, TX / May 2017
Inspired by Whisperingquill