If you wound up here from an external link you’re probably wondering what context of could possibly make sense of this post. You’ve arrived in the middle of a serialized (and satirical) novel called Attack of the Lesbian Activist Squirrels. (The title is a hint. If you’re easily triggered bail out now.) You’ve arrived in post #12 of chapter 7: Thunderdome. If you like to laugh please join us. You’ll find the whole story at the Lesbian Squirrels Main Page.
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Marching Hammers
Suppose there was a sculptor, pondering a block of marble. How could he encapsulate the fullness of young healthy womanhood? How could a mere mortal portray the wholeness of such a heart breakingly beautiful ideal? He could do no better than to create a likeness of Mindy Anderson.
A genuinely likable young lady, she was just blossoming into full womanhood. Emerging from the confines of childhood and blazing forth with vitality and the promise of all humanity, she was flat out physically perfect. Unlike an exaggerated plasticized fashion model, Mindy was a wholesome mix of “farmgirl” and cheerful athlete. She simply radiated health and fitness. She’d been in one athletic program or another throughout her life. Always working out, lifting weights, jogging, eating well, and doing her level best, she’d been watched over by a society that treated her well and she responded by winning trophies in box lots. Soccer, softball, girls JV hockey, distance running, judo, and now MMA… she’d been in competition so often it seemed winning was all she did.
More importantly, she had a good heart. Always gracious, she was kind and hard working. Her grades were a solid B+. Her teachers liked her. She coached a children’s softball team. The kids adored her. Mindy was sweet, polite, earnest, and above all dedicated. She was a sure favorite for her first year in the adult level MMA league. She never skipped leg day, never ate junk food, she’d toughed out hockey games and judo sessions that would break a Marine, and she did it all without the tiniest hint of complaint. Long and leggy, physically fit, blond hair tied in a perky pony tail, beaming with confidence, she stepped into the octagon.
The crowd cheered. She smiled. She’d earned this. All those years of workouts, hours and hours of aerobics, millions of situps, miles of jogging… it led to this. Her birthday had been just last week and that was, technically, the moment she became eligible for today’s match. She’d known, months ago… years even, that she’d be in this league. Everyone had anticipated it. Quick, strong, and fast, she bounced a bit on the balls of her feet. Shaking out even the hint of inflexibility she made a high kick that was six feet off the ground if it was an inch. The crowd’s applause increased. Relaxed and ready, she moved to her side of the octagon. She was going to be a champion, because she was already a winner.
Six months ago, when the Janice / Mindy match had been proposed, she’d been delighted. The first transgender MMA match on campus! What a privilege. She’d never cared about politics, but welcomed the future of equality and would enjoy her role in bringing it about. Plus, she’d be up against a mid-list, so so, from the men’s side. She’d been working hard, she knew she’d be ready for pretty much anyone; and she was.
Sweaty and jangled, hair frizzed from whatever chemical dye job he’d inflicted on it, Janice entered the ring. She was dressed in a pointless pink sports bra stretched over a board flat chest and shorts with clashing mismatched colors. Her vaguely feminine attire stretched oddly over huge bulky muscles. Janice waved off a coach shouting last minute instructions. She didn’t need it. She’d been fighting, in the octagon or in the streets, pretty much whenever she felt like it. She loved combat!
Surprising both Janice and Mindy… the crowd exploded! Picking up the mood, the announcer started throwing red meat to the masses. “Lets give a big welcome to Janice! A brave and beautiful pioneer for equality, Janice is an inspiration to us all!”
The crowd went absolutely berserk. Winston rolled his eyes. His wife giggled.
“Having overcome a lifetime of oppression; always cowering in the corners until finally free to become all she was meant to be. Janice has become a top competitor and we welcome her brave and beautiful presence here tonight.
Janice blinked. Sure, she could rock stilettos, but she wasn’t exceptionally beautiful. And what was this about a lifetime of oppression? She grew up in the suburbs. She’d had a more or less normal middle class upbringing. Plus, nobody that fights like her had ever cowered in any corner.
“As much as we yearn for the victory of our brave and beautiful heroine. Janice has one more obstacle to overcome.”
The crowd booed. Who would stand in the way of brave and beautiful Janice? There ought to be a law!
“Cruel and vindictive Mindy didn’t welcome brave and beautiful Janice to our campus. No! She stood in the way. She said ‘no, I don’t want a man in the ring’.”
Mindy was shocked, she’d done nothing of the sort. She’d never met Janice. She didn’t know her at all!
“Mindy came here to make sure Janice can’t have the trophy. She came here to keep Janice from winning!”
The crowd became angry. Perpetually agitated from the daily injections of University politics and frothing with anticipated violence they were going wild. They had a moral justification and a target at which to aim. They wanted to see blood; because they were good people. That bitch Mindy had to be taken down! They screamed as if that would cause the girl to melt. They broadcast slogans onto their social media accounts so people far away would know they were screaming their moral superiority.
Mindy had no idea what was going on. Of course she came here to keep Janice from winning, that’s how competition worked. Her eyes began to water, ever so slightly. Her ponytail drooped. Across the octagon Janice, equally confused, shrugged.
Just a few feet away Winston took in the scene. It was terrifying and beautiful. These nitwit kids were inches from burning a witch! They’d loved Mindy just two minutes ago. Good God! He could see it all in his mind’s eye. A pyre, some confused peasant woman, villagers with pitchforks.
In the aisle next to them the pierced basic college girl Winston had practically broke was jumping up and down. She was shrieking “Mindy sucks! Mindy sucks!” It was an impressively full throated bellow coming from such a limp noodle. Her smeared mascara had dried in vertical streaks that reminded Winston of The Joker.
The announcer wasn’t going to stop until he had them in a frenzy. “Heteronormative oppressor out to stop brave and beautiful Janice! We can’t let that happen!”
“Boooooooo!” The crowd roared in unison.
Winston’s wife leaned over and whispered in his ear. Song lyrics:
“Pink isn’t well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they sent us along as a surrogate band
We’re gonna find out where you fans really stand.”
Yes, that’s the mood alright. Winston started seeing visions of great rows of marching hammers. Thinly veiled symbolism of Nazi excess in a Pink Floyd rock opera from 1982. His wife was humming the tune of “In The Flesh” as the campus screamed at Mindy like she was some kind of demon incarnate.
Winston joined in. Singing along, though inaudibly in the deafening roar.
“There’s one smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I’d have all of you shot!”
With that Winston and his wife stood up and held their arms above their heads and shook them wildly. The campus students, finely tuned to the zeitgeist of any moment, moved as one. It only takes the flick of a tail to drive a school of fish and the students were now all on their feet. Winston always carefully watched crowds. The closer they came to storming the castle with torches and pitchforks, the better it was to be the first guy holding a torch. This is how he managed to still have a job. Plus, it was fun watching the puppets dance.
Mindy’s upper lip quivered. Never particularly bright, Janice wondered why the crowd was so loud for this particular match. At Winston’s left, Mascara Girl was in ecstasy.
Winston decided to ham it up even further. He grabbed Mascara Girl by the shoulders and shouted in her face “And that is why we have always been at war with Eastasia!” Mascara Girl began shouting back, carried aloft in the frenzy. “Fuck Eastasia!”
His wife was shouting in the other direction. Screaming at Robert Mublowski who was jumping up and down. “There are five lights! There are five lights!” Robert was shouting back “Five lights!”
And that was the murderous, thunderous, treacherous beginning of the match. Winston and his wife loved it. It was the best date night they’d had in years.
Yes, the tribe has moved here from their old haunts in the USSR And they still yearn for the “good old days” of their Messiahs – Lenin and Stalin.
So this is how this Winston learned how to love Big Brother, I suppose. It’s predictable, and to some extent seems controllable in a trolley-problem “who is going to get run over”, sort of way.
My Winston is less far along the spectrum than Orwell’s Winston. He doesn’t love Big Brother because Big Brother hasn’t yet beaten him. He still remembers students who were “scholars”. He obstinately wears traditional garb. He teaches the math of compound interest. He does this even as the University is going full retard all around him.
He mercilessly mocks and exploits “trust funders” but this is partly in hopes they’ll rise to the occasion. If they came to their senses (if only out of self preservation) he’d be there on the shores of reality to greet them with open arms.
When the crowd starts getting too riled up he sees a future he doesn’t want. He gets in front of the parade because the best way to know where things are going is to grab the wheel and steer. He can’t fully resist the corrupting allure of being the puppetmaster. That makes him a tragic character, resigned to watching “scholars” fade into “human widgets” and unable to do much about it. He believes (correctly?) it’s beyond his ability to change widgets back into men and he’s not willing to die trying.
For him it all boils down to “when shall I pull the ripcord”? He wonders if he’ll have to live behind a drawbridge from then on. He seems immoral but he’s just left behind by a society that not only drank the Kool-Aid but is starting to bathe in it. I gave him a wife that’s a true bad ass because the poor guy deserves it.
2021 is a good year to present such a person.
Your characterization is excellent, as always.
Not dumping on Winston, exactly. I think I understand him a bit: He’s an economist. Like all math/science-minded people, he has a drive to be able to predict the world, in the hopes of being able to exert some control over the world.
I interpreted his aesthetic statement: “It was terrifying and beautiful” in those terms – the human trainwreck is riding right along the rails of it’s internal psycho-logic, which he has achieved an understanding of and is able to predict. He’s even able to successfully nudge it this way or that, like a tiny orientation rocket on the Yucatan asteroid barrelling for Earth. Yay! … ?
Thanks for the compliment.
One mea culpa is that I wrote a statement that probably won’t connect with a modern audience. I probably should have cut it but I liked it too much to delete. “And that’s why we have always been at war with Eastasia!” seems to sum up everything in eleven words (including Mascara Girl’s utter inability to parse its meaning). I think I wrote that for myself. People sufficiently aware of Orwell and cynical enough to tie it to a 2021 LGTBXYZ crowd are probably rare.
On a related note, I was thinking of getting a bumper sticker made up with “I was never at war with Eastasia”. Nobody would know what it means but I don’t care. I’d probably get accused (nonsensically) of racism because it has the word Asia but who isn’t accused of something every day in 2021?
Certainly modern times are “terrifying and beautiful” because we can see where it is going and why. And we know the asteroid isn’t coming to deliver free beer.
Onwards group think!
https://www.topeducationdegrees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2.-G%C3%87%C2%A3Glory-to-the-Soviet-TeacherG%C3%87%C2%A5-Unknown.jpg
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