March 9th 2023.

There is a new breed of man emerging. Not from the shadows, or from the alleyways. They don’t have cropped hair or tattoos. They speak well, and are even better read. They present as dapper; clean-cut. You’ll find them in gyms, pubs, members clubs and well-paid jobs. A bystander would think they were conventional members of society.

Dressed in their sports jackets and cardigans, these men are the first to spit cutting remarks and sharp retorts. Their counter-parties laugh, amazed yet concerned by their wit. To the bystander, these men seem improbably lucid, which he finds just as intriguing as discomforting.

This new breed carries a fury inside; a glacial fury, whose meltdown they try their hardest to prevent. They are the men who have come to see the world as it is, but have chosen to live in spite of it. They are doubly intelligent. In the first instance, they have diagnosed the sick in their kin. In the second instance, they have realised how much they have to lose by marking themselves as impudent. These men have resolved to carry their fury forwards, into the great unknown — towards what kind of world? They don’t know for certain.

These men never smile in pictures, though they laugh heartily with wide, hungry mouths. Holding no faith in any of the priests or witch-doctors, these men have turned their trust inwards. Even their “God”, should they choose to speak of him, has become “that spirit which undoubtedly protects me, and not those others.”

They have been taught to conceal what they know. All those hours pouring over dissident material has created three parallel minds within them, which they alternate between as necessary. The first: upright, courteous. It affects nonchalance towards the matters of others. The second: critical, subversive. It whispers truths to these men at night. The third: hyperactive, obsessive. It tempts these men with promises of victory.

Their disgust of society easily morphs into lust. For they know what is at stake, what it will mean to be a serf in this new world. They accept society’s trappings — at first grudgingly, then greedily. Denied the ultimate victory over their weakling overseers, they settle for lesser prizes: conquering women on nights out; attaining physical attractiveness; achieving renown in high-value vocations. These consolation prizes are just enough to get them out of bed.

These men say nothing in public to imperil themselves, though they ignore all the priests and witch-doctors’ pronouncements. The ones who have spoken out, who have been too brash — they have been consigned to obscurity. Confused, the overseers detect a different scent on these survivors. Not a word is spoken between man and overseer, and yet their tacit understanding is clear: stay quiet, or face the maelstrom. And in turn, the overseer permits the survivor to live. Because these men are needed to hold the veneer of society together.

The new breed’s fury is one of frustration. He knows too much about the regime to be wholly sated by its cheap pleasures and cheap gossip. He knows what is at stake for his descendants. He is torn between accepting the comfortable life of a domestic slave, and risking it all for true redemption. As a slave, he could could learn more and more about the overseers: their weaknesses, their oversights. But that knowledge is worth nothing until he decides to weaponise it. And because his overseers can smell who he really is, he will never join their ranks.

So he sits impatiently, wound like a cobra inside a box, waiting for someone, something to open it.