The delegate from Mythica is taking a swing at me. I take that opportunity to punch him in the stomach. His assistant kicks at my legs and I fall to the floor. Clearly, this is not the way negotiations should be going.
We had every hope of working things out, once and for all. Unfortunately, when you represent nations like the ones we do, it’s kind of difficult to find any stability.
Perhaps I’m getting off on the wrong foot. Allow me to introduce myself: I am the delegate from the nation of Nonexistan. The distinguished gentleman who is now stomping on my face repeatedly is the delegate from the People’s Democratic Republic of Mythica.
You haven’t heard of us. But don’t worry, not many people have. Don’t even try looking us up online. We’re not there. I check every day. We are nations that fall through the cracks of perception. It has long been observed that we only see a small fraction of the totality of what’s really out there. Our nations exist on the periphery of public consciousness.
I have tried explaining to others that we are two people of irresolute nations. Essentially, we exist as a hyperspatial amalgamation of different nations you WOULD recognize. Some elements of an export here and some elements of an export there combine with vague notions of culture in various parts of the world along with various climates and there we are—just out of reach of public view. Different aspects of different people, places, and things all come together in our nations, which don’t exactly exist in any one specific place. As you can imagine, it’s a very nebulous life that we live. It is a very proud and nebulous culture. We exist as aspects of some of you, as you are aspects of some of us. And right now, we’re in a fistfight because we’re trying to get along.
Being aspects of all of you who live in the real world, we are shadows of you. We exist as your subconscious. We can sometimes be found in your dreams and aspirations and nightmares and psychoses. So it’s not like our decisions aren’t affecting you. It is a symbiotic relationship. We want to be you. You long to understand us. And this is an oversimplification.
It is not an oversimplification to say that I am in pain. I have managed to roll out of the way of the incessant kicking from my colleague. And I know that I need to search for the device. Somewhere along the line one of us had developed a device that, once activated, emits a signal that invokes all-encompassing anger. Explosive rage. All you have to do is turn on the device and everybody in earshot goes crazy. One of our nations developed it. They say it was us. We say it was them. We both know about it, but neither of us will acknowledge it. Its development was against a treaty we had written quite some time ago. We both know this, but we both know that it was developed, so we both know that it’s out there. And we both know that it’s in the room where we’re trying to get along. Neither of us wants to admit that we know that it exists. To consciously acknowledge that it exists would mean to consciously acknowledge that one of us had developed this technology, which would be wrong. This is technology that we’ve specifically said we would not develop.
And so our brawl, exploding about the room, is partially a result of the device going off. Mostly it’s a search for this tiny device. We’re throwing each other against the walls. We’re trying to bash each other against tables. We’re breaking things. Not necessarily because we’re angry with each other. We’re doing this because there’s a device out there that’s causing us to be angry. And we’re destroying everything because we’re searching for the device that’s causing the anger. We both want to destroy it. I can only hope we will.
Russ Bickerstaff is a theatre critic and aspiring author living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife and two daughters. His rambling, unplanned, unedited personal hyperfiction serial Blake Morely has been updated every day for the past three years.