A toast, we toasted my friend a young Administrator who sought me out for advice and knowledge of the past. We became friends and and in my 90th year, I felt a sense of purpose in sharing what I could about the ways of the Politiburo to this young man.
We joked that I was passing on the torch to a new standard bearer and he eagerly took it without fully understanding the heavy burden and responsibility. So many had held the title and role and so many more would follow. An unbroken chain spanning before me and to the dawn of humanity rests on this young man's shoulders.
And like all careless youths, he laughed not knowing what was so funny. We spoke of the war and the aftermath, of the occupation and the sisters. Then of the complete annihilation of the old ways of Karl Knutmudsen and a new age with King Edgar.
Edgar was not really a Monarch in the classical sense. People just called him one as he he held the power and influence, holding court in the old Central Agency and doling out justice where he felt prudent.
His obsession of late has been figuring out a way to destroy once and for all the tyranny of the devil beetles. While they slumber deep beneath the earth, he seeks out experts who can undo what our ancestors had built. A small army of scientists scuttled about beneath the giant tendrils and feet of the sleeping beasts seeking ways to dismantle them. None have found a way and some have only engaged the wrath of a few of the beetles who possess secret counter measures that were not previously known.
It was a loud crack and the quivering ground when we knew one of the beetles had its fill of the scientists and killed a few of them. The counter measures were numerous to count, at first it was a mild irritant sprayed as a mist, but it grew in ferocity into a toxic venom as the beetles patience was tested. The worst of it was a fiery beam of light that could turn a person into ash in an instant and could be aimed with pinpoint accuracy. The beetles would let out a shrill when it engaged its death ray and sometimes it would seem to purposefully extend the agony.
After a while the beetles were left alone and none dared enter the caves.
Edgar grew despondent and in time, like many before him surrender to the existence of the devil beetles and focused on the pressing matters of the Politiburo.
My young friend asked me of Knut and the gibberish of the Artesians. The new wave allowed open dialogue and study of the past, including of our oppressors and I was quite impressed at how candid and unrestricted. I confessed that I still could not understand Knut, nor the Artesians and the only that made any sense had been Edgar in his fiery sermons.
Karl Knutmudsen was very charismatic and more than a match for Edgar, but his vision was short sighted and perhaps his ascension to power made him lose sight of things and fail in perspective. It is easy to forget when surrounded by privilege. He brightened at this and agreed that he was always concerned that he too would fall prey.
We admired the city square outside the window of the local pub. And one statue of Karl had been restored and left as a reminder of our past. It was not any of his more grand sculptures, and a more common one that you could have found in any school or industrial complex. It somehow was spared and later found hidden away in a warehouse, abandoned and forgotten until it was needed again.
He jest that monuments sometimes have a life of their own and even with the near complete destruction of the Artesians, if a single shred of them existed, even in a stone relief, it would be enough to spark a complete resurrection of their cause. And I nodded in agreement that a simple statue of the Knut was more than enough to bring about the return of the Artesians and it would have been better to crush it into gravel.
But I saw no reason for this as Edgar made it clear we would honor and respect the past without reservations no matter how painful and dangerous. He welcomed public debate with would be converts that we called the Neo-Artesians who attempted to decipher and make sense of the gibberish and engage in open dialogue with Edgar. And each time, he deftly disarmed each and every one of them.
The Neo-Artesians were more hedonistic children who cherry picked only the great delights of the past and glossed over the painful memories. They were quite resourceful and found artifacts, restoring much that was lost, including fragments of Knut's old things from the Great Hall. Nothing more than a few scraps or tattered rags, even bits of string. I fretfully wondered if even from all the devastation if that pen survived intact, unscathed waiting to be found. If it achieved such a feat, I would consider it almost supernatural and a miracle confirming Knut's significance.
We met each week this way and he never tired or bored of me speaking of the old days, even if some were stories I forgotten I had told him the week before. He was always the patient lad and an excellent Administrator. In time, it was my days coming to an end and I could no longer be concerned with Knut's legacy, as my own never mattered and soon I no longer had to care. I could reject everything.
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