Friday, February 08, 2008

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Sin sat on his throne -- a tattered, rickety old chair. Yesterday, his close friend Winter had emailed him, informing Sin of his worsening disease and possible death which seemed merely a matter of time. "That Death is a close childhood friend who would see to it that the demise will be as smooth as possible is a slight comfort, but only slightly so...", the email remarked.

Sin concurred. Visitation by this close childhood friend was not an agreeable proposition.

He imagined Winter in his youth. Terrible, implacable, exacting and harsh (and pretty dashing too!). He saw him now as a toothless caricature whose only signs of virility were infrequent attacks of incontinence. Who would believe that entire planets were once covered with his excrement and that humans the world over shivered under the spell of his thunderous farts!

Humans...He gnashed his teeth as he thought about the culprits. They had been at his throat ever since he could imagine them. Through sheer luck and genius he had not fallen victim. But he was growing old too. It was only a matter of time when the vermin attacked and forced him out of the inconspicuous old age home he currently lived in.

And what will the world come to then? Without Winter, without Sin, without Evil, without Darkness. Scorching Light will be everywhere busy searing off skins using his shiny happy demeanour (US Patent No: PT 1087934). Gloom would die. So will Depression. Our sister Melancholia will be ravaged by the clumsy oak Cheerfulness.

The names of those who once were in The League will become unspeakable in the new regime. There will never be born, in the coming generations, those who would've heard of The League. How will the Dostoyevskys, Alan Moores, Orwells, William Gibsons of tomorrow ply their trade? Suicide shall not be there to help them either. Poor souls...I feel so sorry for them!

As he thought such thoughts, Gloom and Depression set in. He laid a hand on each of their shoulders and said with a voice that was drenched with tears, "Ah friends! What would I do without you? Don't ever leave me!"

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is just brilliant.

Without them, where would have been Surrealism, dystopian science fiction all inspired by sublime and beautiful Melancholy. The hushed and pleasant conversations in restaurants and the beautiful fog in the Winters. And the perverse and for-ever-remembered pleasure from Sin.

Nanga Fakir said...

Glad someone agrees!

Three cheers to dytopia!!!