A CONSPIRACY MIND, OR NOT?
SHORT STORY A CONSPIRACY MIND, OR NOT?
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
Pedro, startled, opened his eyes suddenly. It took him a few moments to react, then he looked at the time on the alarm clock. There was fifteen minutes left until it went off. With a look of resignation, he decided to get up; there was no time to go back to sleep.
While he stretched, he simultaneously tried to discover the cause of the restlessness that had woken him up. It took him a while, but he finally remembered the last thing he heard on the news: “the need to have a survival kit.”
He smiled somewhat bitterly. And he considered that if a war really did break out, the damn kit would be of little use.
He couldn’t help thinking that it seemed they were trying to scare the town… He mentally reviewed the events and “coincidences” of recent years.
People were unhappy, and some rather significant social movements were beginning to emerge everywhere. Perhaps the most powerful were those carried out in France by the yellow vests…
Shortly after, a tycoon predicted that there would soon be a coronavirus pandemic.
And what a coincidence, not long after, Covid-19 broke out in Wuhan… They said the virus’s transmission to humans was the fault of the poor pangolins. Although, curiously, there were biochemical laboratories in this same town, in which it was rumored that an American tycoon had a significant stake…
As a result of the pandemic, many people died, most of them elderly… That, I suppose, meant some relief for the cost of pensions…
Of course, when the cost of the economic paralysis was beginning to become excessive, in a practically unbelievable amount of time, a vaccine was developed. It’s curious, because developing one against an unknown pathogen usually requires studies, research, and effectiveness tests, which hopefully take at least ten years…
Now with the issue of war, it seems they’re also warning… With this, the population’s discontent has been curbed, at least in appearance…
They’re talking to us again about good guys and bad guys… If they are the same dogs with different collars. The bad guys have already invaded a country… The good guys decide they want to annex the largest island in the world, if necessary, by force… And the funniest thing is that no political leader, no magnate, neither the bad guys nor the good guys, will even remotely smell the front line of fire…
Pedro wondered if so many coincidences weren’t logical, that perhaps strategies were being hatched to eliminate part of humanity. Above all, the least productive and most vulnerable.
What seemed most inconceivable to him was that people didn’t notice these manipulations and followed this bunch of heartless people into senseless wars, like the one they seemed to be preparing.
He questioned whether the human race has more than 8 billion people, and the magnates who pursued their profits through pandemics, wars, and other barbarities weren’t that many. Perhaps thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
All he had to do was look at who financed political campaigns and then have corrupt politicians agree to whatever they asked for, to realize they weren’t that many. Therefore, if those few were interested in war and the rest of the human race wasn’t, all they had to do was refuse to pick up a weapon and go kill or be killed.
He had to get his conclusions and ideas across to the people… He would buy a megaphone and go to Plaza Catalunya over the weekend and start telling them… Let’s see if they would listen…
The following Saturday, megaphone in hand, he began his diatribe: “Friends, let’s stop those who want to take us to war. We can do it…”
At first, people looked at him in surprise and even with looks of disgust, but little by little some began to listen to his arguments…
After a few days, people gathered to hear him. Months later, people began talking about it in other countries. Citizens seemed to be starting to become aware of the situation… perhaps the movie “Snowpiercer” explained this social reality more clearly…
The fact is that just when Pedro felt he was achieving his goals, while driving to work one morning, a high-speed object hit the car’s windshield, shattering it and then smashing his head in as well. It then crashed through the rear window and disappeared…
Was it a rock, bad luck, or perhaps a drone? No one would ever know.
At the time of the impact, several men were holding a video conference in several offices around the world via a satellite network exclusively for them.
They had an automatic AI translation system that, by imitating the voice of the speaker, translated into the specific language of any of the others…
One said: “It seems that problem is solved. The pity is that this will delay our plans a bit…”
Another said: “Given the assumption that people are stupid, we’ve already made sure they’re becoming less and less educated. I don’t think it’s necessary to delay it much longer…”
A third added: “Yes. We’ll put on any other act for them and they’ll stop worrying about the war…” The last to say something was the only Spanish representative, saying: “The bottom line is that we’ve gotten the pain out of our asses. Besides, in my country, which is where it all began, we have the most adept manipulators and the people who most blindly follow what these politicians tell them… I mean, in four days everything’s back on track again…”.
A Conspiracy Mind, Or Not? – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés