The Endless Loop

Everything as usual

The man in the ivory tower wakes up. In the distance, the agitated cries and chants can already be heard, barking the same angry demands into the air as they have for centuries. To him, it is the most beautiful song. He marvels. Again and again. One might think the slaves would learn something. They do not. He knows that every generation must repeat the same processes, and that any form of awakening is reserved for a select few.

The butler enters and wishes the man in the ivory tower a good morning. The man barely notices him. He drags his fat, aging body out of bed. Naked, in all his ugliness, knowing no one will ever tell him how old and ugly he has become. He holds power, and everyone fears him. He smiles his first smile of the day. He tells the butler he wants his coffee on the balcony. The butler's reply, like the megaphones of the protesters, reaches him only as a distant background whisper. He stopped listening to anyone years ago. He exists in his own universe, and everything and everyone in it belongs to him. He is the center of his universe. He smiles again.

Another day, like so many others. He will check the numbers on his accounts. Direct proof of his importance. He will watch the news, and everything will revolve around him. As always. Fascinating how quickly one gets used to power. He tries to recall his dream. It had been long and intense. He quickly notices that he cannot remember a thing. As always.

The demonstrations are already underway in the distance. Elections, protests, wars. Different words for the same phenomenon. His power.

The butler follows him onto the balcony. The man extends his hand and receives his coffee cup. He does not need to worry whether the coffee turned out well. For fifteen years now, the coffee has been exactly the way he wants it. Strange that the slaves still do not realize they have no power. That they always do exactly what was laid out for them. They should have figured it out by now, after centuries of manipulation and lies. He frowns. Children. All of them just children, he thinks. They confuse their outrage with change. They run into the streets, pick a side that I have provided for them, genuinely believe it to be freedom, call it "democracy," ha ha ha, and fail to see how they are trapped in their own self-righteousness. How they all believe they are right. That they stand on the correct side. Ah, yes, vanity... If it had not existed before me, I would have paid someone to invent it. They would have bought it. Just like they buy everything I toss their way. I simply do not understand why they think anyone outside their own ranks would listen to them.

Sometimes the man in the ivory tower allows himself a few moments to think about the nature of his slaves. Not too long, not too much. Just between two sips of his delicious, expensive coffee.

It is a strange thing, these slaves and their group dynamics. On the one hand, they rage against being enslaved, used, and drained. At the same time, they have stubbornly refused to embrace or practice anarchism. They do not see that their comforts are the cause of the world's condition. That they feed and nurture what they claim to oppose. They want someone to do the dirty work for them, and when someone does, it is never right. Or rather, they believe it is right until, a few generations later, all the lies and corruption come to light. Then the descendants ask themselves how their ancestors could have been so blind and stupid. And being the vain creatures they are, they believe they would have done everything differently. With all the cleverness and all the information they have absorbed from the internot, they feel morally and intellectually superior. Meanwhile, gods like me sit in ivory towers built with their money, perceiving the masses' screaming and rage only as background noise. And even that, only on the rare occasions when I step out onto the balcony once or twice a year to survey my realm. Next to me stands a perfectly trained butler-slave, ready to fulfill my every wish in an instant. I could simply shove the butler off the balcony, watch him hit the ground three hundred floors below, and two seconds later there would already be a replacement just as good. The butler means nothing to me, and I do not even know what he looks like. The man considers whether he should take a look at him tomorrow. Probably not. What for?