The Letter
25 Apr 2019Today’s prompt: “Write an anonymous letter to a stranger detailing the things you’ve learned about life.”
To Whom it May Concern,
Thomas Hobbes is frequently quoted as saying that life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Most people, of course, ignore the full context – that life outside a well-regulated and governed society is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Without laws, the community, the social contract, all men have an equal claim to everything in the world, and thus nature would lead us to a war of all against all.
What Hobbes did not know is that there’s society, and there’s The Society.
We in The Society know there’s far more to life than the day-to-day grind of all the little people working their little jobs, fighting their petty fights, pursuing their miniscule dreams. There’s more to life than the fickle winds of political change or the swelling and receding tides of history. These are all trivial, and they only hint at what’s real.
What’s real is power. I’m not talking about riding around in a limousine. I’m not talking about holding elected office or rubbing elbows with film stars. I’m talking about the very thrum of the universe, shaping the very molecules around you to your ends, raw energy ripping through the core of you as if you were a Tesla coil.
Power, true power, comes from the Old Ones, and they grant it to their servants. For a price, of course. Some would blanch at the price, but for those who have heard the calling, who have tasted true power, what is the value of life? Of a few lives?
Of your life, if we’re to be specific?
You’re reading this letter because you woke up at the bottom of the sacrifice pit. And I’m afraid your life, from here on out, will be nasty, brutish, and short. Now be a good chap and fold up the letter and put it back into the envelope, would you? Wouldn’t want to waste trees. We’ll need them to burn this whole world down.