The Magneto Games had been formally established in 2050, during the fifth year of the Pandemic, and were a celebration of humanity´s ever-increasing magnetisation.
Bayo Billy was fifteen. His dad had dragged him to the Magneto Games, and sat him down next to him, up in the stands. But as his dad cheered and booed and cheered - Bayo Billy surreptitiously studied the illicit leaflet he had been handed at the main stadium entrance, on the way in, by a stranger.
With every injection people had become more magnetic... After one or two injections, people had been able to pick up hair-clips and nail-clippers with their shoulders. After five or six, people had found they could walk about with toasters and microwave ovens stuck to the sides of their heads. After ten or twelve injections, people could spin shipping containers on their noses, bend bridges - and juggle airplanes. Quite naturally, therefore, people had wanted to fight about who was best - and The Magneto Games had been established.
The Pandemic was now in year ten - and Bayo Billy´s dad had been to every year´s games. The crowd was supportively adorned with nail-clippers on their foreheads, spoons on their noses, and microwave ovens on their feet. Bayo Billy´s dad was no exception - his whole body was dangling with keys. Competing in the arena below were some of the most magnetic people on Earth - crude yet impressive examples of the trans-super-humans we might all someday become...
Quite frankly, though: Bayo Billy didn´t give a shit. He didn´t give a shit how many iron girders Bons Vlodik, a renowned and sensational competitor, could attract with his magnetic penis. In fact, he´d heard that after twenty injections people started sticking to each other - and he hoped they would! The leaflet was from The Unvaccinated! The Unvaccinated who lived like lepers and wolves in the hills - refining their bushcraft and foraging skills - and plotting their revolutions. It was said that viruses swarmed in their saliva, and sprouted in their dreadlocks... And yet, and yet... Bayo Billy just wasn´t sure anymore. He took a sip from the can that hung from his chin.
"You are invited to meet The Unvaccinated. Do you dare question everything? Tomorrow at midnight... At a scary, secret location..." Bayo Billy glanced over at his dad, who jingled as he jumped and cheered the great creative feats of Bons, and other distinguished competitors. "This is a war. A war on connection..." "Bayo Billy boy!" his dad shouted "c´mon, come over here, put a bucket or something on your head - and get in the buzz!" "One sec, dad!" he said...
"Don´t become a magnet! Stop injecting now! Yes, as a magnet you´ll feel attractive. Yes, as a magnet you´ll be able to ride on the roofs of cars, and never fall off. Yes, you´ll be not only nigh on invincible, but entertaining. But magnets don´t know connection, closeness, intimacy, Love... Magnets aren´t ever intimate - even if they´re inseparable! Imagine such a human future! Imagine no connection, no closeness, no Love - with people, with pets, with places - ever! Is that what you want?! Don´t become a magnet! Choose connection! Stop injecting now! Dare to meet The Free! Dare to meet Love!"
"Is it as simple as that? Magnetism or connection?" Bayo Billy wondered, silently - while around him, impersonally, the stadium resounded with cathartic screams and groans, and the competitive clashing of metal. He glanced at the footnote on the word ´connection´: "connection (noun, abstract), from the latin prefix ´con´ (together), and the latin verb ´nectare´ (to taste the nectar), meaning, therefore, ´to taste the nectar together´". "To Taste the Nectar?" Bayo Billy wondered what that meant; and whether he´d tasted it when he was a baby, and whether he still could...
There was a testimonial, too... "I was a Pandemic baby, born in the winter of 2045. By the time I was three, I´d had seven injections. I was pumped. I started competing. My competition name was Magnetito. I got quite well known. I could do some crazy stuff - with airplanes, satellites, and UFO´s. But then I met The Unvaccinated. "How are you?" they asked me. The question blew me away! What a question! In all my years, I´d never thought to ask! It took me a week, but finally I got there: I felt awful! More, precisely: I felt metallic and empty; and cold; and frightened, and needy...
Over the last seven years The Unvaccinated have demagnetised me, and charged me up with the nectar of connection! It´s a lie that they´re contagious! They just see the war for what it is. Is not everything marching us in the direction of disconnection?! Dare to meet them! They are not the zombies with dislocated knees you see in the mainstream media - their jowls leaking human blood and disinformation. They are beautiful! They are proud! They are healthy - and they are playful! They are wise, and they are brave - and they are full of Love!"
It was, unquestionably, a resounding recommendation. Finally, Bayo Billy noted, at the bottom of the page, there was what looked like a call to action, or a challenge, or perhaps it was just plain rudeness:
“Disconnection is not opposed by theories of connection.
Disconnection is opposed by feeling connection.
So connect! Feed that feeling!
Do I hear you say "I agree, that´s the way"?
Great! Now put your life where your mouth is!"
II
Bayo Billy whispered "yes" to himself, tentatively. He was afraid. How many viruses were there, really - swarming in the saliva of The Unvaccinated? If he went, that next night at midnight - and met the lepers, would some germ enter him, and never exit him? As Bayo Billy watched his dad jump and jingle; and the crowd revel in inanity, and revere absurdity - the words ´a war on connection´ rattled about inside him. He began to shake, and sweat. And shake and sweat. And shake and sweat until - O.M.G. - he SAW it! In his heart! It WAS a war on connection! It WAS as simple as that! And connection wasn´t faring so well! He´d be there, that next night! Bayo Billy felt suddenly committed to demagnetisation - and from deep down in his genealogical unconscious, memories looked up at him with love - memories of long gone, asymptomatic ancestors who´d held undisinfected hands, and cried on unmagnetised shoulders, and breathed on each other, and felt connected with the seasons, and fought off other fascisms...
"Bayo Billy boy! Look!" yelled his dad, hysterically. It was a big moment in the stadium. Bons Vlodik, who had had, some said, extra injections on the black market; in a spectacular bid to beat his own world record; was about to pull a pile of a hundred cars around the arena, by the power of his magnetic penis. Bayo Billy finished his fizzy drink, and tossed the can to the floor. The can, however, slid back to him, and stuck to his boot. "Oh dear" he said to himself "I´d better be quick!" And he wished tomorrow at midnight was then.
Soon, though, it WAS tomorrow at midnight. The secret location was a long abandoned park, where a pre-pandemicised humanity had once strolled and picnicked and played, unsurveilled. Tall trees creaked in the whistling wind, the moon shone ominously, contaminated cats chased rats through the overgrown undergrowth...
Once there, as per the instructions on the illicit leaflet, Bayo Billy sounded a loud, encrypted howl. The Unvaccinated, hidden in the shadows, smiled at each other, and nodded, and were touched. They knew the courage it took for a fifteen year old - for anyone, in fact - to say "I choose connection", in a way that wasn´t ridiculously sentimental, or entirely superficial - and then put their life where their mouth was...
And as is so often the case: everything was easier than Bayo Billy had anticipated. Soon he was dancing around their secret campfire, happy as a puppy - drunk on relief. A group of teenagers took him under their demagnetised wing, and for the first time in his ever more magnetic life, Bayo Billy looked into other people´s eyes shamelessly; and saw himself there; and let others see themselves in his eyes - and knew the nectar of connection. "Will you join our little connection group?" they asked, respectfully "We call it a LovePod!"
"Will you come feed the feeling with us?" they asked. Billy was stunned. What would his dad say? Would he have to live in the forest? "You DO understand what a LovePod is?" enquired Feromina, – an attractive young lady who smelt oddly unmetallic. Bayo Billy said he wasn´t sure he did. "It´s a kind of soul family, a heart family, a tribe" she said, gently "and, right now, because we´re at war: we´re also a Special Ops Connection Guerrilla Squad – starting up secret, underground, demagnetised community permaculture gardens; and setting up hush-hush, independent, off-grid, demagnetised community economies..." Bayo Billy said: "Wow!"
"For us, there´s nothing more important than connecting” Feromina said, kindly. “For us, acts of connection are today´s most revolutionary acts... When we raise our glasses at breakfast to toast each new day, we pray: ´may we feel our connection with ourselves, may we feel our connection with each other - and may we feel our connection with the Great Mystery of Existence!´ It´s a war on connection, Bayo Billy - people are being converted into super powered magnets. Authentic connection is being replaced by special effects. We have to resist this magnetisation together! What do you say, Bayo Billy - will you join our LovePod?" Bayo Billy said: "Fuck, Yes!"
*
Mark Josephs,
"Mark the Mystic Activist"
Aragon, Spain
Summer, 2024
This short story is from the (very expanded) third edition of "Love & Revolution"
(the foundational text of The Conscious Tribes Project)
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