I

It happened rather suddenly.
Time struck the Earth still and overhauled its inhabitants skin-side out.

He walked into the tiny tavern, slightly apprehensive of His audience but confident in His purpose. He was completely oblivious to the reception He would receive but was quite willing to wait for the one He wanted. The crowd was small and merry in that naïve, frivolous way that only crowds can be. They would have to do. The best beginnings were always humble.
He could make something of this rabble, of that He was absolutely certain. So He sat at a table opposite a desolate looking youth who seemed as lost as his age demanded of him.

“Incomplete, isn’t it?

“What?” the youth murmured.

“Everything.”

II

There was a number now, twenty nine to be exact. It was always easy to spot when an idea was catching on. A tangible buzz whipped up in the atmosphere as every head bobbed up and down in agreement without reservation to everything He put in it. He still approached cautiously though… knowing all too well the cosmic consequences of a hasty entrance. Besides, He was well aware that the only real allegiances resulted from a combination of courteous courtship, supercilious sagacity and carefully cultivated fear. They were still raw and sceptical, hounding Him with ‘why’s’ and ‘whens’. That would soon change but this was the time to keep it simple… true even.

“You are all equal and you all deserve to be treated the same.”

He neglected to mention that ‘equal’ and ‘same’ were not exactly the same thing. That equal was how they ought to be treated and sameness was a state contrived to conveniently keep them under control but none of them ever bothered with semantics. This was what made His job easier than He had anticipated. It had always been there and He could practically taste it: the desperate yearning to be part of something that would allow them to escape their own little worlds. That was what really made them so easy to manipulate: they were always waiting for an out, any out. And all it took was convincing one of them – truly, deeply planting the seed. It would sow and scatter itself.He had picked a good host.
Humble, quiet, intense and ….not at all easy to dismiss.

Soon enough, however, the host began to develop his own ideas, which was always a problem with operating from among them. They couldn’t help but improvise and put themselves in any equation. Much of it had to do with their blasted call for constant attention. Some might argue that He sponsored it from His own example and need but He would never let Them. So far however, the only changes He had detected were minor. A mere matter of the Man confusing his own mortality with the Voices’ omnipotence. It would have to do.

At the end of the day, they all had this innate capacity to take what He gave them without question. Programmed as they were, to receive more than give. It prevented them from having to figure it out for themselves. It saved on time and responsibility and it motivated Them. It worked and there was absolutely no conceivable reason to question it. He loathed questions. Always trying to identify that infernal congruent where the first ‘why’ had popped up in their vocabulary. He figured that He had managed to stamp it out of most of Them but like a virulent habit of mind it always had the power to crop up in some. Still, He gathered that the ones that stuck with ‘why’s’ would be bred out eventually. Their presumption would never be tolerated by the rest.