Microfiction: Madness & Genius (terato topic)

I actually wrote this the other night after whining about not writing anymore, only to find that I was unable to post it over the next few days because of an apparently ongoing issue with LJ communities or posting access or some such nonsense. So I put it here, because hey, where else am I going to put it?

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The radio crackles as the broadcast dies. In another room the television goes to a picture of white noise, but the audio falls to silence. Across the world, there is a breath, a beat, a moment of attention captured, all eyes turned to the front. Cell phone service is disrupted, and billions of people angrily push trillions of buttons. Their efforts are silenced as a soothing voice begins speaking, echoing from every reception device that humanity has active. No picture is presented.

"There's a theory," says the voice, "that makes its way through the collective consciousness. There's no one good way to say it, but everyone considers it 'a saying', phrased in mind's eye with everyone's own particular spin. Dogmatic of the self-help movement, this is how it sounds to me: 'Only a madman never questions his own sanity.'"

The owner of the voice is male, and speaks in English, with an American accent. There is a strong New England presence in the intonation, but the patterns of speech are evocative of the west coast. A hint of a lisp strains the 's' sounds from time to time.

"But that doesn't capture it, does it? That's not the whole sentiment. Because sure, you'd have to be nuts to not allow the possibility that you're nuts. Only a zealot can believe without question that They Are Right; everyone except zealots can agree on that. Modern spiritualism couldn't really function as a culture without the basic acceptance of human fallibility; the idea that everyone has the right idea - as far as their own self goes - is predicated on the notion that reality is personal. And there's the rub, the mistake that pervades humanity in this day and age. The flip side of the theory, that lets us all sleep at night: If you question your sanity from time to time, you must be sane."

There is a pause, and the sound of water being consumed from a narrow glass. Traffic slows to a halt, and an eerie silence falls across the globe, as everyone waits for the speaker to continue. In various government bunkers, frantic efforts are underway to reclaim the airwaves; none are successful.

"Call me crazy, but I just don't buy it. I can't accept that no mass murderer, no religious leader, no visionary scientist, has ever taken the time to doubt his own sanity. And that's the thing, kids - the world is changed by the loonies. Our future is shaped by our past, and our past can't be written exclusively by people who never once stopped to wonder if they were doing the right thing.

"Or maybe ... maybe that's what's wrong with us all. Maybe everyone who has ever laid a hand to the course of human development has suffered from the same weakness that we all share, and taken a moment to question a view they should've held as perfect conviction. Perhaps, on some level, doubt is what has done us all in.

"If that is the case, I apologize, because my actions are necessarily flawed. Certainty is not something that I can cling to, desperately though I try. Perhaps the descendants of those that might survive will learn this lesson from us. Perhaps they will not, and in time herald uncertainty as the new enlightenment, and mistakes will be made all over again. And perhaps ... perhaps those children will succeed where we have failed."

The voice pauses just briefly, and echoes despair in its final statement.

"We will never know."

All frequencies are gripped by the same burst of static that heralded the opening of the broadcast, then flicker back to life as though there had been no interruption. Cable channels and radio broadcasts resume, and radar screens flicker back to life.

Across the globe, air raid sirens begin to wail.