Inside a dimly lit, dusty basement room, a group of people with anger on their faces were seated on steel folding chairs. The only sound was the creaking of the unfinished basement ceiling and the occasional dust being knocked off of it and falling to the floor as someone in the house above stomped around like an upstairs neighbor. But no matter how loud the stomping echoed against the rust-red-spotted cement floor of the basement, the only disturbance was to the spiders that had spun their webs between the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling.
Soon, the stomping above stopped and a door creaked open. Everyone seated in the basement swiveled their heads as one and looked at the stairs, where a shiny leather shoe appeared. Then a leg covered in tan slacks, followed by the hem of a navy blue blazer. When the man wearing the slacks and blazer turned the corner on the stairs, the blazer fell open and showed the blue and white horizontal stripes on the thin sweater beneath it, which had the collar of a white shirt peeking out from its neck.
The man wearing the ensemble seemed young, but was actually a well-maintained man in his early thirties.
He walked around the group seated on the folding chairs and stepped up onto a comparatively clean wooden pallet, then began speaking.
“A week ago, we witnessed the birth of a devil. A brutal one, that etched his atrocities into the memories of every living person on Earth,” he began, casting a penetrating gaze across the people seated in front of him. His eyes seemed to contain the vicissitudes of time, as if he had seen hell and returned.
“The devil slaughtered more innocent civilians in a matter of five hours than died from the beginning to end of the bloodiest war in history, and no one is doing anything about it. Why is no one stepping forward and decrying this brutal monster? They’re afraid! They’re pathetic, weak, cowards that have bowed before the altar of the devil’s overwhelming power!
“All of those deaths were needless. Since the devil is so powerful, he could have avoided them. He could have let those innocent people in Bhopal live, and those innocent people in Faisalabad. Surely, he could have healed instead of destroyed, but he didn’t! He chose to destroy because he enjoys the misery of others. And once tasted that misery, he didn’t stop there, oh no. He ordered two thriving capital cities to be wiped clean from the map!
“And he blamed the destruction he wrought on terrorists,” the speaker spat. “It was so convenient for him that those ‘terrorists’,” he raised his hands and made air quotes, “somehow managed to steal nuclear weapons and just so happened to be in those cities at just the right time for him to ‘force’ them to detonate the weapons.” The man’s voice fell to a hoarse whisper as he continued, “How utterly... coincidental.
“Among the twenty-six million innocent men, women, and children slaughtered, which of them were not someone’s mother? Their father? A loving husband or a caring wife? A mother’s son or a father’s daughter? Uncles, aunts, sisters, lovers, crushes, future leaders, future saviors, future sportsmen and women, future teachers....” He paused, closing his eyes and bowing his head. After a moment of silence, he continued, “But they were all killed. All of their lives were cut short without mercy.” The man’s voice cracked and a tear trailed down his face.
He took a deep, shuddering breath, then continued, “He needlessly sank ship after ship filled with heroes who stood up to fight against him. He polluted space, preventing us from defending ourselves against the hostile aliens coming to enslave us all and rape our planet. He captured tens of thousands of people from all around the world and is holding them in dank torture rooms, torturing them without a trial! And now! Now he wants to ‘unite the world’ under his brutal and barbaric rule!
“And what do our foolish and spineless ‘leaders’ have to say? NOTHING! They refuse to tell him to stop, they refuse to raise up heroes to send the devil back to hell where he belongs! They refuse to fight, due to cowardice, shared interests, and oppression! NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING!” The man clenched his fist and slammed it against the palm of his other hand hard enough for the smacking sound of flesh meeting flesh to startle the silent audience and make them jump in their chairs.
The man conveniently left out the part about the world being the aggressor in the recent conflict, then continued his speech.
“Just because the devil has overwhelming power, should we allow him to tamper with our dignity?!” he shouted.
“NO!” the listeners cried in unison.
“Does it mean we should allow him to desecrate our freedom!?”
“NO!” the listeners chorused once again.
“Will we allow his atrocities to go unpunished?!”
“NO!”
“Will we allow him to rule us like animals?!”
“NO!”
“Will we sit back and watch as the devil does whatever he wants!?”
“NO!!”
“Are we among the cowards?”
“NO!!”
“Are we among the scared?”
“NOOOOOO!!” The audience leapt from their feet and thrust their fists into the air as they screamed and hollered at the top of their lungs, causing another cascade of dirt and dust to fall from the basement ceiling, disturbing the spiders lurking in their webs once again. Their shouting was so loud it looked like even the filthy cinderblock walls seemed to be shaking.
“Then we must punish this devil! Join me on a journey to seek justice! A journey to regain our dignity! A journey to set, things, right!!” the man shouted, hammering his fist against his other hand with the last three words.
The audience went wild, thrusting their fists in the air and shouting at the top of their lungs, going red in the face and stomping on the cement floor.
The man secretly smiled to himself, seeing the rage he had whipped up in his audience. He let them continue for more than a minute, then gestured for silence. Once the listeners had retaken their seats, his manner grew stern and he set his face in a grave expression as he continued, “The journey will not be easy. There will be many obstacles, and many of us will die.”
The room grew a bit gloomier and a chill ran down the spines of those listening to the man speak.
“Yes, many of us will die, but it is a sacrifice we must be willing to make. One that is worthy of holding our heads high in the afterlife, where we shall meet again as victors! As the punishers of the devil! As the saviors of Earth, and humanity! We will be able to hold our heads high for all of eternity!” he shouted, causing the listeners to applaud and cheer once more, completely stripped of the fear they had felt moments before when reminded of the might of their enemy.
But now, with that assurance, they knew that none of their lives would be wasted and everything would be for the greater good. For the eventual victory in the fight of good and evil, they would proudly go to their deaths with their chests puffed out and heads held high.
Against the backdrop of cheering and applause, the man standing on the pallet bowed his head, clasped his hands in prayer, and loudly prayed, “May the devil perish at our hands, and may our sacrifices be worthy.”
Although he said that, in his mind, he was thinking something completely different. ‘Sheep,’ he thought as he smiled brightly at the group of people in front of him, meeting their eyes and enthusiastically shaking their hands.
