NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is my first real attempt of writing a story in the NationStates forum. There's not a real possiblity to join RP-wise. If have input please share it, it's good to improve. The setting here is a few years after the 1st Guffingfordii civil war. Guffingford is a weird combination between 1984's Oceania, Brave New World and an extreme free market economy. The nation itself is ruled by one party who has a supercomputer as their 'chairman'. The thing calculates and unsolves mathematical mysteries and the outcome is told to the population while making it look like something earth shattering has been found. The thing doesn't have a scientific value, it's only a medium to intimidate and impress the masses. Since no one outside the party understands the mathematical babbling but it works quite well. All forms of media are under complete state control. In these stories I want to describe the personal life of various people under the same psychotic fascist regime.

IC:
Old drunken Felix was sitting on an old chair with his hand resting on the table. Around him it was a forest of (half)empty liquor bottles and glases with greasy finger prints all over. The heavy smell of tobacco and the sweet scent of the beverages plus the amazing quantity of alcohol in his blood created a paradise like dreamworld. What a lovely world he was in, the peaceful pearl colored clouds were drifting over his head, the soft and easy sea breeze was whirling small leaves into the air, which fell down later on the grass. It was a beautiful autumn. The sheer joy of this dream kept the looming bottles of gin and whiskey at bay, no one is allowed to wake old Felix and nobody was allowed to touch his booze. Still lying in the endless field of happiness and satisfaction he saw the sun shining. Not a cold hard source of light like it is nowadays but a friendly yellow ball in the sky. Felix opened his eyes and saw the dull wall of the tavern and immediately noticed the party banner. The friendly face was so... Friendly? I cannot describe it. The face is just a nice thing to look at. But my dream was much nicer. The little clock above his head was still ticking in the same old rhythm. Just my luck, another bottle empty. Felix was searching very awkward to a new bottle, but a waiter passed by and gave him a new one. Ah sweet booze, my personal hero and friend. When I need him, he's always ready for me. Some people buy pills they swallow to get the same feeling and your liver doesn't screw up. Yeah, they get so incredibly glad about this whole thing they call Guffingford. But I love my country, I mean. This is a great place to be. Does anyone else has a government so wise and so loving? I doubt it. I'm proud to be part of Guffingford.

Jesus or, who or what was Jesus? Some people still use it as a curse or when they're amazed when the Great Engine (supercomputer) has shown us more revelations. The bartender walked by and brought another bottle of unknown origin. Probably from a place called Scotland. Ah well, as long as it burns in my throat it's fine. "Goddamn!" Felix looked up with one eye open and he saw Mr Morehouse. They saw he was a party official who miraculously survived all the death and misery. Live and let live... On the radio the same boisterous tune made by the state commission of music and entertainment kept repeating itself. If you concentrated you could hear the messages in it: 'Guffingford, Guffingford, infinite love requires unconditional obedience towards the Great Engine'. Felix didn't even heard those anymore. After all those years... Everybody knows there are other countries outside Guffingford. Felix hates those countries, whatever the names are. Hell... I'll be damned! I just said another word nobody knows what it means. Hell? It sounds like some old-fashioned insult or curse. Hardly anyone uses those anymore. Only when drunk they use them, like I am right now. I wish my whole life played in the dream where... Forget it Felix. I am making myself happy with dead thoughts. No one can make them real, only the Great Engine. If the Great Engine can't accomplish it, then no one can.

Still in the same state of mind, Felix tried to continue his dream. He was falling away in his delightful slumber when a lone SS (State Security) officer stepped in the tavern.
"Evenin' lads, how's it going today?"
The bartender answered, without delay "Excellent my good Sir, what do you want? brandy, wine, poteen?"
"A brandy with coffee will be fine." The SS man sat down on a simple wooden bar stool and lit up a fag. A women came in with a set of posters to glorify and honour the party. The peaceful genderless face was present on each of them. Felix knew this even without seeing them. Some ten minutes later the posters hung on the walls and the old ones replaced. The same mottos, sayings and messages of love.

Love, love, love. The warm and kind look of the face on the poster, wheter it be male or female it made my heart weep. Why can't anyone explain to me who he or she is? Is it the designer of the Great Engine or perhaps the founding father of Guffingford? I don't know, and to be frank I don't really want to know it either. I love the mystery that hangs around it like a warm cloak.

Monday morning

What a rough night, so much alcohol isn't good for a person. Maybe I need to save some cash to buy one of those pills that make ya happy.
The sound of marching soldiers and the bombastic morning music to honour the fallen illustrious soldiers in the battle to free Guffingford echoed through the streets coming from the megaphones hanging on the police office across the street. That meant it was time to go to work. I work in a factory where parts are made for electrical circuits in military installations. It's quite difficult but it pays very well. I have to check, test and count the products, inspect the assembly line and correct any mistakes made by the crews working on two floors. Felix grabbed one of those 'Quick & Easy Breakfast Pack' sold by his local supermarket. It's healthy and tasty and it makes me to have more fun in my work. After eating he brushed his teeth and did his usual daily things normal people do in the morning.

*****

A hard day of work didn't do a lot of good to me this monday. I obviously drank too much again yesterday eve. Ah well, that's what I always say on monday and every sunday I drink a lot. Some things never change. You know it was quite funny but I found a book yesterday, an diary to be exact. Good grief, I bet it's written by some lousy joker. he writes about democracy and a 'Führer' and more written nonsense. Guffingford never had a Führer or has never been a democracy or whatever. I threw the damn book in the closest waste basket I could find. Who needs that old stuff anyway? It's much better here and now.

I'll be going to the tarven now, it's a few hours ago after I had lunch at work and I begin to feel tired. I'm in the mood to take a shot of tequila, maybe I'll meet some friends there. My live really is great, Guffingford is great.

Tuesday Morning

Work again and I drank too much again. Why do I keep forgetting I shouldn't be drinking so much? It feels like I cannot stay off the booze, like I'm addicted or something. Oh shit, I forgot to buy those breakfast boxes at the supermarket. I ate an ordinary breakfast but this time I didn't go happy to my work but when I ate my lunch in the cafetaria I suddenly felt a lot better. Food really cheers me up. Now that I think about it, the food cheers up everybody. The ones who process the food and make the new recipes are really doing a wonderful job. First I'll buy a few of those breakfast packs. I rarely eat supper since I'm never in the mood for it, even though it's such a good meal.

Felix was sitting in the tarven again when the radio announced the magnificent message the Great Engine has unriddled another mystery of the highest importance. This one is even more important that all who have been discovered before! Felix was listening mesmerised to the radio when the talker was explaning what was discovered and what methods used... All done by Guffingfordii party geniuses. I am so glad I live in Guffinford. My life is full of exitement and love, other countries have nothing, are empty and lifeless. Hatred and lawlessness, communist anarchies, total desolated corporate idiocies. I love Guffingford and the Great Engine.

Wednessday morning

Felix woke up with a most annoying headache, he drank too much yesterday evening...

I had to get writing again, boss is being a pain in the ass again. How do I start this novel?

'In a cold hovel, the Grand Leader designed while his feet were frozen and his fingers cold the Great Engine. On a dirty sheet of paper, with charcoal as his pencil He wrote and drew the plans for a new way of living and thinking. With the money he earned while working hard under National Socialist oppression He was thinking about freedom, about Guffingford and how He could change it to give the people happiness and life.'

Sounds good. Yes, this looks quite good indeed. Boyette Andries continued writing in the office were fourteen others were writing party-approved literature. Everything had to be rewritten. Boyette took his 'Standard Guffingfordii Dictionary' from a shelf and looked through the dusty tome. So many things have changed over the past few years. A major war. A coup and more of those things you only see in them banana republics in Africa. Boyette read a few entries of the dictionary, and when he found the word he needed he put the book back on the shelf.

de·moc·ra·cy
n. pl. de·moc·ra·cies
1) Abbreviation of 'demonstration-cracy' Common folk striving to gain more rights by contantly organizing strikes and demonstrations. Can also be called an anarchy.
2) Unsafe nation.

free·dom
n.
1) Slang commonly used by citizens from other nations to describe the Free Nation of Guffingford.
2) Free of democracy, monarchy or any other non-centralist viewpoint.

god
n.
1) A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator of Guffingford. The principal object of Love and Worship in Guffingford (Grand Leader & Great Engine)
2) A force commonly worshipped by foreign nations aka The Grand Leader and The Great Engine of Guffingford.

wor·ship
n.
1) The reverent love and devotion to The Grand Leader and The Great Engine of Guffingford.

Sweet Guffingford, I love my nation so much. Who couldn't live here without being happy daily? There's always work, we enjoy the fruits of a free market and we are the best and most friendly people in the world. All other countries are idiotic, backwards places. I need to get on with my novel, the boss is counting on me but I cannot stop thinking. I'll finish this chapter fast so I can do something else, I'm tired of writing novels but the knowledge I am doing this for the Great Leader is enough to keep me going.

Miss Percy and Mr Percy was a happily married couple before the civil war erupted years ago. Mr Percy was sent to the front in Switzerland to subdue and conquer the nation once and for all, he never came home. Probably stuck somewhere, bureaucratic nonsense. Miss Percy watered the garden, cooked food and cleaned her house in Oberammergau, southern Germany. She had lived there her whole life and wasn’t planning to move to the city. She heard about the regime change, the omnipresent party, the propaganda, the Great Engine and the Great Leader. Because Obermmaergau is a very remote, isolated community they could speak the name of the Great Leader loud, in public. His name is Solan Rixx. Although no one really knows what happened the days before the civil war reached its peak Miss Percy wrote it all down in her diary. Day after day, entry after entry she closely wrote every happening down. In case they started to burn and rewrite history, something should be preserved. She kept maps of pre-war Guffingford, and kept track of the nations surrounding Guffingford. Most were too insignificant to be pencilled down but she did. A politician died of a heart disease – she all wrote it down. It became somewhat an obsession for her.

On one day, like a fairytale, her husband returned from places unknown. As she expected, he had changed a lot over the years but he was still the kind man she always knew. Feelings never change and since she held true to the promise of loving each other until death she did not have an affair or anything of that sort. Same for him, he did not visit whores or slept with other women. They were Mr and Miss Percy again. Married lovers, yet something was amiss. When she tried to talk with him about his pre- and post war experiences it seemed if he fell down a well. Lifeless and lust less he continued doing what he was doing at that moment. Rarely did he ever spoke a word about what happened to him during the civil war. And when he talked, he was speaking about how great Guffingford was, honouring the Great Leader and Engine. When she said Solan Rixx he burst into tears of anger and madness, almost ripping the clothes off her body to beat her. Blasphemy! That’s no way to talk about our Great Leader. We are merely followers of his great teachings and writings, only those who are trusted by him and close associates are allowed to call him Mr Rixx. No, no, no! She was afraid of him at these moments and desperately tried to remember him who he was before the regime change, but he called it the “Revolution of Spirits”. Terribly frightened by these happenings she walked off to the preacher who was just preparing a sermon about Guffingford – in all its greatness. Was she having a bad dream or, even worse, a nightmare? She could not believe it. Everybody was being so weird, strange. She spent a lot of time inside and when she went outside she sat in the garden writing in her diary. She often went to the shop, but that doesn’t take very long to make food for one person. You must know, Mr and Miss Percy didn’t have any children to raise. Shackleforth, the local shopkeeper was also poisoned by this diabolic new ‘faith’. Guffingford was the greatest of all nations – all which mattered to him and his family.

A few days later Miss Percy still had no clue what went on. It wasn’t the atmosphere, no it was quite happy. Everybody was happy, satisfied about everything. The townsfolk and farmers were repeating how great Guffingford is, chanting and singing to praise the Great Engine. On one day, when she was writing in her diary again Mr Percy shuffled into the garden with his newspaper. He sat down on the bench smoking his god awful pipe. She was still writing but Mr Percy walked to her and grabbed the diary under her pencil away and started to read through the old book. His eyes, small and deep in his skull grew almost twice in size (it looked that way, I swear) and his mouth opened wide. He made some soft gargling noises and was trying hard to breathe. He dropped the book on the fresh green grass and he let himself fall in his chair. Finally, she thought he was getting back to normal after reading the truth. Alas, she was wrong. Instead of saying how HE could have been so stupid he started to accuse Miss Percy how SHE could have written down all those lies from foreign lying news agencies. She was a hellion, and he denounced their marriage. How could he stay married with a lying women with no morals? He didn’t even want to ask for divorce forms, he just threw his ring away. After he packed his bags and upon leaving he said one thing while looking at a bush; “The only good thing about you is how you saved water for the Great Engine to run smoothly. Those plants have never looked this good.” In awe, Miss Percy looked at the dead, arid bush. Completely lifeless.

Three months have passed and Mr and Miss Percy live together again, married and happy as always. Outsiders or heathens like Miss Percy once was would solemnly swear they were skulking against no one every day, every week, every year. “Guffingford is my Paradise” Miss Percy is rehabilitated after Mr Percy called the SS for a treatment. Rushed but not unsuccessful, Miss Percy was cured. Now she only watered the garden when it has not rained for two full weeks, to aid the gears and cogs of the Great Engine, like the Great Leader has written down in his law books. And Miss Percy’s old diaries? She is so ashamed of them she volunteered to be punished with a small flogging and the books were taken to the Central Archive. Nobody has seen them again.