Conspiracy of One
Marco sat upright in his bed. Something was wrong. He glanced around the boy’s room. All was still. His younger brother had fallen off the bed again; he was used to it now, so it wasn’t the ‘thud’ that had woken him up from his sound sleep and sweet dreams of…well…never mind. He checked under his bed. It was cluttered as usual but nothing out of place; he crept over to the closest and flung it open suddenly. One of the boys stirred and mumbled something in his sleep. The cupboard held nothing suspicious, so Marco tip-toed back to his bed. He listened very carefully and soon he detected what it was that woke him up. He heard footsteps. Stealthy footsteps! He glanced at his watch. Just as he suspected, it was two minutes before reveille. A look of dismay spread across his face. Gone were the mysterious footsteps, gone were the heroic thoughts of saving the home from ‘yet’ another robber. The only brain patterns running through Marco’s mind right now were, “I can’t get my proper eight hours of sleep.” It wasn’t like Marco to get up this early. Although he was on time for devotions by a whole minute before he was considered late, he was one of those few people who are quite strict on the charter quota of eight hours of sleep. While he was deep in thought, pondering how he would make up for his lost sleep, Uncle Malachi 1:13a burst into the door with his five stringed guitar singing a very unique version of ‘Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory.’ Poor Marco, already tired from his early rising, now got scared out of his darn wits that he almost threw his back out from jumping so high off his bed. Uncle Malachi 1:13a was unaware that he had almost given Marco heart failure, continued with his song until it was finished. Marco swore that, it was the longest version of the song he had ever heard, but did manage to give a feeble reply to Uncle Malachi 1:13a’s habitual, “What a good day it is to be a professional Christian. Are you a professional?” In which you had to give some response that you were at least coherent. If not he would ramble on and on till he got a reaction which sometimes included a pillow or two, such as JETT Marty did one morning, thinking that it was his brother, responded by a well executed throw that hit Uncle Malachi 1:13a right in the face, much to the disappointment of Marty because it was not his brother, and much to the fear and nervousness of Marty wondering what would happen to him. But, fortunately for him, Uncle Malachi 1:13a laughed and left the room praising the Lord.
Although not quite sure how he got there, he was some how on time for devotions. He walked over to the stereo and asked aloud, “What’s with the system? Why didn’t the music go off this morning?” “Oh, but wasn’t it so nice of Uncle Malachi 1:13a to do reveille?” “What?” thought Marco. “Uncle Malachi 1:13a got up early to make pancakes for everybody so he also decided to do reveille,” said Auntie Sunshine. “Oops” thought Marco, “Lord please forgive me all those bad thoughts I intended towards Uncle Malachi 1:13a.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like Uncle Malachi 1:13a, he liked him very much, they got along great. It was just that…well, he had gotten up early and was somewhat grouchy. Uncle Malachi 1:13a was a great FGA. “Probably just as zany now as he was when he joined the family thirty years ago” thought Marco. Uncle Malachi 1:13a was one of those few FGA’s that had chosen to keep his original Bible name from when he was a babe at TSC. It wasn’t that calling him Uncle Malachi 1:13a was so bad, although at times when they were out together it sort of got embarrassing. Like the time they were at the mall and out of habit Marco blurted out, “Hey Uncle Malachi 1:13a, let’s go check out that cool sports shop.”
We shall refrain from writing what he felt afterwards and if I put in words what he felt like you probably wouldn’t be allowed to read this.
Well, it’s amazing what a good breakfast can really do for you, because after a good feeding devotions, and a good feeding on pancakes and a thick chocolate sauce, Marco was feeling quite his happy, cheerful, normal self again, easily forgetting the unhappy pre-morning events. Until…that is, Marco finished his JJT and was asked to burn the Selah trash. As this job hadn’t been done for a few days it was quite full. Marco made himself one rule. That was to never read what was in the Selah trash, because, he told himself, “One might find something he wished he never read.” Now this next part is not really Marco’s fault. After he got a nice big fire going, he sat back and watched it burn, while adding small amounts of trash every few minutes. When, of all the diminutive and small pieces of paper that was in the fireplace, his eyes landed on one of the papers that was going to change his entire world. It was half burned so all he got out of it was very little, but it was strong enough to keep him captive there for a long while. What it said was this, “Propose that reveille…pushed up…half-hour earlier.” This of course is improper English but as I said earlier, it was half burned. Marco’s face turned porcelain white. “No, no this can’t be happening,” whispered Marco. “Of course it’s not, I can’t let it happen, I won’t let it happen. Don’t they know anything about home counsel and that’s where you can bring your ideas and we can vote on it as a home?” Just then two rough hands grabbed a hold of him and half pulled, half carried him down the hall way to a small room. Once his stomach settled back down and his esophagus cleared, he glanced around the room. He saw three of his best friends, and his three best friends had three white, white faces. “There’s a foul plot afoot,” spoke Danny, “There are whispers floating around, but most of the talk is done behind closed doors.” “We don’t know exactly what they’re about, but we put all our information together and the only thing concrete in all our suspicion, is that there are plans to make reveille earlier without our consent!” “Our connections are secure though, and in less than a half-hour our fears may be confirmed,” JETT Marty piped in. “We also have strong evidence to confirm our suspicions,” Interjected Mike, “I mean it’s been three months and two days since Malachi 1:13a has gotten up early for breakfast. Why would he pick such a day unless he wanted to gain favor in the eyes of the teamwork? The new Teamwork member, there’s something about her I can’t really put my finger on. I mean she been in our home for less then three months and she is already on the Teamwork. I’ve been in this home since the beginning and this is a first that anybody that has come from anywhere to be voted into a teamwork position. I also sent a CQ to my links and they came up with nothing. I suspect that she is from WS or something like that. She doesn’t have a file on her at all.” Marco had been quiet this whole time and once he had heard the last piece of news he spoke with a very firm, authoritative, yet slightly worried voice. “Friends, after hearing patiently every word that you have said, I too have had my share of experiences.” He then related his entire morning to them. He even showed them the ashes of the burnt note which was still legible. JETT Marty refused to look at it. Said it was too shameful, while the others were too shocked to utter their usual “Leaping horrors and toadstones” exclamations.
Once gathered back in the safety of their room, they came up with a plan. Marco, the unanimously unspoken chosen leader, spoke. “Friends, we all realize the dangers we face. We are at the brink of losing a whole half-hour of our sleep for some unknown cause. Though we may be small we shall do all we can to fight against this injustice. We do have one element of surprise. They, at least of right now, have no idea that we know. Let’s keep it that way. Friends, let us be called Night Riders. Let us face the dangers of night, so that justice and integrity may shine for others. The Home Council meeting is in two days, we will strike then, and may God be with you.” Having said that he strode majestically out of the room, and when they talked about this in years to come, which they frequently did, they often said that a light shone out from Marco’s face, and JETT Marty swears repeatedly that he heard Handle’s Messiah playing faintly in the background.
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It was a few hours before the sun rose. It was the darkest and coldest part of the night. Marco wasn’t sleeping as deeply as he would have liked. He was lying in bed half asleep; when he felt something move past the open window. He knew that it was evil by the chills he felt running up his spine. No stray dog gave him those type of shivers. This time he could see a sauntering shadow slowly pass by. He breathed a sigh of relief when it left. His respite was short lived. The shadow returned, only this time there were more of them. He called quietly out to the other boys to wake them up, but they were fast asleep. He dare not get out of his bed for fear that the shadows would see him. So he waited in fear. Although he could not see them he could feel their presence. If they had tried to break in, Marco would have fought very bravely, but they didn’t make a move. They were just standing there, waiting. He never quite knew how they got through the iron bars that covered the windows, and although they never spoke they all seemed to react, and move without someone telling them. They were only a few feet from Marco’s bed; he could see their pale eyes shinning in the dark, and the ivory white fangs protruding from their twisted and gnarled lips. Not a moment later Marco’s defense mechanism kicked in. His hand groped under his pillow and swiftly pulled out his blaster and released the trigger. A blast of blue light broke the darkness of the room and engulfed the nearest demon. Unfortunately for poor Marco his blaster was not powerful enough to quell them all. Onward they rushed towards Marco, and just when he thought he was a goner, the door to the room burst open and there stood Malachi 1:13a, (Even though it was an extremely life-threatening situation, Marco could only thank God that he (Malachi 1:13a) was at least wearing briefs.) In rushed Malachi 1:13a with his multi-quad-laser-cannon, fixed up with a rapid plasma blaster at the top, and with a few rounds of ammunition reduced the evil monsters into nothing more then a bunch of snails coated in salt and left out in the sun for two days in a 45 degree centigrade heat. “…And stay out you nauseating sack of festering maggot brains,” yelled Malachi 1:13a. Despite what had just transpired, Marco let out a feeble laugh at Malachi 1:13a’s insults. Once they had calmed down, Malachi 1:13a sat down on Marco’s bed. “Are you alright? That was quite the attack. We have got to be more prepared.” But all Marco could do was to examine Malachi 1:13a’s weapon. It was magnificent. It was ten thousand times more powerful than Marco’s measly blaster. Marco’s mouth hung open in awe as he admired all the knobs and different functions that it had installed. When he picked it up, he was surprised to find that it was even lighter then his puny Blaster. “Where…where did….how did you get such a awesome weapon?” asked an impressed Marco. “Well, to tell you the truth it all comes down to what you have in your hand.” “What?” gasped Marco incredibly, “You mean to say that what you have, that weapon of mass destruction was once this little tiny blaster?” “Yup, you heard me correctly. It’s very simple actually, I’ve been upgrading it. A little every day until I became the proud owner of this, the Weapon Of Real Destruction or the WORD is what I call it for short. But don’t get me wrong, I had to really work hard at upgrading it. I had to forsake some of my favorite pastimes, some of which I really enjoyed. But I knew that it would be worth it in the long run.”
Marco looked around his room, all the other boys were still sleeping. He felt a twinge of pain. He knew then and there what he had to give up. It wasn’t easy to do what he did, and it was even more difficult to get his friends to agree with him but, in the end after relating all that he went through, they finally agreed and two days later it was they themselves that proposed to push reveille up earlier. Marco with the help of Malachi 1:13a and a few members of the Teamwork, improved and upgraded his weapon daily. It was a fight and at times he felt like giving up and going back to his old ways. But what happened on that night burned in him like a hot coal. And he continued to work on his weapon, and soon it became where he could not sleep with his weapon under his bed but had to put it on the floor because it was too big. At times in the night he would awake and find his weapon glowing and warmly pulsating. He knew that there was another attempted invasion, but he did not fear. He fully trusted that his upgraded weaponry system would be more than trouble for who ever got in his way.
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Marco jumped out of bed at the sound of his alarm clock. It was a half-hour before the rest of the home got up. For him, never more would he be caught with his boxers down. To tell you the truth he kinda enjoyed the peace and quiet before everybody else would awake. He reached under his bed and hoisted his weapon on his lap. It was huge now, almost twice the size of anybody’s in the home. He never bragged about it at all. The only times he showed it off was to show to other people that it can be done. However big it grew it never ceased to amaze Marco how very light it is, in fact the bigger it got, the lighter it became, and he carried it around where ever he went. Half-way through polishing his Weapon OF Real Destruction, he noticed that the room was strangely quiet. It had him stumped for a moment, but then he realized why it was so deathly still. The snoring! It was gone. How? Why? For years the birds in the early morning would chirp along to the steady beat of JETT Marty’s snore. What happened to Marty? While Marco was deep in thought, the room to his door flung open, giving him almost yet another heart failure. In walked Malachi 1:13a, guitar in hand and directly behind him JETT Marty likewise with guitar in hand and beaming from ear to ear. Both were singing at the top of their voices. No one, I mean no one could have avoided them. Once they had finished singing Marco couldn’t help but ask, “What was that song?” To which JETT Marty replied, “Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory.” “I never heard it sound like that,” said Marco. “I know, we changed the words,” responded JETT Marty with a grin that would have outshined the sun.
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At times Marco thought that what happened on that night was just a dream. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, and I’m not one to decide on such matters. But let me tell you this, Marco was actually glad that he got attacked the way he did. It opened his eyes and made him aware that anybody could be attacked at any time or any where. It also made him thankful for if he hadn’t prepared the way he did, he would not want to be under attack by some of the monsters that he faces now with the scrawny and pathetic blaster that he had. And let me tell you this, in the dead of night and a warm glowing light appears, all evil…and I say this again, all evil, from miles around flee in terror.
The END
