Lott
Sketch of a rough day
Zero Philosophy
Nov 29, 2020
28
21
The Voice raised itself up, from out of the Tohu Bohu, to speak once again. In the sound, a distant
booming was married to an artificial insect whine. It was an immense humming, throbbing. Lott
knew it, and it knew Lott. He prostrated himself before the sound, because it was the Voice of
the Lord.
“You are my messenger,” Yao said. “Tell the people of Sadogonorrhea that it will end for them in
absolute ruin.”
“They will understand that?” Lott asked. It didn’t seem likely. They listened only to the whispers
of salaciousness. In addition, ‘it will end’ was poorly defined even by Yao’s standards. “They
won’t get the point.”
“That is not your concern.”
Though scolded thus, Lott still spoke up in objection. “You would annihilate all for the sins of
many?”
“For the sins of all,” said Yao, irritably correcting him.
“If I found one living there who was not depraved, you would bridle your wrath?”
“LOL,” said Yao.
“Would you, though?” Lott persisted.
“Sure, why not,” said the Lord.
So Lott went among the people of Sadogonorrhea, and spoke to them of the Lord’s words. These
they scorned, as Lott had expected. Lott was known in Sadogonorrhea, and was held in no high
regard there.
“You have something to tell us, you crazy old fuck?” they asked.
“Listen not to me but to the words of the Lord,” Lott advised them. “I am nothing of
consideration to you beside His messenger.”
Lott found scant interest in Yao, or – at first – in the coming Obliteration. Sadogonorrhea ran on
licentiousness, fossil fuels, and corn syrup. It was twitchy and disinclined to concentrate. Sonic
bubbles atomized it.
Occupying the dead center of Sadogonorrhea was the great temple of Paradise Mega-Burger. The
crowds were always dense and joyful there. Lott arrived as the sun was setting. A golden calf on
the roof caught its last rays. Lott had not seen it before.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“Yao,” the crowd laughed. “We call it the Great Idol.”
Offerings to the gods of Unshackled Lust were piled up in rotting heaps before it.
“Attend to the words of the Lord,” Lott demanded, again. None did so.
“We prefer poker.” Everybody laughed.
“Yao commands you to turn from evil,” Lott said. “Cease your vile fornications. If you would live,
you should bend yourselves to the Law.”
“Fuck that shit, we have Internet porn,” the crowd replied. There was much laughter among
them. “We’re so on drugs,” they added.
“This orgy will end in ashes.”
“Fuck you, Lott,” the crowd jeered. It wasn’t a new thought for them. “Don’t let your own
bullshit smack your ass on the way out.”
“Only one,” Lott begged. He raised his voice almost to a shout. “It would take only one.” No one
was listening.
He cast his gaze about the great city. Was there truly nothing but impurity here?
“Only one,” he repeated.
“Your monotheism is no good here,” someone spat.
Lott winced at the misunderstanding. One is enough wouldn’t resolve it.
“Time is short. Bow down before Yao,” said Lott. “Turn not from your course and you will surely
soon burn. This city shall be called Soddoom, as it is already known in Heaven.”
“Fuck you, Lott. And I mean, seriously.” They pelted him with fast food debris and dirty needles.
“Don’t think you’re better than us.”
“Yeah, fuck you Lott,” shouted another. “You ain’t the boss of me.”
“Yao judges you.”
“You think there’s anything he could zap us with that we’re not already paying for, or hungry to
pay for?” asked the most philosophical among them. “Hey guys, Lott here says his man ‘Yao’ is
going to be dishing out inexistence, for free.” Then he said to Lott, more soberly: “To sacrifice
eternity for an instant of infinite bliss – is that not the perfection of sin?”
The crowd tittered libidinously. Prospective Obliteration did not demoralize the populace of
Sadogonorrhea. They anticipated eyeball-melting ecstasy.
A man stood at the front of the crowd, smiling. Lott read the slogan on his filthy T-shirt, and
winced. It said: Yao-blast, the ultimate trip.
Hope died in Lott’s soul. “They’re goddamned accelerationists,” he muttered to himself, in
despair.
Lott slunk away into the maze of the doomed city. Children whispered in the alleyways. “Would
you, could you, in the dark?” Doctor Zeus had taught them to say it.
A young girl had followed him. “You’re not wrong,” she whispered. “Our bodies are incapable of
it.”
“Incapable of what?” he asked.
“Incapable of reaching the end,” she clarified. “They’re too weak. They need to burn,” she added,
unnecessarily.
“Your impatience is a blasphemy,” Lott replied, knowing it would do no good.
There was a stillness everyone felt, in the dilated moment before. The tension was a stretch of
abstract, cosmic lust. It swept in from an alien dimension, like a negative wind – an inaudible
sigh of waiting.
“Give it to me big guy,” moaned an eyeless leper.
The occurrence was silent at first, because sound is slow. A bubble of annihilation swallowed the
city. Its thoroughness was radical.
Lott felt the heat upon his back. “Sadogonorrhea is gone,” he said.
“Holy shit,” mumbled his elder daughter. “Yao doesn’t piss about.” Sadogonorrhea had affected
her manner of speech.
“The event is entirely consistent with natural causality,” the younger daughter added.
Lott’s wife had to see, even if it would cost everything. Too much had happened to miss. At once
she was converted to an impossible density of white desiccation. Wisps of saline inanimacy
peeled away into the desert wind.
“We just have to trust that Yao knows what he’s doing, I guess,” Lott mumbled, mostly to
himself.
21 Comments
Write a comment…
Trey McMullen Oct 14, 2021
Emperor Yao (who ruled during a transitional period in 2333 BC, according to Wikipedia) was son of
the Moon goddess Yao-mu and a red dragon. Amongst his tribulations, he dealt with a blight of 10
burning suns, 9 of which he had shot down after pleading with their father Di Jun to have them appear
at less scorching interval, and a great flood which took many years of engineering to divert. Yao died
at age 119.
"Like endless boiling water, the flood is pouring forth destruction. Boundless and overwhelming, it
overtops hills and mountains. Rising and ever rising, it threatens the very heavens. How the people
must be groaning and suffering!"
Boiling, huh?
LA PALMA = AQ 119
2
Reply
Collapse
B. Steersman Writes Less than One, More than Zero Dec 29, 2020
i showed this to my friend who likes weird fic. he loved it and is now telling me that he's 'reading up
on moldbug and accelerationism' and that he'd also like to 'check out the old testament'. so thanks,
his life is basically ruined. what was i thinking.
1
Reply
Collapse
19 more comments…