The old guard lived.
The old guard marched onward towards certain victory.
They staggered upwards, blindfolded, to free themselves and their people from the boot of the misappropriated state. Conditions had worsened, men were atomized, and every year their footing slipped deeper and deeper into the mud.
And so the old guard continued to march. Donning black masks and black shirts, they peacefully moved forward in unison, chanting their disagreements to the deaf ears of the state. How imposing they felt! Surely they will see our numbers and recognize that resisting the future is futile, said the old men engaged in the tired practice.
Leave your weapons at home, they told their men. We will gather numbers through our brave and muddy marches, and soon they will have no choice but to bend to our will. They will recognize the fight as unwinnable, they thought.
Year after year they marched, telling themselves that their support was surely growing, despite it being intangible in nature.
“The minds of the people are changing,” they said as the old guard’s numbers withered with time.
It could be no other way as young men didn’t last long in the old guard, outpacing the men who had become set in their ways, suggesting new, yet uncomfortable, approaches to the problems they faced. These young men were disregarded as immature radicals and pushed aside so the old fools in black could follow in their own muddy footsteps from the year prior. What a strange position this old guard settled into, aligning with the very state that they oppose and actively assisting them in the removal of the violent and capable few.
The state merely needed a handful of assets per hundred men in order to control and manipulate the trajectory of the group, neutering it with little effort. Posing little threat to the continuation of the state, the old guard was permitted to march forward and unwittingly hand over the very men who were destined by blood to carry their people. In doing so, these old fools considered themselves above the natural order, leveraging artificial means such as abstract positions, which grew not of merit, but of popularity and name. The young men were equally foolish, something that may be forgivable in such youth, but nonetheless foolish for not picking the bones of yesterday clean.
With the radicals isolated, they offered little effective resistance, easily explained away by mental illness and lifestyle irregularities. With no brothers to recognize their absence, those who feared a solitary death instead found a solitary life in a dark cell at the hands of the state. How easy it was for so few assets to rip apart the future fabric of the guard through manipulation or transaction.
The most cowardly of all stayed in their echo chambers, spiraling for years with little effect. They were certain their message was heard, one that aligned with the old guard, but was even more shallow in practice.
They yelled.
They posted.
They reassured each other.
What a busy echo chamber it was, one that simply could not be bothered to recognize the very nature of the space in which they inhabited. They became nothing more than those lone violent men who lived in forced solitude, eating up even fewer resources of the state than the men who had been physically captured, but nonetheless incessantly babbling to oneself.
And so, the old guard crawled on, trampling above the graves of the capable few who had been selected by nature to carry on. Each year, fewer and fewer footprints were left, all as hope rose and arrogance soared.
What a useful tool the old guard had been.
Jake LeoneRead More
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