Wyatt, Richard

by Fathers of Myth

  “You mean you threatened him too?” I ask. He halfway ignores my question and continues on with his explanation.

  “Yes, of course. Don’t you see, Mr. Brooks, how clever it was?

  We don’t want the truth about our origin or our tragic mistake to be known or remembered, so we craft a clever theory such as evolution. After a couple hundred years of promotion, almost everyone on Earth has accepted it as the true explanation of the past, without question. Yes, I think we have done well at keeping our existence a secret.”

  “Why would you want your existence kept a secret? I asked you that before, but you never did answer me. And what do you mean by ‘Fathers of Myth’?” I challenge him.

  “In the world we come from, failure is not acceptable. There is no room for mistakes. Failure is dealt with quickly and harshly.

  Although we were not at fault for causing the disaster that had happened, we were chosen to pay for the failure of the experiment. We were sentenced to the most humiliating punishment possible. We were marooned on Earth for 7,000 years. We only have about 1000 years left to serve out that sentence.”

  “That was bad enough of course, but the hard part was the added stipulation to our sentence.

  “What stipulation?” I ask.

  “Our government authority added the stipulation that we couldn’t allow the people of Earth to know who was responsible for what had happened. During our 7,000 years of our exiled reformatory, we were also ordered to erase all memory of our failure. In the eyes of our governing body, the reputation of our world was at stake. The prime objective was and is to save face at all cost.”

  “You would think that if someone was responsible for causing a cataclysmic global flood, people would remember who the culprit was. How in the world could you make them forget something like that?” I ask.

  “Time, Mr. Brooks, little by little over time.”

  “Oh yeah,” I chime back. “You guys must be good, ‘cause it looks like you got everybody fooled. And it only took you 6,000 years too. How did you accomplish such a feat?” I ask him whimsically.

  “Like I said, Mr. Brooks. Out of necessity we became Fathers of Myth,” he replies rather enigmatically.

  “Oh yes, you mentioned that before. How exactly did you and your associates become Fathers of Myth?”

  “We have found that the best way to make people forget or change their perception of reality is to distract them.”

  “Distract them?”

  “Yes. We created myths to keep people distracted.”

  “What kind of myths are we talking about?”

  “You mean, besides creating the legends of the dinosaurs, evolution and the flood?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Whatever it takes to keep people busy or distracted, so that they spend less time searching for the truth, or even knowing what the truth is. Disasters, crimes, mysteries, even wars. Anything that would keep people busy at being mystified, distraught, troubled, frenzied or panicked.

  “My associates and I have been very successful at creating and using politics, big business and the world of different religions’ beliefs as wonderful tools to keep mankind confused, oppressed, and distracted.” He seems to be well pleased with himself.

  “We even created hundreds of different languages, so that people of the Earth would have a harder time communicating.”

  “Changed languages? Why in the world would you need to change languages?”

  “If you can’t talk to other people, you can’t find out what they know. Besides that, you spend more time being suspicious of people that talk differently than you, rather than being concerned about what they might have to say. That effort of deceit alone has worked very well for us over the last few thousand years.”

  “How in the world did you pull that off?” I ask.

  “Well, it was relatively easy really. Before the flood, there was only one language on the Earth at that time. After the flood, people were isolated by the great oceans into different parts of the world. They were also hungry and destitute. We simply went to each pyramid station that was still in working order and offered food and clothing to the people in need. In order for them to receive the food and clothing, we required them to be re-educated.

  “At first, we created simple dialects of our own language. In time, they spoke complete different languages.

  After a couple of thousand years, people were not only isolated from each other because of the great oceans that were created by the flood, but now they also all spoke different languages.”

  Having a little more strength now, he reaches over on his own and grabs the beer bottle containing rainwater. He tips it up and chugs a few gulps of water from the bottle. He wipes his chin with his wrist and continues.

  “Inadvertently, we are also responsible for the many races of people now living on the Earth. Because people were so isolated by the oceans created by the flood, each isolated group interbred within the confines of their isolated group.

  After a few hundred years or so, each group took on the dominant physical feature traits of that group, until you have the races of today. It is not something we really set out to accomplish, but the way it worked out compliments our overall purpose, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You call it re-educating. I call it cold-hearted bribery, forcing hungry and half dead people to learn a different language in order to eat and live.

  “Sounds like the reason you and your companions are so good at what you do is because you are all just a bunch of ghouls, Mr. Ra; a bunch of freaking monsters.”

  “I know on the surface it may look like that, Mr. Brooks, but you don’t understand.”

  “I know that it sounds sick and depraved.”

  “I have family at home Mr. Brooks, Just like you do,” he argues, raising himself up erect to a sitting position with both arms, in an emotional gesture of protest.

  “I would very much like to see them once again. To do that, I have got to make sure I follow all of the stipulations to our sentence.

  “My companions and I cannot allow the public to know what really happened or who we really are. We cannot afford to let anyone find out the truth; otherwise we will never see our home or our loved ones again. You can understand that, can’t you Mr. Brooks?” he implores.

  “Yeah I understand, and it makes me sick to my stomach.” I am infested with contempt.

  §

  THIRTY

  Suddenly, we hear the sound of tapping from outside. I turn around quickly in response to the noise. I listen closely for the noise to sound once again. “Tap tap…. Tap tap,” the sound echoes.

  “Hello?” I yell out. “Hello?”

  “Hello?” We are going to get you out of there as soon as possible, OK?” A faint voice, barely audible, calls back.

  “OK!” I answer back.

  “How many are there? Is everyone OK?” the muffled voice says. I am so excited that I jump to my feet.

  “Yes, I’m all right, but the other guy here needs a doctor,” I holler at the top of my lungs.

  “OK. We have an ambulance standing by. Hang in there. We’ll try and get you out as soon as possible. The building is in a pretty bad shape. It might take a couple hours or so. Just relax and save your strength,” the faint voice says consolingly.

  I clap my hands together and twirl halfway around, which immediately reminds me of the physical shape I am in. Every joint in my body revolts in pain to my sudden free movement. I decide to take the man’s advice and relax and save my strength.

  Stepping back to where I was sitting, alongside my would-be assassin, I notice he too is excited by the sound of our rescue and has attempted to get up. Now he was paying dearly for his movement, his face contorted with torturous pain.

  I help him move slowly and painfully back into his reclining posture.

  “You had better stay still or your leg is going to start bleeding again.”

  I fill up the beer bottle once again with rainwater and
allow him to drink his fill. The room is very dark, and the cold from the dampness is getting harder and harder to ignore. After awhile, he calms from his pain and seems to be resting as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

  “It looks like we’re going to get out of here pretty soon. We just got to hang on a little while longer,” I try to sound sympathetic.

  “Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Thank you.”

  “So, you and your buddies have been spending the last 6,000 years manipulating people, creating myths and distracting all of us humans here on the Earth, huh?” I continue with our previous conversation.

  “Does that have anything to do with the reason I keep running into you everywhere I go and seeing you in all kinds of photos throughout history?

  “It seems like I have seen your face in photographs all through history, well, at least ever since the camera was invented. I’ve seen you in an old newspaper clipping about the Hindenburg disaster. I found you in an old newspaper photo, present and posing at one of Jack the Ripper’s murder scenes in England.

  “I’ve also stumbled upon several photos of you taken during the First and Second World Wars and even the Civil War. One photo I found from 1933 shows you receiving an award for creating the new symbol of the Nazi party, the Swastika, from Hitler himself. The caption underneath that old photo said, that your name was Hermann Whilhem Goering. It called you a high Nazi official.”

  “Even my father says that he saw you many years ago, the day, time, and place President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.”

  “Very good, Mr. Brooks. I think I have underestimated you.” He nods his head and smiles slightly.

  “Oh yeah; and another thing,” I continue.

  “I had a nice little visit with Charles Lindbergh’s daughter. She was very helpful. She showed me a photo from 1938 of her father, Charles Lindbergh, being presented with a German Medal of Honor. The official presenter of the medal again was you, Hermann Whilhem Goering, a high Nazi official.”

  “Go ahead Mr. Brooks. Tell me more. I am very impressed.”

  “Mrs. Lindbergh also told me all about what really happened to her father and to the kidnapped and murdered brother she never knew. You remember the Lindbergh baby story, don’t you? It was in all the papers.”

  “Oh yes Mr. Brooks. I was there!”

  “Lindbergh was just another poor victim that knew too much, wasn’t he?”

  “You see now Mr. Brooks, you do know a lot about me and my companions don’t you?” He smirks.

  “Yeah I know! I know the real truth about Lindbergh’s son. I know the real reason why Lindbergh’s son was killed and that the wrong man was executed for his so-called kidnapping and murder. I know that you and your so-called companions are the ones that kidnapped and killed Charles Lindbergh’s son, because in your eyes, Lindbergh knew too much but wouldn’t give in to your threats.”

  “Yes, Mr. Brooks; Charles Lindbergh knew too much.”

  “I also know the truth about the Challenger shuttle disaster; that it was you that shot down and destroyed the Challenger Space Shuttle, and that you killed Riker because he knew you were guilty for doing it. You and your partners are nothing more than history-traveling murders and assassins.”

  With one emotional explosion, I have exposed the sum total of my insight and understanding of him. I have confessed my knowledge of his existence. I have confirmed and handed over to him, profound reasons for my own assassination and elimination, he had already presumed.

  Once again, our attention is drawn away from our conversation to a muffled tapping and machine noise from the outside of this dilapidated building. Even though the rescuers must be only forty or fifty feet away on the outside, the muffled sound makes them seem as though they are a mile away from us.

  Since our rescue may be only an hour or so away, the time left to learn the complete truth about this wounded juggernaut is fleeting fast. Now, is the time to discover what this creature’s existence means, to perhaps unearth mankind’s long hidden secrets, and to possibly uncover the real history of the Earth itself. Now is the time that I must incite him to divulge his hidden revelation.

  “So tell me. What is with that hat and long heavy coat you always wear? Every time I run into you, you are wearing a hat and a long heavy coat.”

  “Earth is not our home Mr. Brooks. Our home is much, much warmer than the Earth. So we wear our hat and coat to keep us warm.

  “What about your bare feet? You wear a hat and long heavy coat to keep warm, but you have bare feet. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I notice that you do not wear any gloves Mr. Brooks?”

  “Gloves? No I don’t wear gloves; not unless it is really freezing anyway. Why?”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “I guess because they get in the way, especially when I am working. What do my, not wearing gloves, have to do with you always walking around in your bare feet?” I shoot back impatiently.

  “We look at our feet much the same way you look at your hands; as the tools of our body. They are always uncovered unless they need protection from the elements.”

  Ok then; I shake my head in disbelief. “I can see that we are not going to get anywhere with that. Let me ask a different question.

  How exactly have you and your friends manipulated things for 6,000 years, so that people aren’t aware of your existence?”

  He looks up at me, purses his lips together and lowers his brow in deep thought for a moment, then speaks.

  “Like I said, you have helped me in a time of need and most probably saved my life, so I am going to tell you the truth.” Pushing himself up with his arms, he adjusts himself on the floor before he continues.

  “I didn’t just happen to be there that day at the Portland airport. I was assigned to contrive another spectacular airline crash; another crash that would kill hundreds of people,” he is solemn.

  “I know you explained to me that you and your companions are doing all of this to keep your existence a secret. You’re doing it all so that some day you can go home to your family. Still, how is it that you can just kill hundreds of people without feeling a thing?” He looks at me sharply in reaction to my words.

  “We do not kill without feelings or compassion, Mr. Brooks.” He pauses.

  “Nowadays it has been getting harder and harder to follow through with my assignments. In the past I would plan my actions and maneuvers of destruction, so by the time things happened, I would be long gone. Lately, I find myself sticking around to see the results of the disasters I plan and accomplish. Each time I create another myth, another disaster, or another death, I die a little bit myself. I must be getting old, old and weary.

  “Yes, my companions and I must do what it takes to survive, so that one day we can go home. We are not without feelings, I assure you. It is getting harder and harder to watch others pay for our trip home with their lives.”

  “Yes, I can understand that being responsible for thousands of peoples’ deaths could burden a person down.”

  “Yes, it is indeed a large burden to bear. Of course, there are airplane crashes and disasters that happen without our help, but the ones that you remember, the big ones, we have been responsible for.

  For example, the Boeing 747 that blew up and crashed in Lockerbie Scotland. 259 people perished in that crash plus eleven villagers on the ground. I assure you, Mr. Brooks that was a very big burden to bear.”

  “I thought that plane was blown up by some terrorist from Libya,”

  “It was very confusing wasn’t it? But like I’ve said, we are good at making a mystery.”

  “Yeah, you’re good at it all right.”

  “Remember the time you found me in the middle of the woods dressed like a Forest Ranger?’

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I believe you had been sent by your paper to see if there was any truth to the Bigfoot sightings that had been reported.

  “Well Mr. Brooks, I have been in charge of promoting that myth for
years and years.”

  “What myth? You mean Bigfoot?” I ask

  “Oh yes. Some of my companions and I have been parading the Pacific Northwest for years pretending to be Bigfoot, running around leaving footprints and such. A couple of hundred years ago Indians called us Sasquatch.”

  “You are the ones that are behind the Bigfoot myth?” I ask.

  “Yes. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster of Scotland, Yeti and the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, not to mention a hundred other similar myths and mishaps we have fabricated. They are just some small ways to divert people’s attention away from what’s really going on.”

  “Why were you dressed up in a Forest Service Ranger’s uniform?”

  “I stole it. I dressed up in that uniform to hide the real reason I was up there in those woods. You see, if you’re a person of respectability, like a Forest Ranger, no one is going to suspect you of being responsible for a hoax. You see how clever that was.”

  “Oh yes. That was clever,” I roll my eyes a little. “Tell me, what other myths and mishaps are you responsible for?”

  “Well, let’s see. How about flying saucers? Have you ever seen a flying saucer, a UFO?”

  “Well no, not personally, but a lot of people say that they have.”

  “We’re the ones that created the UFO phenomena. Of course there is the occasional insane person that thinks they have seen something from outer space, but for the most part, my friends and I have crafted that myth.”

  “You mean that those sightings are real?”

  “I guess you could say that they are real. When people see a UFO, they are usually sighting one of my companions in one of our Orbital Maneuvering Vehicles. We aren’t exactly from this world; so yes, I guess you could say UFOs are real.”

  “Tell me about the wars; the photos I found of you, of you in the Civil War and the two World Wars.”

  “Wars have been one of the best tools that we have come up with to distract large groups of people at one time. About 150 years ago, we maneuvered things a bit to get the Civil War going. Nationalism and hatred are good igniters of war. It works very well indeed.