American Rites

Trust me when I say that nobody would want to leave their six million dollar condo, if they had one, to catch a flight to a yearly business ritual in the midwest. My ride to the airport arrives right on time, but not early. It’s a brand new Hummer limousine like I demanded, although the exterior could use a wash and a wax. The driver welcomes me and opens the door for me, as he should. He was smiling, but I could tell that he wasn’t really happy with his job. It wasn’t so much his mouth that gave it away, but his eyes were sad. He really should work on that.

Inside the limousine was pristine, like it had never been stepped in. The smell is a cherry scent. I hate cherries. When I’m in a vehicle I don’t want to smell fruit. I want a new vehicle smell. The driver asks me how my day is. I roll the partition up.

Some have accused me of hating people below my socioeconomic level. How can I hate people I don’t even know? The truth is that life is a competition. Money is how humans measure success. Just like any other animal, if a human can’t achieve success in its environment it dies, and doesn’t get to mate. I don’t hate anyone, I’m just better than most.

Traffic is fully congested, barely moving at all. If the streets were the veins of a person, they would have been dead ten minutes ago. The driver manages to find a way out of the clogged artery and uses some alternative routes to somehow get us to our destination on time, not early though.

When I get to my private jet the runway is blocked by a bunch of hipster eco terrorists with signs blaming the weather on me. If I could control the weather I would wash them away. I think about spitting on the self described activists, but decide they’re not worth the spit. If only we could put these animals down. The world would be a better place.

Trust me, if you could take a private plane for every trip you would, anyone would. My baby is a Bombardier Global 7500, and don’t get me wrong I love her, but I’ve been eyeing the Gulfstream G650ER lately. Maybe I’m just a two plane man. Some people need two cars, maybe I need two jets. We’ll see.

The pilot assures me that the flight will be smooth and we’ll still arrive on time, even if we depart a little late. She needs a haircut and I’m not as confident in her abilities as she appears to be.

We depart on time and arrive early. The flight takes two hours and fifty five minutes… too long. Scientists need to invent faster ways to travel, it’s insane. While on the flight I was alone with my thoughts and I couldn’t help but to fantasize about my father dying. He would die instantly in the fantasies, I only want the inheritance, I’m not a monster. What am I supposed to do? Father refuses to retire. At my age he was already on the top ten list because he received his inheritance. One day I'll not only get on the list, I’ll top it. I’ll do whatever it takes, even if it comes to planning an early retirement for Father.

The driver picking me up from the airport arrives early in last year's Range Rover, even though I specified that I needed the newest model. The drive to the venue sucks obviously, it’s the midwest. Nothing to see in the bible belt except corn, industry, and billboards.

When entering the auditorium I couldn’t help but notice the decor isn't as good as it was last year. Yes there’s chandeliers, gold, silver, silk, and crystal everywhere, but that’s what it is every year. It’s like the party planners are stuck in what they think is their golden age, but it’s tiring.

The other attendees of this event are the worst part of it; ancient old money billionaires, lucky young know-it-all billionaires, and the powerful politicians we lobby, six out of the nine supreme court members being among them. You can guess which six. Heavily armed security is also everywhere to protect us from the peasants. Father sees me first and grabs me by the arm to catch my attention. I hate when he does that and he knows it.

We sit at the tables closest to the stage, although I heavily suspect our table is about an inch farther than the rest of the front row tables. The opening ceremony is a mix of intricate dance and acrobats using sheets to swing around the room. All of the entertainers are wearing masks of various animals, only taking them off briefly to blow fire. The whole thing is quite cliche and overall unenjoyable.

None other than Chef Gordan Ramsay cooks our dinner. Chef Ramsay announces our meal, “Tonight's dish is tomato consomme with golden caviare from albino sturgeon, mosaic of chicken and ham knuckle, roasted slice of sea bass on crushed new potatoes with white asparagus in a red wine sauce, and treacle tart. Enjoy.” The food is decent. The desert is meh. The champagne is a degree off in temperature. Honestly though, I prefer Chef Guy Fieri, he’s more fun.

First item on the agenda, a seminar on the importance of the continual stoking of culture wars. Without them a class war may start and that would be good for nobody, especially the plebians. A few good points are made, overall though the presentation was too lengthy. Robots can’t replace the workforce soon enough for me. It’ll be a great day when I no longer need any simpletons to run my operations.

Second item on the agenda, kick back, and laugh. All work and no play makes everyone miserable so the event always has entertainers. Millionaires entertaining billionaires. Generally there are two comedy acts and then two musical acts every year. The first act is Rob Schneider. Rob is here almost every year. He’s an idiot, but a useful mouthpiece. Rumor has it he never would have gotten the gig if it wasn’t for Adam Sandler. The second act is Dave Chappelle. Now Dave knows how to pander to my sensibilities. If only he wasn’t so self important. If Dave was so smart, he’d be sitting in the audience, not on the stage.

Third is price setting time. Basically billionaires of the same industries get together to see how much more they can squeeze the market for what they’re selling. Simple and where the most important deals in America take place.

Fourth, kick back, and listen to music. The first act is Ed Sheeran. Not a fan. He’s a cry baby sad boy with a punchable face. The final act is none other than Taylor Swift. No complaints, she’s an absolute goddess and I love her.

Finally, the night wouldn’t be complete without patting ourselves on the back. The top ten most wealthy awards are given out, with each person getting a standing ovation. The rising rockefeller award is for a quickly rising billionaire, usually one of our children all grown up. This year an extra category is added to award the six supreme court members in attendance. They earned it.

Oh shit I forgot about the closing ceremony. Basically it’s a variation of the opening, except they end it with spitting blood. Exceptionally disgusting and a waste of my time.

After business has concluded its party time. Party time is when the celebrities, performers, cable news anchors, models, whores, and drugs come out to play. Personally I’ve never understood the appeal of celebrities and performers. Why should I care about people that aren’t as important as me? Nobody wants to hang out with the anchors. This year I can’t even tell the difference between the models and the whores, not like there is much of one in the first place. Maybe after a few rails of coke I’ll get one and see if they can get me hard. Speaking of which.

After snorting the fattest line of my life something happens. The security evacuates themselves and locks everyone else inside. They refuse to listen to any of us, even after we guarantee that their entire families will suffer, even after we offer more money! It’s like the only thing they wanted was to get out of there. To get away from something.

Suddenly, the music stops, the performers stop, everyone stops, and looks at a person that enters the room with something behind them. The Something the guards were clearly trying to avoid. The Something that towers floats behind and above the person as they grab a mic on the stage. The Something has a human form, with hooves as feet, four wings, four arms, and four heads (Human, Ox, Eagle, and Lion). Feathers, fur, skin, and eyeballs cover The Something, along with an unnatural golden light.

The Person speaks, “Some of you want to stop looking at us, but can’t. Some of you will need to move, but can’t. Some of you want to speak up for yourselves, but can't.” He wasn’t lying either. I couldn't even blink.

The Person continues, “You’re going to be made to listen for the first time in your lives to someone who makes less money than you.” After they said that I couldn’t even think anymore, all I could do was listen.

“Year after year you people have this ritual to celebrate and plan the bleeding of ninety nine point five percent of this country. You people throw away an average month of rent on dinner, a few months of rent on a bottle of wine, six months of rent on a night out, the value of an average car on an outfit, and the value of an average house for a car. Then you have the gull to tell the rest of the nation how to spend their small amount of pocket change. You blame the average person for plastic waste problems, gaslight the public into believing recycling plastic is an option, knowing it wasn’t, while refusing to make or use alternatives while making record breaking profits. You refuse to stop dumping in the water and polluting the air while you, again, blame the public for their quality. Tell them to stay indoors, while making it impossible to buy or rent an indoors. If they can barely afford a home, raise the property taxes. Tell them to buy the water purifier or the water you’re selling in plastic. Telling them to turn down their air conditioners in the record heats that you’re causing, and refusing to address while profiting off of the high electricity bills. Tell them to eat healthy while giving subsidies to sugar and corn. When the public inevitably ends up diabetic you sell them the insulin at record high prices. Extra fuck the people who are born with diabetes right? During the pandemic you raised prices on food arbitrarily to get record high profits. You people make prisons for profit, criminalize drugs that you do yourself, give out long sentences for minor offenses to people in poor communities with no job opportunities, and a family to feed. Not only are you profiting off of the number of heads in the prison system, but you’ve made it legal to force prisoners into labor. Only people with money can defend themselves fairly in our justice system, the rest become slaves. It’s why we have more prisoners than anywhere else in the world, profit. But what happens when the average person can’t afford to have children anymore? Do you let up? No! You make non-child producing couples the enemy, while indulging in them yourselves. You ban abortions, you try to ban birth control, and you try to ban teaching people about sex. You hide behind the title of pro life while giving no support to children or babies out of the womb. When a child turns eighteen in the system they’re thrown out on their birthday. Either they’re homeless or join the military. A military you people also make record breaking profits off of. You spend our money on million dollar vehicles we never use, weapons, and equipment that’s destroyed every year so the military can get another budget boost while the soldiers it depends on are abandoned when they’re no longer of use. You people then pay your stooges to spout propaganda for the rich disguised as news. A talking head to piss off every kind of personality. You people are scared of a class war, so you divide and conquer with lies. To sum up my ted talk, wealth hoarding is the cause of most of our problems in the United States, and you people are the wealthy. We the people are tired of your shit and we demand a break from you soft handed assholes. You people hide behind a corrupt justice system. When a governing body becomes corrupt, the people must overthrow it peacefully. I’m just kidding. A peaceful revolution has never happened, not once. This system that you people have built and thrive in is a pyramid scheme, a funnel to the top. Tonight’s event is your people’s ritual to keep the rest of us down. Behind me, is what the people you consider beneath yourselves have summoned with their ritual. Your kind needs to be reminded about history and how it repeats itself. Not all of you will die tonight, inheritors be warned though, this thing will be back one day for the richest and most powerful. Remember, you pushed us to this and may you all burn in hell.”

The Person turns around to address The Something, “I’m ready to complete my part of the ceremony and our bargain. Free the people.”

The Person is beaten by an invisible force until they can no longer stand. The Man’s bones break on their own. The Man is reduced to a pile of broken bones and ripped flesh, but is still breathing or more accurately wheezing. Cavities the size of coins explode throughout what remains of The Person. We regain control of our bodies, but are too shocked to move.

The Something turns its heads to the cable news anchors and they follow the fate of The Person. Turned into a pile of mush. That’s when hell started and I’m not ashamed to admit that I hid. I didn’t see any more horror, but I heard everything. Sometimes hearing can be worse than seeing.

The mass murder that night still shocks and mystifies anyone that investigates the slaughter to this day. No one can explain how anything could do the things it did to those people. Politicians choked to death on nothing, some of them starved as if they hadn't eaten in a month, some ballooned like the kid from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory until they popped, and the rest died of various late stage cancers. The wealthy died from heat exhaustion and severe exposure to the elements. Some of the wealthy survived like me, but not without broken fingers, backs, and necks. Two justices died from liver failure, two from pancreas failure, and two of the justices died from childbirth even though they weren’t pregnant. The still births they produced were otherworldly.

Most survivors were the servants paid to be there. Many ended up committing suicide and overdosing on drugs due to what they saw.

After the slaughter, messages were written in blood all over the room; Tax The Rich, Lobbying is Bribery, Term Limits for Justices, Criminalize Lobbying, End Gerrymandering, Healthcare for All, Raise the Minimum Wage, Bring Back Pensions, Protect Unions, End Qualified Immunity, Reform the Police, Forgive Student Debt,, Decriminalize Addiction, End Private Prisons, Get Harsh on White Collar Crime, were some of them.

That day I became the richest man there ever was. That month I made sure I wasn’t in the top fifty, scrapped my jet, and became an advocate for the bloody causes on the wall. Now do you understand why we can’t take too much?