“Instinctual rebellion against institutions,” the haggard-looking man projected from upon a make-shift soap box that objectively looked as tattered and hastily assembled as he. “It’s a force in all of us and you can trust that, once you’ve been scorned by the powers that be, you will resent the present and everything that led to it. Let it be said that the machine cannot run without working cogs and regrettably we live on a planet with nearly infinite spare, replacement parts,” thick spit trailed his words and dribbled down his chin, adorning the unkempt beard, much like spring dew on a spiderweb, though the beauty of the latter is absent in the grime of the former.

Worn galoshes were speckled with holes and through those holes, one could see the man’s toes curl with each emotionally charged exclamation while his nicotine-stained eyebrows fell back down to rest. These public proclamations really took their toll on the soiled preacher but they were an integral part of his creature.

Tongue lashing wildly, rolling screams and growls escape the girl’s mouth. She is being held down by a man she knows as Father while he conjures up a plan of action. The only absolute truth he knows is there’s no going back to the way things were. Her two slender and still-forming arms are suspended above her head in one of his hands while the other struggles to muffle her mouth through a flurry of gnashing teeth and piercing screams. He pins her chest and legs down with his own lower extremities. The girl’s eight-year-old body convulses with panic in response to being forcibly detained while her Dad searches his mind for a way to keep her contained without having to bring her unnecessary pain.

After the canary poncho prophet stepped off his pop up box, one of the onlookers rushed to him, begging for answers, for which they offered a 40 oz. plastic bottle of Mickey’s Malt Liquor. “Now, you see? That right there is the problem,” the man replied and added hastily, “but I’ll tell you why for the beer.”

He thought to himself ‘Enticed by my Vices to give Advice’ while his hand was filled with the booze asking price.

“See, the thing is, you want AN answer. ONE way. A concrete set of objective truths that you wanna form an entirely subjective existence from. You are fundamentally limiting your potential by trying to fit someone else’s foundation rather than to form your own,” the sewage sage sipped at his wage and then wiped the foam from his pale yellow-tinged whiskers before continuing, “caught up in the confines of convention, we limit not only ourselves but innovation, invention. The variety of perspectives shrinks through globalization and the centralization of information that is controlled by those that know. The very same things have driven the population growth sky-high. As far as humanity is concerned, the media that is commonly seen by the general populace is primarily geared around the same fears and ideals, thus injecting information into the minds of those that have no practical use for it. Worse, it is at their detriment. Mortals are mistaken for deities by mortals trying believe in something, where there’s nothing, and they’re rushing to their graves to be heaven-saved. We have developed into something far more alien to the natural order of the world than any UFO passengers from another planet.”

“Baby, baby, listen to me. LISTEN TO ME!” he says as he bounces up and down on top of her. “I know you’re scared but soon you’ll be free,” he consoles her as soon as she takes a breather from screaming her lungs out. After a moment’s rest, a shrill sound came from her mouth and she then followed, “Daddy!” dripping with doubt and despair. He looks into her eyes and he dares not care.

“DADDY! DADDY! IT HURTS! DADDY STOOO—“ her voice breaks and her words rest in the air, unfinished as he pinches her tongue and pulls it taut out of her mouth. Her bloodshot eyes that overflowed with tears suddenly opened wide and exposed all her fears. The Father moves his body like a shuffling ape, his legs shifting up his Daughter’s body to replace the vital restraints as he holds her tongue just the same. Her legs are free but she is in too much pain to see the opportunity she has gained, so she stays restrained while her Dad continues. Again, the beer-soaked bard took a break to imbibe on his precious ice cold beverage.

“Truth is, the truth is so convoluted culturally, socially, economically, morally, ethically, technologically, militarily, etcetera, that we have overwritten our natural animal instincts in favor of an unnatural utopian dream that has us checking our true selves at the door and forsaking our naturally occurring abilities in order to further automatize any and all industries. And we do this without thinking now, because from birth the earth is a separate entity rather than something in which we seek and require unity. Humans have paved the way to a lifestyle of sedentary contentedness with little to no conflict, unless it’s wanted, while the wild things continue to develop and hone their skills for survival. So long as you do what you’re told and keep feeding the machine it’s entirely possible that the worst thing to happen in your life could just be a bad dream. The animal kingdom follows a set of rules that our institutions seek to replace, and have replaced, in the universe’s dealings with us humans, and I believe that’s likely to be our undoing. What’s a body to do but spread the word and suppress the urge to snap? Maybe I’m here to bring the problem to light and somebody else is imbued with the answers to fight the cancer. All’s I know for certain is that I found a purpose sharing my words and every time I try to stop, my brain turns off conscious thought and turns my body into its prop. Anyways, for today, that will be all, as the alcohol is gone and so is my resolve,” eyes with as many blues as the sky just before the sun sinks scan the scoundrels and acknowledge his fellow kin in socially shunned insanity. A new purpose electrified them, individually and collectively.

Moving himself to the position he has, he’s gained the use of an extra hand, so he reaches back to his pants pocket and pulls out a steel contraption. His combination knife, a swiss-made army blade, meticulously sharpened, though not necessarily for this harvest, also holds a variety of tools that have seldom proven useful. Pulling the exact metal tab he needs from the stack using his teeth, he clenches down so hard he cracks the ones used to eat apples while the utility cutter rests unmoved in the handle.

“Shit!” his breath is labored and senses heightened by adrenaline rushing angrily through his system. Despite the broken frown, he continues to hold his daughter down and her outstretched tongue in his hand. Through rambunctious squirms beneath, the Dad fiddles for a minute to free the blade that ruined his visage. Once he unsheathes the piece, the previously apathetic face can hardly contain the bloodlust as it rushes through his veins, illuminating his eyes brightly enough to blind, causing his clenched hand to tighten and knuckles to turn white.

A brown paper cigarette that had been re-lit 5 times despite never leaving the man’s chapped mouth had a great ash tree that was finally felled by an unfortunate gust, and its dust crusted the musty mane. No matter, he didn’t notice, and likely wouldn’t give a shit anyways. It overwrote the smoke stains and brought out the natural salt-and-pepper that had been there once. His spectrum-blue eyes sit far in the back of his head which makes them appear like individual wormholes of wisdom to the innocent, penetrating predatory pools to the guilty, and to all they drew a gasp if he gazed into theirs. His skin, hardened by life as a ramblin’ man, was cracked like the earth in a desert in the midst of a particularly heinous drought while his hair looked like the dead yellow grasses sprouting out of the sandy ground. Rather than ratty, however, the combination of worn qualities gave his face the necessary intensity and severity to truly appear as one that had seen more of the obscene than the sane. He liked it that way.

“Alright, my friends, I am finished for the day. My throat grows raw and dry and my drink has run out. Take what you can from my words and spread it about, for the responsibility rests with us and we must sow the seeds of truth. You will find much of the dirt to be dry, but some fertile soil still exists on this earth. Meeting adjourned,” the miscreant messiah’s voice was both gravelly and smooth, pitched high and low, alluring in ways that listeners could never know because it was never quite the same. With his mouth shut, he appeared no more noble than a common beggar to the cultural eye, which is why he had an easy time realizing what was inside most folks, and to him, why it was fine.

A dirt-encrusted mask is typically more honest than any splattered with cosmetics and sponsored by corporate brands, and, the man felt those that were afflicted by a materialistic mind were just as disposable as their monthly cycle of fads. Copied and pasted from a set inventory of styles, the lack of ingenuity drove him wild. And that’s when he decided to go gutter.

“This is for the greater good, baby. You are the martyr that will make the people learn. My sacrifice is nothing compared to yours, though your duty will be fulfilled after this hurt. I have just begun to give. After today we are going to change things, it’s gonna be big,” Father’s voice grew prophetic, “I’m now going to remove your tongue from your face.” He lowers the arm wielding the sharp metal, sighing a little as though he were cutting a rose from its stalk, and he licks his lips like a hungry dog in the kennel. The first gash passes fast but the sawing technique he uses has nothing going for it past that. He yanks at her muscle with one hand, the other oscillates back and forth along a painfully jagged course. Daughter’s eyes have not closed their panic ridden lids since Father brought a knife into this; even as he operates they don’t wince or blink.

As he reaches the quarter-way mark after about fifteen cuts, her ability to swallow the blood is overshadowed by the pace at which it drains from the organic spout, but he continues to slice about. Daughter begins to convulse as her airwaves flood with coagulated blood, her fight is heightened while her instincts take flight. After what Dad feels is an appropriate time for her to suffer and he feels he can no longer cut her and have her recover, he turns her on her side so she can retake control of her air ways and he can retreat to the workings of his mind. The most important thing here is that she does not die, he decides, because he can use her, though he doesn’t know why.

The assembly of deemed disheveled deviants slowly dispersed; a dull hum of the hushed musings and conjectures they pulled from the day’s sermon of the sewer was all that remained outside of the desire for more. Miscreants, vagrants, street-living scum, bejeweled with the wealth of the metropolis’ waste, tattered rags and mis-matched everything made them fade into the city’s background as ghosts of productive members of society. These folks, the gutter rats, the unclean, the bad, took advantage of their compost camouflage to uphold their posts as the sentinels of both the city’s invisible forces, the unseen underground, as well as the surface workings. Despite their destitution, they sure did play their part in the growing revolution. Snakes and spiders are typically left alone, however these snakes and spiders had 206 bones. Mostly.

The city streets were alight and animated and atop one of the numerous skyscrapers, the avenues and boulevards could have been mistaken for a live ant colony crawling all over itself, cutting itself off almost constantly and spilling over itself relentlessly. The wetness of the sidewalks and roads enhanced the insect impression as the lights were reflected, creating the illusion that the human citizens were instead carapace-laden insects. Aside from the visual differences, though, many of the folks below held a striking similarity to the hive-mind mentality most commonly occurring in ant colonies and honey-bee dwellings. Unfortunately for these folks that further the future, their willing participation will be their damnation as any that are fully immersed have succumbed to the human curse. To the legion of less-than-desirables, the accrued knowledge of the tragedy that is to be cannot be unseen. So they band together, brothers and sisters, as a team trained in tragedy and misery, and they meet to talk of their mutual burden of thought, the irreconcilable discovery of the net in which they were contained in. And then they return to the soup kitchens and subway stops to stew alone in swirls of alienating thoughts. Since the man came around, articulated, and accrued an audience, suddenly these sorry souls became connected by the very insanity that kept them removed from humanity; a word used to define the deconstruction of identity constructs in favor of a more socially controlled form.

She retches over the side of the bed and her body shakes with cries though no sounds escape, instead the moist splatter of the blood and bile coating the ground fills cavernous basement room. Daughter gasps for air when the opportunity arises but the broken blood vessels in her eyes indicate that is not nearly often enough. Father just sits next to her, not touching her, not looking at her; he calmly waits for her to stop vomiting so he can finish the job.

His thoughts turn to the impending need for an explanation in regards to her disappearance. His ex, the mother to this child, has been away for awhile, tucked tightly in a crate buried beneath the compost pile. An opportunity to file a report and claim seeing the child’s mother kidnapping their daughter away sometime during the day while she was outside at play was suddenly on his plate. It was getting a bit hairy there for a minute, policemen all up in his shit, blaming him for her disappearance. Luckily for him they never found corroborative evidence and because his wife was such a mess they dismissed any further investigation.

A number of minutes pass and so does the last blast of projectile blood and puke while the Dad solidifies his plan and then he stands. “Alright baby, now I’m gonna finish what I started. I know it hurts, I know it’s hard, but I know in my heart it’s right, I have since we embarked on this messy endeavor,” the sadistic pleasure in his voice is masked by the pulsating pain in her ears, distracting her from her captor. She complies when he moves her limbs, barely hanging to consciousness, and he pries her jaws apart to pull her tongue out.

This day’s meeting was held in a vacant alley with only one light deep in the darkness that was perfectly concealed for their purposes. Any typical citizen would skip that alley for fear of being robbed or beaten badly because they’re taught from a young age to avoid any risks. Risk assessment is critical thought but the name implies inherent fear, a risk that someone who ‘has it all’ or even is convinced they achieved the capitalistic American dream would intelligently be unwilling to take. Though when the stake is a healthy lake, the choice is easy to make. In the pursuit of profit the entire ecosystem will break, and on that day everything will change.

Luckily for the revolutionaries, this common opinion is what helps keep them separated from the races of the Nguyen’s, Smith’s, and Jones’. Even if someone infiltrated with evil intentions, they would pass up the lick on these husks of depression due to their lack of possessions. If only they knew the value of questions. The best loot comes from the ants who primarily identify with products rather than the products of their identity. Once the compost crew picked up on this, operations became simple. Worker ants and ants that work are not cognitively equal. Same thing applies to people.

“If you let it happen this will go much more smoothly, dear,” Father’s words fall upon deafened ears, though she does as he bids, her wakefulness sustained by fear. She can’t remember her name or what it means to feel cheer. His fingers pinch the pink, mangled meat and pull it forcibly through her teeth, dripping velvety dark red drops as it leaves. His prior methods of restraint no longer necessary, Dad is able to wield the weapon much more effectively. One cut, two cut, three cut, four- a few flicks of the wrist and Daughter’s tongue is no more. He holds it curiously in his hand, half-expecting it to start writhing like a fish out of water, but it doesn’t. He needs to cauterize her remaining stub so the rest of her life doesn’t soak into the rug.

Phase one is complete- the beginning of the beat that will have thousands marching through the streets has begun thumping in Father’s being. His daughter could never know what her life’s contribution would mean in the grander scheme of things and so he kept her in the dark to make things easier. With the difficult road ahead, he’ll take any shortcuts he can so long as he reaches the same end. This was the longest shortcut he could imagine but he could not envision another option. Whatever the cost, he would bring about destruction.

He heats up the household iron and beckons her hold her head still, telling her it will hurt but it will be over soon. She hardly moves a muscle in response. He uses kitchen tongs to hold her tongue still, exposed, while he uses the iron to close the wound, burning the nerve endings and stopping the bloodflow while her consciousness fades like between movie scenes.

The procession of peasantry was preceded with a cacophony of cries of riled, rambunctious rats, announcing again to the droves of unaffected, distracted, and deaf ears the emergence of desperate creatures with even more desperate plans. Out of the shadows each waste-washed warrior emerged with grace, the light of the street lamp at the end of the alley was a personified version of the re-ignition of their internal burning radiance. Across the lonely land, all manner of passersby have created their dark doppelgangers, though most, if not all, could have left them on a hanger in the closet at home because the only real deviation aside from size was which hand held their phones; if their shadows were missing to mimic, not one drone would have been likely to notice. The light seemed to recognize them and it sparkled to their eyes- a special treat with reflective twinkles in the puddles and a surprising abundance of heat. To these people, this group of forgotten underpass dwellers, the world was wonderfully magical and mysterious and highly personalized. A stark contrast to the inhabitants constantly moving and never feeling all the way quite right. “That’s life and that’s how it goes and that’s a fact everyone knows,” the man, the prophet, the cup-toting beggar would often jest of the illusion of ultimate truth and the pursuit of eternal life and everlasting youth, hogwash based on greed and fear that had no real tangible root. Too bad dysfunctional families, inhumane activities, and being a shitty person aren’t included in the cost; minor inconveniences to one who views himself a boss and wants to have control. Forsake the moral road for the power goal and find life devolved to being lonely and old, using hundred dollar bills to wipe any tears maybe spilled through their echoing, empty homes. But not likely.

Thankful to be disqualified from money issues, the unencumbered view the others and immediately absorb their fatigue, though. Off to face the world ‘til next week, sprawling far across the maze of streets, their souls act as vacuums of empathy that their leader’s words empty and clean each and every time they meet. Hopefully none of them backfire before their next collective cleanse.

The muddy marauders were a network of intelligence with a vested interest in the gears of the machine. The man had been coming around for a few months, changing the ways the rats viewed their destitution, readying the minds and the hearts of the growing gutter association for a revolution of sorts, making friends, comrades, and cohorts out of those for whom these concepts had been considered kaput. Banding together creatures of desperation was only the first step of a steep, winding staircase of a plan, the details of which were known only to the man of many words.

When he would hold meetings, he would leave her somewhere hidden within visual and auditory range so she could learn from his ways. She was not particularly interested; however, this beat the basement in every way. Sometimes in a dumpster, others an abandoned apartment, an unoccupied fire escape, or under a pile of garments, he would meticulously check that she was able to watch and hopefully pick-up on what he could not from upon his preacher’s projection box. She could have escaped at any time but her fear kept her stuck in line.

Through the pain and the recovery that ensued, her soul was left broken and badly bruised. Father stroked her barely-there ember with hardly any effort because he was all she had, forever, and a good tender can keep a fire going in any weather. He had gotten her to believe anything he wanted to with his words, he offered in condolence relief of her hurt. Hurt that he caused- but that little fact was conveniently lost in his recounting of their relational tales.

As they sprawled back into the streets, their typical train of action would be to individually find rations and then secluded places to sleep, but as time progressed, so did their trust for one another, and thus their teamwork, too. What had once been the city’s disorganized, dishonest, solitary soldiers, staving off starvation one trash picked snack at a time, had evolved into a group that looked out for one another and stuck together through whatever weather, whether or not it was more immediately beneficial to fly. Treated like savages for as long as they could remember, they slowly assumed their accused forms, but then the man came. He treated them as though they were sane, changing the way they played the game of life. Preaching unity in unison with rebellion, when the man spoke, everyone stopped everything to listen. Previously aimless, they now had a mission.

The insects of industry and high society washed over the city streets, unfettered by concerns of survival, mocking the members of the ratty with each disdainful glance and taking each unwitnessed chance to kick a homeless person’s ass without reprimand. Not that anyone would have cared, for these souls were just walking corpses waiting to die, or so the city slickers saw with their eyes. At every meeting of the Gutter Group over cans of almost-spoiled cold soup, new injuries appeared as commonly as new members; black eyes and broken noses, victims of enculturated rage explosions that were possible at any moment. A man kills a bum cold blooded in the street? ‘I didn’t like the way he looked at me, he was gonna try and take my money’ or so the story to the officer goes. But, more often than not, nobody knows anyway. And so they learned of strength in numbers, of safety in sticking together, and hopefully soon the juvenile violence of the corporate hot mess would cease to exist.

The pungent prophet, despite his proclamations, stuck to himself and kept his reservations. He would appear at random, converting creatures to follow his fandom, spreading the message of his meetings and then retreating back to his meditation chamber. None of the members knew his hiding spot, but they didn’t care to inquire, afraid to alienate themselves from his fire. Whenever and wherever he was needed, he had a habit of being, so they just eagerly awaited his words, perched at their posts like an army of recycled birds.

A week has passed since the last gathering and there was a queer buzz amongst those awaiting their weekly dose of sanity. A young girl, no older than ten, appeared for the first time with badges of abuse adorning her head and her arms, though there could have been more since that was all that was uncovered. Nobody knew where the child came from but all the rats knew someone must pay for the damage done. And for the direction of their witch hunt, they awaited the One. The young punching bag said not word one, no crying, no laughing, no signs of communication as the legion of born losers looked upon her bruises, offering consolation with hugs and snacks but for all their talking, she never talked back. She, too, eagerly awaited the man as her new caretakers contemplated a plan.

“Let’s take to the streets and make this city bleed,” seethed angrily a man through his gritted teeth, his face tomato red and his face scrunched mean.

“Blatant brutality won’t get us far. We need to move silently, shrouded by dark,” barked a young man behind his tattered scarf, ripped up jeans spatter-stained with barf.

“Let’s take to their shores, turn their homes to killing floors, sweep across the city from door to door,” a remarkably rough woman remarked as she stood in the light of the street lamp, her entire ensemble was all jet black.

“Okay you vagrants, the meeting has just begun. What is the meaning of the reeling; what evil’s been done?” the smoothly abrasive voice calmly rung as his audience silently settled one by one, parting so as to offer a glimpse at that which appeared to hit the man like a ton of bricks; the face of a girl that looked almost like his, though on the other side of a flurry of hits.

Police came by the house a few times to hear the man describe his account of the disappearances happening around him but beyond that he has been undisturbed. Filing reports on his abusive wife throughout the years might have been the right thing to do. Daughter resides in the basement, her eye ducts no longer producing tears. She has not seen sunlight in what feels like years, the songs of birds and chirps of squirrels cleared from her memory bank as her world shrank to mean only this dank cave and the odd occasion where her Father would take her out in the city for the day. Invisible, he told her. Stay hidden and tucked away, hear with your eyes and not what people say. ‘You have something great,’ he would claim, ‘you have an advantage in this world overrun by fame-seeking shit-for-brains. You have nothing. You are nothing. You will never be anything more than nothing. You are free. And safe, so long as you stick with me.’ She only knew a few words and naught about how to read so her perspective was truly unique- Daughter could only be what Father told her to and that was a pawn in his scheme.

The haggard head honcho’s jaw dropped down hinges of rot, his expression akin to one who’d been shot. The spectrum-blue eyes grew wide and glimmered, visage turned violet as his whole body shivered and his weekly sermon’s talking points quickly then withered in his throat. Tears rolled down the cracked earth cheeks as the man beheld the only child he’d birthed as she stood silently consumed by her hurt, the pain on her face not nearly her worst. And so he ran to her, grabbed her, held her in his arms, and she cried out at his loving embrace’s harm. Tears erupted from the audience silently.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I picked you up. I thought you were dead, informed by your mom. How are you here, from where do you come?” the man, her dad, sputtered through tears, sobs unstoppably shaking his body while his daughter stood still, so still, it was haunting. Despite his pleading, she wouldn’t start talking. So he did.

“Brothers, sisters, we must find who did this. Her power of speech was beaten from her body. Someone took it upon themselves to desecrate my baby girl, my world. Though I thought she were lost, I will exact revenge at any cost. Plans have changed; a price of pain must be paid. Will you come with me or will here you stay? I will discover whom we must blame,” the end of the sentence struck ears as his fists beat his weak knees beneath the street lamp’s green gleam, his usually soft gaze became menacingly mean and from his silent crowd erupted a collective scream. Geared for battle, they took to the streets with bloodthirsty glee.