Los Sorias by Alberto Laiseca - Chapter 7

 





Chapter 7
Dissident Artists and Theologians 

Monitor was so changeable, as already mentioned, that he oscillated between indulgent pampering and repression. He had to make a great effort not to try to impose his tastes and ruin all ideology. 
He felt a profound admiration for a certain famous painter, due to his treatment of color and despite that man's insistence on abstraction.
The artist, at one point and at the request of the hierarchy, brought one of his paintings to the Monitorial Palace. Monitor remained silent for twenty minutes before the crowd. Then, trying not to be aggressive, he said very calmly: "I think this inevitably leads to an art without transcendence, closed in on itself and its vices. The colors—I can't define them technically because I lack knowledge, but rather I am guided by my intuitions in this regard—the colors, I repeat, are splendid. I approve of color, but not for color's sake. Only when it responds to a lofty theme. I imagine a painting, right here: not the one before me, but one that would exalt the triumph of being. With the same chromaticisms. How beautiful it could have been! I believe in your genius. But please, don't ever paint something disconnected from the universe again. Or better said, and worse still, don't build according to the worst possibility the cosmos has: its dissolution, its chaos."
Monitor, in declaring the above, had not the slightest intention of ordering. But, apparently, the other took it as a guideline. Gravely offended, he took his painting without commenting. That same day, he emigrated to Western Protonia, where upon his arrival, he declared to journalists: "Who is he to say how I should or should not paint? Discovering that this man is an anti-Mozart turned me into a revolutionary."
Monitor, who greatly respected him, was pained by his self-imposed exile, and even more so upon reading what he had said abroad.
A disagreement, in this case.
What happened between him and the neo-theologian Lazy Bug Iseka was completely different. The latter had been a saint of high standing in ex-atheism. For some reason, he later left the Sacred Congregation. He had his own intentions, as it turned out. He met the Monitor one afternoon when the Audience Hall was in session and stuck to him like a limpet. His proposal was clear: the Monitor was a god and should found his own ex-atheist Congregation, with the head of state as a living deity, replacing the Exalted One. The Monitor was quite crude, at times, as well as vain, so at first he took off. The main difference between this new religion and the old one was that there would be no human sacrifices, nor would yogurt be used, of course. In the southernmost part of the technocrats' country, there were certain mountainous foothills that led to a vast desert plateau similar to Tibet. Thus, while in the central west lay one of the hottest deserts on Earth, shared with the Caliphate of Cordoba, a thousand kilometers below began a territory known as "technocratic Siberia," with temperatures between thirty and forty degrees below zero, where only stunted vegetation grew, and the steppe, for many days a year, was lashed by icy winds. Right there, the head of state ordered the creation of a new province, which he called "Soria Province." He did this in order to outmaneuver those from the nation of the same name. If there existed—he argued—an enemy country called Soria, there was nothing better than to create a small province named likewise and thus inoculate the Technocracy against the soriatorial virus. There he deported all the Sorias that the I double E discovered.
In order to carry out his project, he had to seize a fragment of territory from a certain technocratic province that already existed. He then ordered that all false Iseka of the Technocracy, detected as Sorias, were to live there compulsorily and change their surname to Soria. All the recalcitrant unionists who refused to join the new technocratic order (to govern without unions) ended up there, the Sinarquistas, the Internationalists of any kind, and, as time passed, the ex-atheists, iconsaedrists, Oreños, Naricerarios, Cularios, etc., in ever-increasing numbers. There were hundreds of thousands. Everyone was thoroughly amused by this new christ from His Excellency. Everyone except the ex-Isekas.
From then on, whenever someone fell into disgrace, the Monitor, in his usual "Deport him to Siberia!" "Send him to the Salinas Chcias!" "Sending him to the rare earth mines!", added another marvelous phrase: "Deport him to the province of Soria!"
Lazy Bug Iseka, the aforementioned theologian, convinced the Desporta that together they should form the religion of magical and triumphant absolutism. Monitor as supreme pontiff and Lazy Bug as vice. The Monster was delighted with the proposal. However, they couldn't agree on the details. The supreme pontiff, for example. Wasn't it preferable, and much more fervent, to be called the Nation's First Hysteric? Because as Monitor said to Lazy Bug: "I can already imagine the announcers from now on taking charge of the new nomenclature: "The Nation's First Hysteric spent the weekend resting near d!" Don't you find this extraordinarily suggestive, dear Bug?" But the other grumbled, claiming that the title was not serious. However, the schism arose from a very different matter. One night, Monitor was explaining to Lazy Bug what he thought was wrong with current religions: nothing but male gods and no goddesses. "If we have women, why shouldn't they have female deities? We should include goddesses in our new religion." Lazy Bug, who usually dragged himself through the halls full of infinite prudence and a drooping hump, this time (whether because he was tired or for some other reason) said carelessly: "Bah, nonsense. No religion worth its salt or is serious has two goddesses these days. And besides, they don't exist."
The Monitor was initially stunned. Then, with his electric gun, he destroyed the neurons.
It was the first and only attempt in Technocracy to foist the Monitor on him.

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