A Curricular Pageant of Regression

Mediaevil challenges us to a suspenseful and serious search for the secret of sin in the human psyche. The college setting ingeniously allows Stein to adduce philosophy, literature, film, and science in the quest. Be prepared for surprises. — Anthony Tyler, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus

The prophecy of the Tower of Babel has come to pass. Erected not of stone but of memes and bytes. The heaven it reached for liberated the hell of human discourse and disruption until the wrathful gods of code hacked it to pieces. What remains are compounds and campuses fortifying for survival among decomposing nations. Here at Braverton University a disparate assembly of unorthodox scholars, techno wizards, special students and determined survivalists, engage in surreal efforts to prevent the intersection of human psychology, persisting mythologies and disorienting media from cycling humankind back to a new Dark Ages. Come audit outlandish Professor Strindberg’s famed course, “Original Sin, the Media and Inevitable Evil” for the purposes of distinguishing demonic behavior from intractable stupidity. Follow his disaffected protégé, Professor Genia Thane and her special projects students, staging yet another covert prison experiment to prove humans can overcome their darker impulses. Delve into disturbing agendas of salvation by disentangling personal stories from the historical circumstances that produced them. There you’ll find mystery generated, absurdity exposed and solutions sought from the structures of memorable masterworks. Come to Braverton University, a bastion of intrigue barricading in the wilderness.

Mediaevil is a mind-bending trip that never stops moving. Its idiosyncratic cast of characters take us on a wild and cinematic ride through astonishing renditions of history, leaving us at the precipice of a crumbling world wondering where and how to jump. — James K.Trigg IV, Presentation Artist, Shadowcatcher Media Services

You can view my author page and order Mediaevil hard copy or ebook versions though my publisher by clicking: BookLocker.com

Or you can order by clicking: AMAZON (including Kindle) J. J. STEIN AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE

BARNES AND NOBLE (including Nook) APPLE BOOKS KOBO

Or contact your favorite local bookstore to order it.

Or, in celebration of its publishing, please click contact me to get Mediaevil in some great twofers combo deals with Keeper of the Planet, Gentlemen of Decision or The Magic Word and Other Stories. If you’re interested in digging deeper into the mythic structure of the great film and storytelling underlying Mediaevil, order it along with Life, Myth and the American Family Unreeling.

For a taste of the provocative reading you will be getting, below are two revealing quotes prefacing the novel, the ACT I section heading, and Chapter 8 for the fun of it. These are not in published version formats:

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless. Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack. For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous. –Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

The most important question anyone can ask is: What myth am I living? –Carl Jung

ACT I: THE LAND OF NO MORE

Always exactly where we begin.

Even if in the middle.

Especially if at the end.

CHARACTERS

Some make the world go round.

Others work to end it.

And then there are those who believe

They are above it all.

LILY & KURTZ

Lawrence Strindberg’s dormered double cape with overlarge attached annex was up the hill from Sampson Park Pond. Its shades had been carefully designed to let in light while obscuring the security bars on the inside of every lower window and door. They had been fashioned that way at the behest of Oscar Washburn who convinced Strindberg that exposing the bars to the outside world would promote a sense of insecurity to observers from the tranquil park. Additionally, Washburn insisted Strindberg invite no undergraduates to his home lest word get out he suffered paranoia among his other idiosyncrasies. It certainly would have appeared unsettling had the bars been on public view in this pastoral setting. If such outward demarcations had not become increasingly de rigueur in even the most upscale suburban neighborhoods, one might have concluded these interior precautions had been acquired from an inner city gangland. But this was not even an exurb. Broadcasting the need for any defensive fortification within the rural and protected environs of the Braverton community had to signal a defeatism out of character with Braverton’s mission of hope and renaissance.

Though Boothe Trevecca had met with Strindberg many times to set up equipment and plan his instructional productions, he hadn’t entered the august professor’s inner sanctum since these security measures had been applied. He had to contain himself from expressing amazed delight while sitting at the dining room table observing the bars on the windows. Nothing about the bars surprised Wyatt Arneson, however, as he had been convening here with Strindberg on a biweekly basis for the last two years. Strindberg’s wife, Lily Nguyen, had asked Washburn to intervene regarding obscuring the bars from the outside even as Strindberg was having them installed, so Washburn by now had acclimated himself to them, as well.

Only Dean Kurtz seemed mystified, if not disturbed, by the prison-like feel. This being his first visit, his attention was continually diverted from the plans on the table to the bars on the windows. His reaction was very different from Trevecca’s. Seeing that Kurtz was about to ask about the bars, Washburn grabbed his knee and nodded for him to demur. So, Kurtz referred instead to the new campus installations. “We all know these classified and costly preparations have been undertaken because of remote, yet distinct, possibilities that I hope never require their full implementation. My cost-benefit analysis would have precluded any such indulgences if they didn’t produce primary operating return from everyday functional uses: the well water, the wind energy, the farm food supply to student services.”

“We all understand your cover,” Arneson said.

“My what?”

“That you’re covering your bets as a good administrator should,” Washburn said.

Strindberg grumbled, sitting like an impatient troll in a chair in the corner rather than at the table. “Why do you think the parents supporting this outrageously expensive school send their children here instead of NYU or University of Chicago? Most of them already live in walled and guarded communities.”

Kurtz grimaced at Strindberg’s menacing visage. “We have plenty of scholarship kids here.”

“Whose parents were smart enough, poor as they are, to pray hard enough for their precious charges to be accepted. Anything to get them away from their deteriorating situations.”

Kurtz continued looking at Strindberg as if confronting a biblical incarnation. Jeremiah came to mind.

“How many of those poverty cases still go home for vacations?” Strindberg pressed the issue. “Except, of course, for the minority minority that masochistically hold onto idiotic illusions they can save their ‘hoods’ over Christmas break?” When Strindberg got no answer, he confirmed his own implications. “They’re not stupid, these poor folks. Rather, I’d give them credit for more prescience than most of the pampered wealth-inured flock whose scions the university admits.”

“All right,” Washburn said, “We all know we’re just being cautious here.”

“Hah!” Strindberg blurted out.

Washburn frowned at Strindberg. “Let’s get status reports.”

“I need to say I feel very uncomfortable about not bringing President Friedlander into the loop,” Kurtz said.

“Ah, Ashley Wilkes,” Strindberg said.

“What?”

“All of it, Gone with the Wind.” Strindberg flicked his fingers outward as if making plantations disappear.

Trevecca guffawed, causing them all to look at him. “Gone with the Wind,” he explained.

“Friedlander provides a far better cover by not knowing anything,” Arneson said.

Kurtz looked at Arneson, feeling even more like he’d gotten himself involved in a convoluted conspiracy rather than a strategic business plan.

“We need to wait a little longer on Friedlander, Seymour,” Washburn tried easing them all back to the task at hand. “Just until we’re up and running. Now, on the sustainability side, the silos are full and we’ve socked away plenty of seed. Even though the AG classes have transitioned to biodynamic farming, certain fertilizers have been warehoused for the double purposes they may serve should last resorts be required. The animal stocks are healthy with appropriately sized herds. Contingency plans for depletion have been drafted if they should begin to compete with us for grains and beans. Milk producers and egg-layers would be last.”

“Got enough Strychnos toxifera bark stored?” Trevecca snickered.

Washburn gave him a questioning look.

“You know, curare,” Trevecca quipped. “For the blow guns.”

“What blow guns?” Kurtz snapped.

“He’s just kidding,” Washburn said.

“Not a bad idea,” Arneson said.

“I love it,” Strindberg added.

There was a long silence punctuated only by Lily serving white tea in what looked like an antique samurai tea set. Trevecca fixed on the graying Asian’s woman scar that ran like a seam from beside her left eye down to her chin. He imagined a latex mask had been insufficiently applied over her real face. “Wow!” he said, thinking about the possibilities.

All eyes turned to Trevecca who shifted in his seat and masked his thoughts about masks by saying, “Some tea set. Are those Bushido etchings on the cups?”

“Flea market bullshit!” Lily said while pouring.

Kurtz became ever more disturbed by the awkward silences and bizarre ripostes. “I don’t know,” he began.

“It’s okay, Seymour,” Washburn counseled. “We’re all a little on edge about what has to be done. Some humor to ease the seriousness often sounds a little weird.”

“Weird?” Lily said, going back into the kitchen. “Fucking sick!”

“My wife,” Strindberg said, “doesn’t mince words.”

“What’s fucking sick?” Kurtz asked.

“No doubt, the blow guns,” Washburn said.

“Yeah,” Arneson said. “I’m sure that’s it.” He sounded rather sarcastic.

“Yeah,” Strindberg chuckled.

Washburn tried to get things moving again. “Wyatt, how are the primitive skills classes going. Have you got good enrollment?”

“Bunch of misfits, to tell the truth. Just like me. I wonder if push comes to shove whether they’ll stick around to school the ignorant, or beat it into the forests to sip sap from sycamore trees to save their own hides.”

“Is that what you’d do?” Kurtz asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Then what’s the point here!” Kurtz got out of his chair and paced to a barred window confronting whether even at this late date he should post bail.

“The point is,” Washburn became adamant, “we must accept there is no point in saving just ourselves. What matters most is that reason and humanity be maintained at least here or all will be lost to chaos and madness.”

“Quite an experiment, Oscar,” Strindberg shook his head. “Betting against history that this community can be the one to remain reasonable and sane when threatened by the fruits of human idiocy. I’m with you all the way.”

Now it was Washburn’s turn to lose it. “So what is it? Just a big joke to you?”

“No! No! Really. I am with you all the way. I’d love to see it work. And you’re right. It is our only chance. That’s why I proposed these plans.”

“Fucking sick!” Lily said, coming back into the room with scones.

“God Almighty!” Kurtz exploded.

“Mild form of Tourette’s,” Strindberg nodded toward his wife.

“Truth is a derivative of Tourette’s,” Lily said.

“It is?” Trevecca asked.

“Bushido!” Lily said, dropping a scone on his plate like a one kiloton bomb.

Trevecca gaped in wonder at this remarkable character while Washburn, having regained his composure, tried yet again to reclaim the purpose of the meeting. “Talk about the towers,” he said to Arneson.

“Tell him about Forbidden Planet,” Arneson redirected to Strindberg.

Strindberg leaned intently forward in his corner chair. “Ids exude energy. They smell.”

They all waited for more, but got nothing but Strindberg’s glowering eyes until Kurtz questioned. “Ids? You mean like I.D.s, or Identities?”

“Identity derived from id could be a Freudian way of looking at it.”

“Idiotic!” Lily dropped another scone bomb, this time on the plate Strindberg held out.

“1956,” Trevecca could hardly contain himself. “Commander Adams set up an electronic force field as a perimeter to shield his spaceship from the invisible monster. When the monster penetrated the field we all saw it for the first time. It was Dr. Morbius’s massive id, writhing in electrified outline. Just wonderful! 1956!”

Kurtz held the scone Lily had slapped into his hand like a grenade with the pin already drawn. Nothing happening here mitigated his sense of the surreal. “I’ve got to tell you,” he said, “I feel like I’m time traveling the universe with a bunch of aliens on a spaceship for the quarantined insane. If we don’t come back down to Earth immediately, I’m out of here.”

“The last tower has been erected,” Arneson said, very down to Earth. “Its wind turbine will be installed tomorrow and then connect to our own grid. As planned the turbines will suck water from our aquifers as well as supply power for critical needs if the outside grid shuts down.” Arneson stopped there.

Kurtz waited, looking especially at Strindberg and Trevecca. “Okay,” he said. “And Forbidden Planet?”

“Larry’s idea,” Arneson nodded toward Strindberg, “Which we’ll start testing in the field shortly. A five-tiered wall: Photo-monitoring, pheromone sensing, hologram producing, electrifying and sonic debilitating. Call it Lost on steroids, Oscar.”

Kurtz looked to Washburn with the others. “This is fantasy stuff, right? I remember that show.”

“What’s been vividly imagined in the movies almost always comes to pass,” Strindberg crooned.

“Fucking movies,” Lily said, going back into the kitchen.

Kurtz looked from Strindberg to the disappearing Lily and then at Arneson. “Pheromone sensing? What’s that?”

“Like Larry said, ids stink.”

“Stink like coyotes,” Strindberg added.

After a brief silence, Washburn took over. “The theory is, ids are the source of all human aggression. The more aggressive the human, the more his id exudes aggressive pheromones. These pheromones have been isolated and tested by Klempke…”

“Our own Dr. Morbius,” Strindberg grinned.

“…Klempke in his chemistry lab. When sniffers were aligned along ultraviolet beams between two posts, different degrees of id pheromones were calibrated as subjects irritated by various stimuli crossed the fields.”

“Why don’t I know about this?” Kurtz said.

“Hasn’t been published yet,” Washburn said. “But to my knowledge, you don’t read scientific journals, anyway.”

“Doyle,” Arneson said.

“Yes, Doyle,” Washburn continued. “You well know a Christian Identity compound has been fortified ten miles southwest of campus.”

“And White Nationalists to the East of them, BundyPat Militias to the West, and Aetherians to the North, ad infinitum. I know, I know,” Kurtz grimaced.

“Aetherians! Now that’s a great group,” Strindberg scoffed. “Heads in the galaxies and first meat for the grinders when resources run out. Them and the Gurdjieffians.” As had been the pattern, Kurtz stared at Strindberg, waiting for more explanation. So Strindberg obliged, “Believers in human divinity. Facing all ids with blocked nasal passages and open arms overriding sensible survival instincts. Reminds me of the Shakers assuring ultimate extinction by sublimating basic human drives.”

“And the hardened military base fiefdoms throughout the country won’t be coming to their aid,” Arneson said. “Seems like history has a history of times like these.”

“Yes, well, history lessons aside,” Washburn focused them yet again on immediate concerns. “We have identified Doyle as one of the Identity buggers, and he’s working on our project, taking all sorts of notes.”

“He’s what!” Kurtz erupted.

“Relax, Seymour. We’ve got him under surveillance.”

“Know thine enemy,” Arneson said.

“Sniff him out,” Strindberg sniggered.

“Yes, we want to determine whether he has a particular aggressive scent,” Washburn said.

“Call it Identity id,” Strindberg chortled. “I love the stink of it.”

“So by having Doyle spy on us, we sniff him out,” Washburn said. “We’ll have him manually carry cinder blocks for the erection of a decoy bunker, requiring him to repeatedly cross ultra violent sensing beams between the supply area and the construction site. Not only will he be aggravated by the failure to utilize a nearby scoop loader for the purpose, but also by the black man handing him the blocks not being designated to carry them, as well.”

“You’re pulling my chain?” Kurtz said.

“Like a death ray.” Arneson squinted as if taking aim.

“It’s just science, Seymour,” Washburn said

“What if all the ids attack wearing those scent-killing long underwear I’ve seen advertised in hunting ads?” Now it was Kurtz’s turn to cause the group to go mum.

“Interesting,” Arneson finally said.

“We’ll get Klempke to look into it,” Washburn said.

“You do that. And I suppose the hologram facet is as foolproof. Must be with Trevecca here the brains behind it.”

“Imagine it,” Trevecca said. “You’re an invader in the act of invading in the dark. You sneak up through what you think is an empty, unprotected pasture. Your stinking id alerts night vision monitors to your location while ringing silent alarms to all defense mechanisms. At twenty yards, you’re suddenly confronted by an irate army of hulking Vikings and blood-thirsty Sioux coming at you…”

“Holograms, I presume…”

“And you immediately become disoriented,” Arneson said.

“It’s a confusion tactic,” Washburn said.

“Not only by the violence of the projected virtual threat, but also by the fact you’ve been found out,” Strindberg said.

“If you should gather your wits and persist instead of retreat, you’ll find yourself confronting an even worse enemy.”

“Let me guess,” Kurtz nodded despairingly. “Dragons? Or maybe hydras? How about Cerberus?”

“Phoney shit,” Trevecca said. “The second wall of holograms will be mirror reflections of yourselves—your whole attack force fully visualized in all its mean confusion against you. You’ll be seeing your every feint and dodge fully replicated, doubly confounding your brain knowing you’re exposed for all the world to see—meaning us.”

“Video games,” Kurtz moaned.

“We call it Effective Virtual Evisceration,” Arneson said. “Or ‘EVE’ for short.”

“Kind of like Eve grabbing Adam’s cock,” Lily said. She was standing in the kitchen doorway with a bright light framing her from behind.

“Exactly!” Strindberg said.

Kurtz slumped down on the window seat under the window bars.

“So now you have two options,” Arneson said. “Mindless id explosion, or superego evacuation. Your brain being entirely in your balls, you’re most likely to rage ahead, flailing at what? There’s no one there.”

“Nothing but the sonic barrier and electric field,” Washburn said.

“They’ll blow your mind and fry your nads,” Arneson added. “A twofold shot to the groin, so to speak. Then you’re deaf, as well as dumb. And no more kids for you.”

“And good riddance,” Lily said. “You won’t even have to worry about erasing spider tattoos from your scrotums.”

Kurtz took a deep breath and looked at the floor between his legs. When he lifted his head again, he saw them all watching expectantly. “What if none of this fantasy works?” he said.

After a pause where they all looked at each other, Trevecca said, “Blow guns.”

Two days later Washburn sat in Kurtz office. It was the first time Washburn had ever seen Kurtz behind his desk without his hinged Hush Puppies propped up on it.

“I can’t sleep,” Kurtz said. “I’ve been one hundred percent behind the development of the Media Applications Department. I’ve gone out on a limb standing behind all of Strindberg’s shenanigans. I’ve labored endlessly to modify curriculums to prepare for worst case scenarios. I’ve made sure solar panels have been installed all around and winter growing solariums have completely covered Barefoot Field. I’ve busted the budget to build what suddenly occurs to me now are total machinations of video-game fantasy. And though I’m completely aware of the encroaching tide of feudalism in the world around us, I feel now like I’ve given myself entirely over to a surreal fatalism; that I’ve crossed the River Styx leading the whole armada of Braverton down into hell with me. I want out, but like all sons-of-bitches before me, I’ve bought a one-way ticket and have refused to get off at any of the downstream stops. And you, my friend, have been paddling the boat all the way.”

“It’s not fantasy, Seymour,” Washburn said. “And it’s not hell. It’s reality. Though we’d wish it otherwise, you know we’re already cycling down into a new dark age of scarcity, tribalism, superstition and barbarism. The veneers of civilization are crumbling, and sadly the only entities sufficiently preparing for city-state survival are a few enlightened academies like ours; and a wide assortment of mostly fascist enclaves whose primary plans for survival entail preying on others.

“This kind of madness broke out a hundred years ago, and we got through it.” Kurtz seemed desperate to escape the details he knew Washburn would hit him with.

“There was still plenty of fresh water, fish, oil, and food to feed the demands of six billion less people then. You want fantasy? Our species continuous mad destruction of the means of our own survival is the fantasy we’ve been living. The fantasy that it wouldn’t all run out before we buried ourselves in shit.”

“Technology…”

“Yes, the god that was to save us. Double-edge sword. Wrathful and miraculous. And here we are relying on the wizardry of it to erect our own Hadrian’s Holographic Wall. Once the economic shell of the world finally caves in, technology might actually save some of us. Not all. Just the chosen few. Just maybe.”

“And you’re convinced this grim future will descend.”

“Heavy odds. I’ve seen it from the inside.”

“As a Prince-of-Men?”

“Nothing like that for an education. Call it my PhD. How do you think I know all the national emergency measures enacting medical quarantines are masquerades for otherwise controlling the population? Except we’re all so frightened and polarized now that martial law will break down into gun-toting affinity groups taking aim at each other. That’s why we have to make sure to turn the quarantines to our advantage.”

“I wish I’d never hired you.”

“It was your better judgment that did.”

“It’s the spell you cast.”

“No, it’s the truth you know.”

“I’ve been managing Braverton for both glory and doom.”

“You may get your glory because you prepared for doom.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, all students and their parents have signed acceptance of quarantine documents as requirements for admission or continuation. Ninety percent of faculty and staff have done so, as well. We’re working on the other ten.”

“And it’s been impressed upon them that if they live outside the perimeter they must have alternate quarters within it?”

“Impressed as hell. We’re confirming the data.”

“It’s not the River Styx, Seymour.”

“No?”

“More like the Jordan.”

Kurtz stared at Washburn who appeared so sure, as if he were Moses consoling Joshua. “Does Wyatt Arneson know you were a Prince-of-Men?” he asked.

CHARACTERS CHARACTERS

A comblast had gone out to all students registered in “Original Sin, the Media and Inevitable Evil” that the doors would be locked to any latecomers promptly at the gonging of eleven o’clock. This was no idle threat. There would be absolutely no admission……

MEDIAEVIL