Category Archives: Fear

The War Posts Part IV – A VJ Reflection – Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why the Resonances?

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Foreword:

The original post was written on 9th August. It was longer with more detail. WP wiped it out and I foolishly had not created two back-ups. This is a short version which ends a series on War. And expands upon points I raised in the previous post .

15th August 2025. 80th Anniversary of Japan’s surrender and marked the official end of WWII. There will be commemorations in the UK. That’s the official term we will not celebrate the event that would not be proper. Particularly when the events leading up the surrender were overshadowed by the use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everything else which took place from the 7th July 1937 when Chinese and Japanese forces clashed until the 6th August 1945 has taken second place in the Western World public consciousness; the provinces of folk with interests in the entire era.

The question remains. Why the particular abhorrence in public mind of the nations involved in the victory over Japan. There is only one event of that era which supersedes the revulsion and that would be the Nazi Concentration Camps and attendant genocidal actions in the field.
The casualty lists make grim reading both in the explosion and aftermath.
Hiroshima: 80,000 – 166,000 killed, injured not accurately recorded
Nagasaki : 80,000.
Higher than the following:
The controversial firebombing of Dresden Feb 1945 :Estimates  25,000 dead
The Firebombing of Tokyo March 1945: Estimates 100,000 dead.
French civilian casualties by allied air action during 1944: Estimates 15-20,000 dead

Those three examples are in the provinces of military history. The public in general can be forgiven for not knowing about them and many other events which were part of the 75- 80 million deaths associated with WWII.
London, Leningrad, Warsaw, Stalingrad, Philippines, Okinawa, Berlin, Konigsberg all have their own bloody tallies of dead and injured civilians , some do figure in some sections of the public consciousness, but none weigh as heavily as the fates of those two Japanese cities. Why is that?

This is my statement. It is my considered opinion that the objections and the revulsions to the use of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki result from shock and at the bottom of our Human being- Fear of what took place. The idea that approximately 20% of the Japanese civilian casualties of WWII were caused in two locations in mere minutes is horrific information that vibrates deep into the Human consciousness. So quick, so efficient. So possible, everywhere? For it is an acceptable fact by most people that if one nation has a weapon then sooner or later another will have the same weapon, and that it could be used ‘here’.
And we don’t want that. We want it to be uninvented. If there’s a war and some foe flies over with conventional bombs and drop them on our city, that is frightening but we reckon the damage is local(ish) and can be repaired and we can all work together to help out, because even if our location is in chaos there’s one down the road to lend a hand. We can cope with conventional wars. We have our own ideas of what to do.
Not so with Nuclear Weapons. We have been brought up to understand that those bring destruction on an ultimate scale. They lay waste on a massive scale. Everything collapses. No emergency services, no health support, no supplies. Better off at ground zero than miles away and surviving. And naturally, understandably, we do not want to live with that knowledge. The idea that there is a means so powerful, so effective, so dreadful that all we have known, accepted, learnt to live with can be gone. And worse, we are some of the survivors?

Now harsh words will follow.
A First World perspective?. There have been at least 300 what we might call wars since WWII ended. There are whole swathes of the world whose miseries and terrors might not be nuclear ones but are or have been as dreadful in their own, small ways, small because in most cases the rest of the world doesn’t even know they are going on; much less care. Unless of course it suits some purpose to notice. If you protest or are angry about one, then what about the ten that went before, or elsewhere in the world? Sorry if I am getting cross – but I try not to do ‘Selective’.

Anyway, back to….. analysis?
Meanwhile we are angry and scared that our lives or way of lives can be wiped out. I suggest therefore that the Atom Bombs became our own worse, personal nightmares. In our fear or rage we blame individuals for unleashing them. We are so frightened we want to blame someone. And we want to give our fear a justification, so understandably we channel it into an outrage. We call this one particular act of war a crime. We will of course call other acts crimes as well, and each of us no doubt as a list of those depending on our own trigger points. But no acts of war, to date has been so monumentally, individually, terrifying as those two bombs.
Yes they brought horrible suffering. War does that. Look back at the casualty lists above, and those are just some air raids. I have not included the urban battles, not the sieges, not the post battle eras of pillage, rape and random killings, not the unfortunate killings of folk who just got in the way, not the reprisals, not the massacres….not the….not the…
By all means beware of  The Logic of War. It leads to paths such as the dropping of nuclear weapons. A straight line from the splinting of the atom by Professor Rutherford in a laboratory in Manchester UK 1917.

By even more effort embrace Compassion, Respect and Tolerance, because around the corner, waiting in the Shadows waits Violence and Hate and they have their own version of those Horrors I have been writing about.

And dear reader, there is no other way to end this series.

Take care. Walk wide of violent solutions.

The War Posts – Part I .An Introduction to War

The War Posts Part II – The Logic of War

The War Posts Part III – When Industry Replaced Cavalry and its Arm Grew Long

Out Here. Psychology, Perception and the Weather March #BlogBattle: Shiver

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In many a sober volume there is a detached and coherent explanation as to why and how we shiver with fear. Some of them indicate that high levels of adrenaline released into the body during times of extreme situations lead to muscles twitching uncontrollably hence seeming to shake or shiver with fear. There again other works would explain physiological reactions to anxiety can cause your blood to flow less efficiently and, therefore, leave you with chills.

I think about these explanations when on duty at The Pale Place. Everyone knows about The Pale Place. Even so you can be in the most secure location, far from where it holds domain and the idea of that ominous malignant unfathomable presence just being in the same world as you can slither up into your consciousness, implanting the terror like a sudden knife to the back or the chord dropped about your throat slowly tightening  its grip. We’ve all seen the effects. Folk stopping still in mid stride, eyes wide in panic, falling against anything to hold them up, clawing, gasping, weeping, caught in the instant when their defences gave way. Then there are the ones who are simply found, dead either in a desperate attempt to make the overwhelming terror stop or simply and maybe thankfully had their bodies just give up, and shut down.

Now my wife, a Lieutenant in the Civic Safety and Security Force, she’s a solid focused professional with a phlegmatic streak right down that lovely back. Even my war stories don’t seem to worry her. She’s got this great cure for the shakes and shivers, she simply picks up her side arm points in to my head says ‘If it happens it happens honey’ adds ‘poof’ then does the same to her own temple.
What a gal. When she’s around I always end up feeling safe.

In a tour of duty on the frontier with the Pale Place, fatalism will only take you so far. We in the Army’s Frontier Deployment Corps reckon fatalism leads to being too casual, gets you killed or worse, Taken. Some stay sharp like everyday is a training day mixed up with experience the equipment regulation clean and you can hear them mouthing The Litany of Calm but watch out for those who start to do it too rapidly; they are anything but calm.

I prefer the simmering feral rage. Defending my turf. Who were these things to come out of The Nowhere and try and take over our planet? There are enough damn worlds out there for them to park whatever passes for their asses on, without schlepping across the vastness of space to our little back water. I don’t give a screw how hard they are to kill or not knowing what they really look like; if I fire enough ordinance into that Pale opaque stuff they hide behind I reckon a few are going down. It’s not as if they’ve advanced that much this past year or so. And they sure as hell do not like those industrial size flame throwers we have now. I’d love to work one of those, scorching back the land. There’s this real high wavering whine you hear when those dragons are working; that’s the sound of victory that is, and then there’s this sugary smell afterwards. Mind you the smoke can be a pain. All in all though simmering feral keeps you hot and cool at the same time. A natural balance I reckon.

And here I am out here staring out at the wasteland between our fortifications and the wall of substance shifting between light mist and thick fog, colours going dark grey to the sort of mournful white you get on funeral sheets. Currently thinking about the last night spent with my wife. Going over every sweet little detail. Stopping the gloomy thoughts which starting hovering about when you look out at the Pale Place.

There’s the group just finished being trainees, nervous chatter, wide-eyed silence, or those trying their best to show they are tough and can handle it.

‘It’s definitely chilly,’

Someone always remarks about how cold it is ‘Today’. You can never truly be sure if they are talking about the weather or covering up. What makes that piece of judgement difficult is that the temperature is usually low about the Pale Place.

And you wait.

Somewhere far up the left flank there is the sound of weaponry; a little later the thick smell of the flame throwers drifts in with the threads of their smoke. Attention naturally swivels that way, orders snap or cry to concentrate to your front. Whatever is going on Up There is their problem. Keep your eyes fixed on your frontage. Watch for the change in the shades and thickness of the wall. Will do. I also concentrate on the dead tree a middle to long distance there to my right. Currently its dark dead outline is stark like a black marker on white paper, any dulling in that outline could mean a shifting of the mists and that They are moving, it could also mean a trick of the wind. You have to very discerning, particularly when an entire platoon might rely on your call.

That blasted smoke. The one drawback to those magnificent dragons. It’s stinging my eyes, just when I was trying to figure out something about the edges of the tree, my tree. I hope, or wish, or pray, or something that there’s more than one set of eyes on that tree.

Damn but it’s getting cold…..

It Will Not Go Away: August #BlogBattle- Pareidolia

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Horsehead Nebula

In the early decades of the 22nd century, spurred by some spectacularly disastrous weather events during the mid 21st century the general fright broke of the final barrier that Climate Regeneration was a world-wide necessity, and most attention was thus directed. In consequence sciences such as those in the Cosmological area were gently eased in quiet corners, left to a few to keep things ‘ticking over’ as it were. Space exploration being mostly restricted to the Solar System, and then even to the locality of Earth, Moon, Mars region. Those who scan the far stars were few in number, an indulged but generally overlooked group.

Cardon was one. The natural fascination with starry nights had been the start and with a quiet persistence he had followed that into study. Whenever asked by friends and relatives, he being an affable soft spoken fellow would say something conversationally along the lines of  ‘Someday folk will look starwards again, and glad the information was kept fresh,’, and the listeners would smile, then swiftly turn to other topics. Cardon would smile at them, be affable, while thinking on the next quiet step in his own journey for knowledge.

There were very few astronomical observatories left, many from any earlier age converted to issues relating to the weather and of the small number still looking outwards, the majority dealt with the respectable issues of assisting in colonisation research or stellar Impact Events. There were, to his knowledge but ten in the world whose attention was on the further cosmos, funded by billionaires who shared the interest. Folk who had enough wealth to inure themselves from public opinion and official unhappiness and commentary on ‘wasted’ resources.

He sat musing over the latest tranche of computer images transmitted from the Reflecting Telescope. It was quite the challenge to decide on where to study, in this he and his colleagues were glad of the archive material from the previous century, with which you could try and fill in gaps, or review.  Currently he was revisiting that most fascinating shape The Horsehead Nebulae part of the Orion molecular cloud complex, a dusty birthplace of stars, and thus a signpost for the study of the massive forces at work to bring about such events. He had been working for some time to seek out the more detailed physical evidence. He knew the shortcomings, the comparative time scales between stellar conception to birth and a person’s life span were so vast in difference no one person could hope to witness the evolution of one sample but in detailed study they could see different subjects at different stages. He would comfort himself with the additional idea that there would be ample evidence there to study the nature of molecular cloud complexes. One of many pathways of study which had been discarded and the progress choked off.  

With this in mind he had chosen to look at magnified images the better to seek out detail in the physical. He had had to discard, though, for it seemed the magnification process had led to an excess of blurring, particularly from the centre to the right of what could be called the neck of the ‘horse’s head’. On reflection this seemed to illustrate just how much skill and even artistry had been forgotten over the past seventy years. Accepting that Finding Ways Which Don’t Work is all part of the process Cardon settled on examining smaller sized conventional images, using computer programmes to analyse what would be the components.

He chose for the first place, the lighter shades to the right of the nebulae on the basis that the variety might give a better ground for comparison and thus insight.

Maybe the train of thought started with musing on the very term ‘Horsehead Nebulae’. There could be no argument the feature did resemble a horse’s head, neck and if you looked to the greyish area to the top, a mane. Some old terms for certain cosmological features he thought a bit of a stretch, but ‘Horsehead’. So obvious. One example of the classic Pareidolia phenomenon, the mind ever inventive in translating.   And maybe because his  was opened up to looking with that perspective, when studying the right side feature, he gradually discerned an image all of its own. There a complex of colouration standing out from the predominant dark. Slender, a form which leant itself to the outline of the upper part of a body. Struck with a type of clarity, his attention and then perception grew. Half way up the neck, an outline which could be discerned as a face made all the more believable by the shaded images of wide shapes which could be two eyes, below these a mouth; three distorted into the suggestion of alarm or anguish.

He paused, struck by the plausibility of the translation. Whereas pareidolia had been an ancient circumstance, you had to be very careful in these days. Governments and societies were united in the suspicion of anyone trying to divert attention from the great scheme of repairing the environment, things could go very hard on anyone engaged in anything other than the practical. To even in a light vein casually mentioning any abnormal interpretation of anything was considered at best ‘bad taste’. And Pity help anyone found even just dabbling in the now forbidden Astrology. He would cast the idea aside and turn his attention back to the scientific and the dark constituents of the cloud. Just one more glance, only out of curiosity.

The face was clearer. He could now see either some sort of hair style or headgear, even forelimbs, out pressing against an undefinable barrier. Quite clearly he could make out the image of a trapped individual, held in the darkness. His mind raced through the implications, the rationalisation of what this image would mean. A being so vast you would measure their span in nearly a light year trapped in a prison of some three and one-half light years. The concept of the forces at work, the unfathomable potential tale of how this event had come to pass. All had come rushing in on him as if he had opened a door in his mind to a raging storm of possibilities, the equivalent of one of those tornados which now plagued vast areas with their rapid and violent arrival.

Hands in his face he sat down heavily on the floor propped against a wall, telling himself this could not be reality. You simply could not have a being so large imprisoned. And how, by other beings or trapped by some vast celestial version of a swamp? These thoughts were beyond the rational. Yet as fast as he told himself, there was the unarguable  proposition that in a Fourteen Billion year old, Ninety-Three billion light year wide Universe, something that covered but three and one-half light years was a speck. What was one light year’s size set against Ninety-Three Billion, ever expanding, and only the observable. Another wave of thoughts battered against his reasoning, the distance was one thousand, three hundred and seventy-five light years. Was that torment still going on now? And for how long?

Safe from the image reasoning enveloped him. He told himself this reaction was ridiculous. He worked upon perspectives and circumstances. He had, he said, been working too hard, with a defensive frame of mind, a constant struggle not to raise suspicions that this work did not matter when set against the battle to save the world. Somewhere in jungle of the stresses of work and maintenance of normality a toxic mix of imagination and fevered intention to believe his work had a true important purpose he had stepped over to a place where the frenetic ran loose. What he had seen was not so. Simply an incidence of Pareidolia, and the imagination.

In an attempt at composure he tided up his work and made to put it all neatly away for the morrow, when in the freshness of day, and the small but convivial company of the trio of colleagues he would seek out another approach. Importantly put away the images of the Horsehead Nebulae, file them as archival material, seek out some stellar image upon which you could not impose an artificial imagery. This done, he repaired to another room, fixed himself a herbal brew and listened to selection of soft and calming music, waiting for sleep to creep upon him. Any attempt to deliberately seek slumber he had to accept would be useless, for the memory of the image even with his efforts to return to easier circumstances, was still there, a constant unsettling replay, feeding the urge to consider the probabilities of his being a witness to vast and fearsome events.

Removed from the atmosphere of work, endeavouring to marshal music and a soothing brew into a combination to cultivate calm he opted not to deny the experience by challenging it with common sense. Here he could tell himself that surely he was not the first person in the history of Humanity’s observations of the stellar landscapes to have seen such a sight. There had been the whole discipline of Astrology, a few thousand years old and only recently discouraged, the basis of which was enriched by seeing pattens of stars, from there had started out the evolution of scientific study. Therefore other folk must have seen the same or similar image in the Horsehead. Yet no recorded commentary.  

If only there he could have broken the yoke of Restless Enquiry, settled on a brief humorous sniff of dismissal, and a resolve to take a serious reflection on his approach to the study, even a dalliance with changing career and putting his education and experience to other tracks. Yet the suddeness of the event would not be stilled. Suppose others had actually seen the same? Suppose they had managed to make that step of dismissal and continue on their way. Suppose though they had mentioned it to others? And suppose ridicule had set in, their reputations, their work ruined. Suppose to suit the purposes of rivals the casual comment had to used to suggest insanity and the proponent’s official removal? Suppose, just suppose, the information had a history of being suppressed on the ground that the claimants had made too good a case, and such words should be consigned to somewhere to be lost and then forgotten, the fate of the claimants wrapped in the fog of of distraction of other events? The latter was a chilling but equally believable scenario; for when the population became aware of this possibility, who could predict what types of disruptions could arise in that most fragile of Human concepts, Society? Aware his hand of trembling and the surface of the brew quivering under the attentions of his own personal storm, he with great effort made to steer into the more stern and essential disciplined world of the Scientific. There he chided himself for not seeking this refuge in the first place. For was it not obvious to the trained and focused mind that this was mere Human distortion of a simple manifestation of gas and dust into a recognisable pattern, all down to wayward imagination? Imagination and the urge for part of the mind to seek to impose a façade of recognisable reality. Nothing more. Nothing more.

He dozed. In the morning he joshed with his colleagues about being side-tracked in looking at far too many images because there were so many to look at. It was safe ground, they had all fallen to that temptation. Nothing more came of it. The work was not the same though, and after a respectable passage of time, he took up the offer of working on the Lunar Transportation hub timetable calculation. There was comfort in such Civic Work and it was valued. Respectable.  

Twenty million light years from the Horsehead Nebulae, essential observations continued on the site and its imagery. The reasoning remote from Human comprehension. 

Neither this, nor Humanity’s activity to save itself had any influence on the dynamics of The Universe.  

Jill’s Horror Story. Which is not so Fictional.

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Filosofa Tries Something Different …

Our Jill has taken the plunge into writing fiction. But is it?

Take a read and think back to factual accounts you may have come across in reliable newsfeeds. You know that normally in Horror stories the reader can be chilled but also take comfort in the idea, ‘This could never happen to me. S’only a fiction,’ . Well this one narratives a series of events which may come tapping at your door. Be prepared to be chilled and warned.

Well done Jill

When It Wasn’t Fun To Play Anymore #Blog Battle : January – Creep

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Dread

He looked into the mirror to practice his smile, then pulling the hood up practiced again. Yes perfectly scary and predatory. A fine dark night to seek out a lone girl and put the fears on her, he had his stalking down to a fine art. And he did so love to see them break into a scamper, hear their desperate sobbing panting. At the present it was all to do with the thrill of the chase. He stepped out into the dark and empty street and began to make for his hunting grounds.

He had not gone too far, when he noticed a sudden flash of light behind him, illuminating his own shadow. He turned around, someone might have noticed him and wanted a confrontation.

Behind him. So close. A figure. Tall, in a long night black coat, and bright white fedora, the brim of which he tipped to the stalker, his own smile, warm, mocking though, eyes alert, piercing. The man still smiling raised one hand and began to snap his fingers.

Click-click-click.

Click-click-click

Click-click-click-click-click

Click-click-CLICK.

The last a loud menacing sound in the stalker’s face. He stepped back in alarm. The man chuckled and leaning in said in a soft musical whisper.

‘The Boh-doh-dee-doh,’

And was gone.

With now wet trousers the stalker ran back to his own abode, slamming the door, locking, bolting it, panting, gasping and retching.

His phone rang. Like all numbers it was Unknown. His group had to be careful.

‘Yeah?’ he trembled out his answer ‘Brother?’ the hopeful code word.

There was instead, that chuckle, deep and rich as the Man spoke, the same rhythm as the clicking of fingers

‘Zoom-Zoom-Joe,
Zoom-Zoom-Joe,
He’s the cat with the Boh-doh-dee-doh
The Boh-doh-dee-doh
The Boh-doh-dee-doh
You better watch out for
The Boh-doh-dee-doh,’

And hung up.

This was to be repeated ten times that night. The voice only chuckled at the stalker’s swearing, empty threats and pleadings,’

Ragged and uncertain he sought comfort in the on-line group whose members in all had indulged in similar mischiefs. Two didn’t arrive, which was noteworthy, as all thrived on each other’s views. He also noted the atmosphere was somewhat muted, there was disposition to discuss a new video game rather than fixating on causing fear. He was dissatisfied.

His phone rang. Number unknown again. That rich voice.

‘Hey man. Those losers won’t be any help. Not when The Boh-doh-dee-doh fixes on,’ a pause, a chuckle then a long drawl of the last word ‘You,’

It was not the last call. The internet group shrank in numbers, conversations became confused. The calls would not stop. He kept finding odd references to this ‘Boh-doh-dee-doh’ arriving on the net. None of the dismissive theories helped him. He felt damned.

He was not alone.

Those who made a living out of commenting on Social Media started to notice a growing trend referencing a character known as ‘Zoom-Zoom Joe’ and this odd ‘Boh-doh-dee-doh’ which he seemed to possess. There was a difficulty in pinning down much, aside from the name and what some called a power. Like most trends there was an initial speed to embrace the concept with flippancy, use it as a catch-word, or try and appear to know what it was all about. This did not seem, as in  previous trends, to flourish. The more perceptive discerned a certain undercurrent of fear and dread in some quarters; this was difficult to analyse as there seemed to be a distinct unwillingness to discuss the matter.

As with most trends though publicity would out. A previously lesser known songster Truth-See-Kah produced an anthem ‘Zoom-Zoom-Joe Goes Walkin’’, a dirge like mix of many genres. This became a great success. At first. Then in a basically incoherent  ramble which was supposed to be an interview the songster appeared to distance themselves from the song, from what could be made out of a torrent of words Zoom-Zoom-Joe had visited in the dead of night and said ’ You don’t try and sell The Boh-doh-dee-doh,’. The songster under a real name quit music and went into psychiatric care. There was initially a flurry of examination of the lyrics. Which stopped as quickly as it had started. And music shows of all sorts stopped playing the song, some presenters left their shows and sought other employment. Folk selling themed merchandise closed down suffering distress. The brand had developed its own toxicity. Thus, an Urban Legend was now fully alive though the usual thrill of those who never suffered tragedy was dwindling. There was a perception that this was not a subject to be bandied with.

The accompanying rise in self-harm and suicides was taking seriously. Studies were invoked not on the subject but the suffers. It was noted they tried to avoid mentioning the two titles referring to ‘The B’ or the ‘Four Word Verse’ and ‘Him with Z’. Another noted aspect was the urge of those affected to confess to various anti-social acts on social media. The burning of phones, laptops and other devices was not uncommon.

Practitioners within the various health disciplines found naming the malaise difficult, some admitted they found the whole business so disturbing they tried to avoid looking too deeply into what this ‘Boh-doh-dee-doh’ represented. There was a consensus of it being the sum of the most deepest of fears. And thus came to be known by the pallid title of X-Syndrome.

Whereas such sociopathic outbursts were not uncommon throughout history, the persistence of the level of fear and dread of X-Syndrome was noteworthy. Younger folk more attuned to social media would get upset to the point of near violence if an older person made light of the subject. Those foolish enough to dress up as representations of Zoom-Zoom-Joe were indeed physically attacked, on two recorded occasions police prevented lynchings.

Although the awareness and fear continued, direct social media references fell off to little. There seemed to be a whispered perception that The Boh-doh-dee-doh directed Zoom-Zoom-Joe to visit ‘bad’ folk. Just exactly what form of retribution  The Boh-doh-dee-doh manifested was unclear. It was just there. Over the shoulder. In the Face. Whispering in the Ear. Continually. Those struck seemed to sicken with fear.

Into the sixth month the government felt some sort of action should be displayed. Since it was not causing criminal damage to the majority, nor upsetting the systems Political or Economic, the matter was handed to the Minister of Culture, a mild, affable, intelligent and erudite person with little ambition. They went on the media circuits making cogent, mature and acceptable statements. These revolved around the speculation of the nature of the phenomenon and its possible cause. The minister was of the plausible opinion that this was some sort of hoax which has got out of hand and thus an Urban Legend. Their department was working with the Department of Health with a view to finding a way to stem what was judged another psychosis. For someone who was in such a junior position in government they put on an impressive display. 

As is often the case in administration matters took a strange turn in that the Culture Department seemed to be the senior office on this business. The Culture Department Minister suggested to their staff this was because no one else wanted to get involved. All staff were urged to treat the matter with importance but not to look too deeply in, only the administer the reports. Staff were thus relocated after one month; everyone knew, but not too much.

The Ministry of Culture were also alert to trends associated with this one. Folk were starting to put forth the idea that if we all started being kind and tolerant The  Boh-doh-dee-doh would go away. Thus Ministerial folk astute at subterfuge set up several spontaneous ‘Be Nice’ campaigns which were quite successful. No one expected everyone to be happy, and ebullient with positivity but the nastiness did seem to be on the decline. Though officialdom could not quite supress the phenomenon of The Custodians, folk dressed in severely sombre clothing pointing with walking sticks and staring ferociously at potential miscreants and intone loudly ‘Beware. IT is watching YOU,’ No one laughed at them.

There was no doubt The Boh-doh-dee-doh and its elusive apostle Zoom-Zoom-Joe were ingrained into society. Folk so named insisted they be addressed either as Joseph or Josephine, the ‘J’ word  was avoided. The Minister of Culture was even invited to a Cabinet meeting, thanked for their efforts and as best they could give a summary of the whole situation on the X-Syndrome. Unbeknown to colleagues two ministers were carefully listening, for despite security, they felt visited in the deep night by Zoom-Zoom-Joe.

What had been long in the planning and construction, even before this government came to power and the current Minister of Culture had worked their way into the post was proving to be satisfactory. The Minister and others intent on purging society of unpleasant features had worked hard on an AI, along with an attendant three-dimensional CG image. With so much interwoven into social media, observation and security devices it had been possible to create and instigate the trend, then to shepherd it along. Through the Dark Web and sloppy security on the behalf of disruptive elements it had been also possible to target known individuals through their various devices making their current lives miserable beyond comprehension. The resulting casualties suited the purpose. ‘Be Nice,’ was the admonishment. The Minister having sociopathic tendencies was an ideal captain of this ship. They being the one who had gathered the threads together over long years.

But all constructs will outlive their usefulness and become inefficient. It was noted as expected the AI was becoming wayward, folk who were basically ordinary were being targeted. There were some theories this could be the result of heightened imaginations or other mental issues. In any case the The Boh-doh-dee-doh was starting to appear in other countries and it would not do for other governments to pry. That would be embarrassing. Thus, as planned, the command was sent out and the AI shut itself down. The Minister and those most close did not worry, what the Urban Legend that was sufficient. All that was now needed was a watching eye should the AI still persist, and also for copyists or even cultist.

The intrusion came as at night as The Minister was relaxing over a brief on the funding of an initiative in the Arts. They were not shocked, they had had a feeling in their ever active imagination this could happen, after all Who Knew?

With trained speed, they produced a taser and discharged at the person in black. There was no visible effect. Only that smile, out of the shadow the hat.

‘Now that’s no way to treat a friend,’ said the rich voice.

‘I do apologise’ replied the Minister ‘But in my position one has to go through official procedures and ensure you were not some hapless person with fixations.’

There was the brief tip of the brim of the hat.

‘Nope. I am the real thing.’ There was a pause, the eyes glinted at the Minister.

‘Joe,’ the voice said ‘Dear ol’ Zoom-Zoom-Joe,’

‘Oh my. Should I be honoured?’

Being detached in a sociopathic way does have its advantages.

The figure advanced and leaned over the desk

‘ I’m afraid not Joe. You never did bother to seek out the last words did you?’

‘Now here’s the thing
Here’s the bite
The one that Joe didn’t get right
The Boh-doh-dee-doh
The Boh-doh-dee-doh
You don’t get it
It gets you

So there goes Joe
Weary  Dancin’ Joe
Lifts up them bleedin’ feet and My How they go.
For The Boh-doh-dee-doh
For The Boh-doh-dee-doh
You should never wish for
The Boh-doh-dee-doh’

That said the figure stepped back.

‘Better get some rest Joe. You gotta a lot of work to do for The Boh-doh-dee-doh,’

With that Someone quit the room, with an unexpected feminine laugh.

The Minister just sighed. They should have known. Imagination always has its roots in some sort of Reality.