Mannequin: Plague of Madness

Narrative Apocalypse piece about dystopian modernization paranoia created by the 'pace' of civilization distillation.

A nice dystopian diorama, inspired by the excellent apocalyptic urban cinema, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. Enjoy (signing off), 

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In a modern city, quite darkened by man's ambition, there arose a great Tribulation or Apocalypse of the imagination which tested our species' ability to transcend terrible dares or challenges imposed upon ourselves by ourselves and our siblings and neighbors. This dare/challenge was based on the demand to keep pace with the swiftness of civilization progression, so those who weren't up-to-speed on the ergonomics of modern life were swept away by the gray advance of this modern darkened city.

Treasure and fortune were the hallmarks of modern capitalism globalized, and there were highways of blood-diamond or 'conflict diamond' traffic, gems mined by warlords in Africa and financed by corrupt capitalism-barons in Europe to fund terrorism and fascist regimes, and this sort of commercial vanity strained the entire global gem market, creating more visceral proof that commercialized globalism had become a shape or 'thing' of raw ambition and unfiltered profiteerism, making Earth and its modern darkened cities dens for pirates.

A team of diamond-thieves called Shadow were meanwhile performing underground vigilante Robin Hood gem heists of Euro-bank safe-boxes holding blood-diamonds from Africa, and Shadow wanted to destabilize the visceral grip created by these corrupt capitalism barons who'd sullied the diamond matrix and further depressed modern man's sense of treasure and fortune marketing, making Shadow a face of masked underground if dangerous heroism.

You go to a modern shopping-mall in this modernized civilization on Earth and seek some warm wool winter gloves for work or life, and you see a silver mannequin in the mall donned with the gloves you wish to purchase for yourself, and you suddenly realize that the frozen mannequin wearing the wool gloves is somehow a doll-symbol of modern man's fascination with the sheer 'aesthetics' of capitalism itself, making everyday lifestyle goods (like gloves!) suddenly 'trophies' for civilization pace, and no one wants to feel like a dinosaur!

In a psychiatric institution, a paranoid schizophrenic patient named Jeffrey insisted to the other patients that this globalized phenomenon of pace-driven pressures created by modern man and his darkened city of capitalism vanities was literally and figuratively erecting some sort of monstrous Goliath of impossible dares/challenges, and siblings/neighbors would be seen as Devils or AntiChrists of this socialized rationalized and 'sanitized' mass 'demand' for civilization progress awareness, and the patient was dismissed as simply a romantic dystopian blabbering about the modern loss of innocence.

You forget about Jeffrey the loon, but you walk past a fancy Eastern shopping store window in New York and notice two stunning female mannequins dressed in very nice Indian saree fashions, and you begin to wonder if your siblings/neighbors who're now daring/challenging you to be perceptive and 'sensitive' to this New World of capitalism-oriented sociological aesthetics really are Devils who're frightening you into thinking you're simply not up-to-speed with all this commercialized urban drama.

One such victim of this urban progress was a New York lawyer named Neo, a man from Algeria, a US citizen of Ivy League education, who had strange dreams in which his pressuring coworkers insisted that he's simply too dim-witted or slow in speech to keep pace with all this modern urban progress, and in this horrifying dream, the lawyer Neo imagined and hallucinated that his own ability to intelligibly communicate with his persuasive mouth was inhibited or even impaired by his own fear of losing pace with modern life!

Had Neo become a 'mannequin-victim' of all this modern progress, and if so, was there a new proverbial 'army of 12 monkeys' comprised of paramilitary crusaders, tech-wizards, fashion gurus, and street riders who're simply very sharpened by all this modernization, appearing to be either crusading defenders of patriotic politics or devilish adversaries of utter social humility, perhaps drawing us towards some great Tribulation or Apocalypse of civilization beauty?

PSYCHIATRIST: I have no doubt Jeffrey is delusional in his claim that all life on Earth is becoming a helmet-disaster.

Nevertheless, there seemed to be an eerie tangible realism behind all this modern dystopian paranoia, and the various agents or devils of this progress challenge seemed to be frightening others (and even themselves!) into thinking that our species would be extinguished by the very-same light of diligence that created this New World fear.

BUSINESSMAN: To protect innocence in capitalism is to create an umbrella of appeal conducive to consumer recruitment!

Hey, no one's denying that factory-consciousness is purely natural and evolutionary, but no one likes the eerie shadow of thought suggesting that such mass socialization creates an undeniable form of innocence-loss or labor-obsession or even profit-dementia, for that truly is the sign that great calamities like a Plague or World War looms to cleanse our sense of lost innocence...or naturalism!

US PRESIDENT: We won't fall behind in this 'great race' and will keep pace with the arms of strength and warfare.

Meanwhile, kid at home purchased and received symbolic civilization-tech toys and Golems signifying man's developed fascination (or obsession?) with this New World imagination, and no kid wants to feel like they just don't have the 'right toys' to keep pace with all this adult dreaming.

PSYCHIATRIST: This is all indeed a capitalism 'race' but without any fatal fear of competition-driven destruction.

As the Coronavirus spread, and more and more people were forced to work, study, and play indoors and from home through the New World miracle of media/Internet/TV/iPhones, Jeffrey's lunatic claims that the Apocalypse was at hand because of man's neglect of all this matrix deformity suddenly seemed eerily storybook.

NEUROSCIENTIST: Man's brain is capable of categorizing stimuli at fixed speeds and musn't be too tested in this skill.

I myself went to see a sharp NY lawyer the other day and told her that my coworkers were pressuring me and humiliating me in feeling too slow or dim-witted to keep pace with all the modernizations in our now advanced American urban law firm, and she told me strangely, "We're here to listen to any potential client-claims that they feel simply too 'harassed' by the overflow of modern traffic agents and bureaucrat gargoyles!"

All of these metaphysical strangeness on modern Earth prompted to mystical entities, Shiva (deity of meditation/destruction) and Pennywise (underworld Devil's Advocate of anarchism) to create a debate-discussion about the contours of the fatal threat of modernization itself.

SHIVA: It seems civilization is retrograding into a form of Ancient Egypt!
PENNYWISE: How so, exactly?
SHIVA: Ancient Egypt was a self-imposed cage of architectural vanities!
PENNYWISE: So, what?
SHIVA: Well, modern cities on darkened Earth is creating towers or Golems of geometry!
PENNYWISE: What?
SHIVA: These cities of great capitalism intrigue are creating needles and towers of ambition!
PENNYWISE: So, what?
SHIVA: Doesn't all this vanity suggest that the 'shape' of modernization is one of fear?
PENNYWISE: Fear, you say?
SHIVA: Yes, you clown, fear!
PENNYWISE: Fear of what?
SHIVA: Fear of falling behind, of course!
PENNYWISE: Well, that's perfectly natural, sir.
SHIVA: Natural?
PENNYWISE: Yes, of course it's natural to feel like dinosaurs in times of speed.
SHIVA: Dinosaurs?
PENNYWISE: It's not necessarily retrogradation...it's only natural reflex.
SHIVA: What's so reflexive about a raw fear of becoming a dinosaur?
PENNYWISE: The Earth was once ruled by dinosaurs, sir.
SHIVA: This can't all just be pure paranoia...there seems to be an element of real danger!
PENNYWISE: Danger, of what?
SHIVA: Danger of stiffness, rigor-mortis, immunity deficiencies, and competitive wrath!
PENNYWISE: Well, this sounds like the Apocalypse.
SHIVA: Do you deny that, clown?
PENNYWISE: No...I just imagined it would all be more...fun.
SHIVA: Your sense of sarcasm doesn't drown the idea that progression paranoia is clinical.
PENNYWISE: You sound like a hopeless idealist, sir.
SHIVA: Idealism may be more 'natural' than blithe neglect of civilization distancing.
PENNYWISE: Perhaps 'distancing' is the real hallmark of Ancient Egypt dizziness you cited!

While Shiva and Pennywise remained in disagreement about the perils of modernization, they both agreed that progress in civilization would surely mark seriously heavy signs of true deformity, so where was the 'dogma-cure' to all this distancing paranoia?

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)