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The Carspian Directive
The reporter checked her sharp features one last time in her compact. She had to look perfect for this next interviewee. Every little detail was of the essence if she were to retrieve the story in it's full and accurate form. She entered the small room where she would be meeting her contact and taking stringent notes.
"Hello, darling."
She started. They had not told her that he would be in the room already.
"Hello" she responded warmly as possible.
"Sit, please" said the strange man. She took a better look at her quarry. He was a odd man, with a peculiarly slanted, long face and extremely lanky body. "I imagine you want to know about...Carspe."
She simply nodded.
"I see. Well let me let you see, if you'll forgive the play of words. Solitude removes certain social taboos, the most noticeable of which being the telling of jokes only the teller thinks are funny. But that is neither he nor anywhere, is it?"
The reporter didn't respond. She was a very patient woman, and had no reason to push this man to divulge anything too quickly.
"No. I am afraid it is not. Carspe. Carspe. Where art thou, Carspe?"
"That's what I'd like to know. Along with what you know about his past."
"Oh of course. Of course. You know...he never much liked reporters. Said they 'abstracted the story from the story-teller'. Said they tried to be objective in a subjective world. But of course, he liked to irk people. It makes them think, was his theory. But you know, when it comes to Carspe, it all starts with a bus ride..."
I was alone. I was twenty-two. My life had come to nothing. All in all I was in good spirits about it, but who knows anything anymore? Certainly not me. I was contemplating the piercings of one of my bus companions. Her appearance gave the impression that she had recently been beaten about the face with a stapler. Individuality my ass.
~ ~ ~
Carspe didn't hear the three men silently break into and enter his hotel room. Carspe was an odd name. Unheard of, really. He knew this.That's partially why he liked the name. He had changed it a number of years ago. No one really knew where he had gotten it. He was just Carspe, it was just one of his many peculiar ways. He should've expected the three men. Not them in particular. But he should've made sure his location was more secret. They had found out where he was staying quite easily. It rarely occured to him how dangerous his path in life was. He wasn't much of a personal saftey person.
They approached his bed. He was a heavy sleeper, but for whatever reason, he woke up when one of them bumped the table and knocked over the hotel phone. Unprofessional of them really, but it only worked to his advantage. Given their stealthy entrance, black clothes, masks, and grim body language, he could understand what they were here for. His activities had irritated the wrong people. Inwardly, he sighed, he had hoped that people could be more understanding. Rolling out of bed he kicked one of the would-be assassins in the stomach, sending him sprawling against the wall. As another came at him with a long knife, he snatched the lamp off of the bedside table. Ripping the power cord from the wall he smashed it over the second assailants head. As the first attacker started to rise again, Carspe landed two sturdy punches, one to his abdomen and another to his head.
His natural fighting prowess had kicked in. He had grown up in a good neighborhood, but enjoyed scraps. At school, he had provoked violent bullies because he enjoyed fights so much. He didn't win that often, in the beginning, he just enjoyed the physical activity. His parents had tried sending him to therapy with multiple psychiatrists, but they all gave up when he simply insisted that he liked the workout and tried to box them.He wasn't so lucky with the third assassin. He had the gun. It had a silencer in it. Carspe was too far away to disarm him.
"I heard you were a pacifist," said the assassin slowly, keeping the gun trained on Carspe.
"My death would mean nothing here. Besides, a good drubbing never hurt anybody."
"I wonder if my two associates would agree, considering the beating you gave them."
"They'll live. A few bruises, maybe. Hurt pride. Not the end of the world. I didn't know you had taken up this profession, Roger," said Carspe casually. The assassin lifted off his mask. He had golden blonde hair, a couple scars on his cheeks, and dark brown eyes. His nose was thin and straight. He had a strong jaw and his face was oval-shaped, with a widows peak.
"They didn't say who it was, just to find him here. I wouldn't have taken the job if I had known it was you."
"I know."
Roger. Jolly Roger, Carspe had called him back when they were friends in highschool. They had lost touch, but had been good friends. Roger was a good guy, but he wasn't much for ethics. It's funny how a person can be that way. Wrong ideas but good hearted. Roger was very much that way. He probably had justified the killing he had done to himself, and he had probably killed many people who had deserved it, but Carspe didn't believe in killing. Not ever. He was indeed a pacifist, even though he would physically defend himself.
"Are you going to kill me Roger?" asked Carspe curiously.
"No. But of all the people to fuck with, why in the fucking goddam hell did you have to pick these people?" Roger was smiling.
"What can I say? I like farmers."
"You're full of shit."
"I haven't changed that much I guess."
"Yeah. You were always full of shit. But the kind of shit I would almost buy. You make it sound real nice," Roger paused for a moment, "A lot of people are behind you, you know.
"That's nice to hear from the man the corporations hired to come kill me."
"Yeah well. They woudn't have hired us if you weren't a problem. It's more like a compliment."
"Now I know why I've never been a big fan of flattery."
"Why do you care so much about farmers?"
"They provide us with food, they get fucked. They keep doing it because it's all they can do, or they don't want to give up their land. That's not right."
"So you're going to change it by what? Changing all the employee's minds? Bankrupting organizations who take care of farmers? Convincing people to quit their jobs so that the rednecks who grow corn can have a better standard of life?"
"Yes."
"You are still full of shit."
Carspe was silent.
Roger looked at him then threw up his hands. He smiled.
"Well then count me as number one, I am quitting my job and doing whatever the fuck it is you're doing. It's just as dangerous, but at least you're good company."
Carspe smiled back. One out of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, or even millions. He didn't care. It was a start.
~ ~ ~
The truth had always elluded him. It was irritating. But everytime he tried to give up he was provoked into action. He couldn't be inactive for long. Things always had to be moving around him. Even if he wasn't at the forefront. He needed to be stimulating change. He needed something. Sometime he didn't even know what he needed, but ultimately it always came to him.
Yet the manner in which it came to him. That was another matter entirely. The cost of epiphany was great to him. Sleepless nights. Tormented dreams. Such was the price payed by a man blessed with wisdom. I have no wisdom of my own, you realize, but I knew it. This made it easy for me to understand his plight. Other people think they are wise, so they don't understand what it truly entails. Wisdom leaves a man empty, because he pours his soul out into his desire for knowledge and truth. Carspe was a man who not only emptied himself so that he could be filled with truth, he sought to empty himself even more to be filled with compassion.
Carspe never thought he was good enough, for anything. It wasn't insecurity, he was confident. It was guilt. He understood perfectly how to measure other people, how to see good in them, but no idea how to see himself. It was all necessary, in his mind, the guilt, the pain. It motivated him. To have compassion for himself, that would be failure. It was a weakness of his. He needed other people to forgive him. Not many people knew that he had emotional weaknesses. He had perfected his image. He seemed strong, resolute, and immovable to all those who followed him. But I knew. I knew it was a facade. Or maybe just the mask that all great men wear. I knew he was just a man. A man who was determined. Who believed. That's really what made the difference for Carspe. And the people who knew about his humanity? They followed him with equal or more zeal because they understood his belief. Understood that he was not superhuman, that he accomplished things because he was truly great in his utter normality. In his frailty.
Such was Carspe. Who moved and shook the world. He was every other man, except determined. It shows you how important it is to have zeal. Have belief. Vigor in life. Faith. Whatever you want to call it, Carspe had it. It didn't mean that he was invulnerable just that no matter how many times he failed, he kept going.
And fail he did. Few people realize what a hard time he had starting out. Before he changed his name and even after that. Many failures, many false starts, many doubts. Society never sees the failures, they fade away. That's what perserves the image of superhuman heroes of social change. The failures, they're not in the textbooks. Only the victories. Carspe hated shit like that.
There were seven correspondences between the man that would be a great leader and his mentor. These seven correspondences occurred once a year for seven years in the form of extremely long letters. Of the four letters sent to the mentor, only one of them was fewer than fifty pages back and front, handwritten. Of the three letters sent to the student, only one was fewer than seventy pages, in similar format. These letters are now lost. No one knew what became of them. All we know is that they were sent and received, and that the result was the man Carspe.
The contents of these letters is unknown. Carspe would never tell me, you see. He was very open about most things, happy and eager to share his wisdom with whoever asked. But when I asked him about the seven letters that he had mentioned in passing he simply responded,
"Those old letters? I got rid of them. There was nothing in them that you won’t figure out for yourself, sooner or later."
He also refused to divulge who had sent him the letters. There were more inquisitive people than I. A well connected follower of Carspe’s tried to trace the postal route or whatever they do. Traced the letters back to Israel. Who would've thunk it eh? Well, it never occurred to me. Funny thing though, it turns out they were supposed to have come from a place called the Second Temple. Turns out to be a religious pawn shop right? But it never sold anything. No record of money transactions to own the space. Realtors got ahold of it, sold it off. How could that happen? In a city like Jerusalem thats so crushed for space? A nice little building in a quaint little part of the city that no one owns. Beats me.
Carspe changed after those letters. I knew him before, you know. One of the few that realize who he was before the name change. Can't tell you though, swore me to secrecy. It's a funny thing, Carspe was big on honesty. Hated lies, probably more than anything else. So he was open. About his mistakes, and everything like that. So that when he told you that it was better you ought not know something, or shouldn't tell other people you could tell that he had a damn good reason even if he didn't pass it on to you.
But anyway, the letters. That's when he changed his name after them. Did I tell you that? It's all sort of a muddle some times. Things happened so quickly. Soon as he comes above the surface of society as Carspe, things start changing around him. He starts people moving. Got them believing in things again. Who knows how he did it? I do. Most people thought there was some trick to it. Some stunt or trickery involved. How else could he mobilize people like he did? But there was no trickery. No deceit. He just found out what people really believed in, really cared about and then....I don't know. He just...moved them. That's what he did. Moved them from one state to another. Like osmosis or something. I dunno. I don't know shit about science, but he changed people, because he made them believe in things again. Even if they didn't know it.
So thing's started changing. Injustices that had gone on for so long in small communities were finally righted. Old crimes made to be paid for. But he didn't hate anyone. So many movements revolve around hate. But he never hated a soul. Liked everyone. Disagreed with their actions, sure, but always understood where they were coming from, and no one liked disagreeing with him. Not for a long time. But of course, there will always be those who hate the just. They say he knew right from wrong. Black from white.
He said he just knew there was a difference. Not many people do anymore.
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