posted
Not much call for a painter in the 2020s, not for one that works on canvas instead of walls. But I managed to get the job and got paid to do it, and you might as well get paid to do something you enjoy. I didn’t make big money, but I made enough to eat, to clothe myself, and to live a life of some small luxury in my Lower East Side apartment. I do miss Manhattan, and sometimes, here in this bunker in the middle of the Negev desert, I still close my eyes against the darkness of night and hear the sounds of city life, the buzzing of people and rumble of automobiles.
“The Negev desert? A bunker?” you ask, for inevitably you will. And I suggest, for you own sake, you guard these secrets with your life. Mossad values your life far less than they value confidentiality.
You’ve heard, I assume, of the Plagues of Egypt. What you haven’t heard is that they remain on Earth to this very day. Trapped, no less, in the bodies of ten men and women, each the chosen heir to one of the curses that afflicted the once-great nation. Well, almost each of us. When the bearer of Darkness died of a heart attack on the New York subway (what in G-d’s name brought that old momzer here, I may never know) his power, his curse, was transferred to the nearest living person. In other words, the idiot painter taking the late train home from the Village.
[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited March 30, 2011).]
posted
A personification or incarnation of the ten plagues… interesting.
You mentioned the Mossad and a bunker, are they holding you prisoner? How exactly do you release the plague that you represent? How do you keep from releasing it? Is there a plan, an endgame?
Do you still paint? I would think that you would now have lots of time on your hands, what do you do with it? Do you have any family that you were forced to leave behind?
Did you go with the Mossad by choice? Why would you make such a choice? Or did they force you? If they forced you, did you try to use your new “powers” to escape?
Who explained what has happened to you? Did you believe them at first? How were you convinced?
posted
You mentioned the Mossad and a bunker, are they holding you prisoner? How exactly do you release the plague that you represent? How do you keep from releasing it? Is there a plan, an endgame?
A prisoner? Of sorts. They're keeping me here for my safety and yours. To release the plague, I see with my mind's eye the Darkness, then will it to be so. Imagine, if you will, painting a picture, or sculpting. I have to "see", or "unsee" as it were, before I can call forth the power. To not release it, well, that's half the reason I'm here. Until my control over the plague is absolute, it's the bunker for me. When I was first infected, it took days before I could even see again, and even yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night, hit the lightswitch, and saw only blackness. In my waking hours, my conscious hours, it’s easier. But it’s still not absolute, and my situation is far from the bleakest; Aaron, the hailbearer, has not left this building in over a decade. I don’t have an endame plan, but I have a sneaking suspicion my predecessor did. Otherwise, why else would an eighty-something year old die without ever choosing an heir? - Do you still paint? I would think that you would now have lots of time on your hands, what do you do with it? Do you have any family that you were forced to leave behind?
I don’t have my paints with me, and haven’t yet been able to acquire more. But I’ve managed to develop enough control over the Darkness that I can literally sculpt it into any form I desire. Most of my waking hours are spent preparing myself for life as a Darkness incarnate, training my psyche and spirit for their burden. If not painting now saves me from a life of blindness later, it’s a sacrifice I’m afraid I’ll have to make. No living family, and I’ve been told that everyone in New York (friends, neighbors, gallery owners) thinks I’m overseas, working on my paintings. - Did you go with the Mossad by choice? Why would you make such a choice? Or did they force you? If they forced you, did you try to use your new “powers” to escape?
I didn’t have any choice in the matter, not even to resist. The signal in my predecessor’s pacemaker led Mossad’s agents to my then-comatose body, and when I awoke I was already in Israel. - Who explained what has happened to you? Did you believe them at first? How were you convinced?
Two of the other plaguebearers explained what had happened while I was still blinded from my first contact with the plague, not an hour after I emerged from my coma. Would you have believed them? Probably not. I sure as hell didn’t, not until Kelila, that sociopath, nearly drowned me in my own blood. She took every drop of saliva in my mouth and throat and transmuted it, and wouldn’t change it back until I was an inch from vomiting. “Miracle of the Nile”, indeed.
quote:I don’t have my paints with me, and haven’t yet been able to acquire more. (…) If not painting now saves me from a life of blindness later, it’s a sacrifice I’m afraid I’ll have to make.
Isolation can lead to bitterness and as such to a carelessness regarding the fate of humanity. Your fellow plagues must have lived most of their lives in such isolation, that would explain their… eccentricity.
Painting seems to me like a way to maintain a connection to your former life, and by extension the reason why you would care to save this imperfect world. Therefore I think that it is one of the most important things that you can do to maintain your own sanity and humanity. You have already been forced by circumstances and the Mossad to sacrifice everything else that makes you, you. Don’t surrender your only outlet without a fight. Even if you are an involuntary guest of the Mossad, they will want to keep you content.
I’m sorry that I was unclear with my question about an endgame. I didn’t mean to imply that you would have one, but rather those who are in control of the 10 plagues. Do they have an endgame?
How did the plagues become trapped in human bodies?
What is significantly different between 2020 and 2011? You got the flying cars yet?
How did the others take the news of an undesignated “heir”? Has there been any other hazing? Are there any who have been kind to you?
How can you tell who has which plague? Are there any readily visible signs, like a cool magical tattoo in ancient Hebrew?
Are there any other groups who cooperate with the Mossad to control the plagues, like the Medjai from the Mummy movies?
Are there any Egyptian good guys? Speaking of which, why do you consider the Mossad the good guys? After all they did literally kidnap you and hold you (at least initially) against your will in a foreign country. You must have resented that for some space of time. What convinced you that they are the good guys? Are you convinced?
Do the Mossad allow you contact with people back home? Do they censor what you tell them? Are any of the people that you know suspicious of your abrupt departure? Are there any of your friends or coworkers that you miss especially?
posted
Isolation can lead to bitterness and as such to a carelessness regarding the fate of humanity. Your fellow plagues must have lived most of their lives in such isolation, that would explain their… eccentricity.
Yes, indeed it can. From the stories I heard about the Darkness before me, Haskel Edelstein, the man was nuts. When I met him, Edelstein was dressed like a cross between a Chassidic rabbi and a gangster rapper. An eighty year old in a suit and Borsalino fedora, decked out in more jewelry than the front row at the Academy Awards. Used to make everyone call him by his initials, HE, and seemed to have some delusions of messiahdom. Or godhood. Maybe HE thought HE’d live forever (and now I’m doing it too!), and that’s why no heir was ever chosen. --- Painting seems to me like a way to maintain a connection to your former life, and by extension the reason why you would care to save this imperfect world. Therefore I think that it is one of the most important things that you can do to maintain your own sanity and humanity. You have already been forced by circumstances and the Mossad to sacrifice everything else that makes you, you. Don’t surrender your only outlet without a fight. Even if you are an involuntary guest of the Mossad, they will want to keep you content. I’m sorry that I was unclear with my question about an endgame. I didn’t mean to imply that you would have one, but rather those who are in control of the 10 plagues. Do they have an endgame?
I don’t think so. This does, however, represent the first outside effort to control and organize the plaguebearers. There’s some good in this, though. It means adequate facilities for the training of ne plaguebearers, including the multimillion-dollar structure designed solely for the training of each new Darkness. --- How did the plagues become trapped in human bodies?
I don’t know, not for certain, but I have suspicions. When G-d unleashed the plagues, they were the raw incarnations of His divine anger. G-d Himself, not an angel,not a represetntative, but the actual creator, King of Kings of Kings. That’s a lot of power, focused, condensed, and made manifest on Earth. I don’t think that sort of thing just up and vanishes. No, I think it stayed with our world, and the form it took, or the forms they took, that’s the Plaguebearers. --- What is significantly different between 2020 and 2011? You got the flying cars yet?
Nope, and the New York subway still stinks. Computers are smaller, faster, and most of the new cars plug in to the wall, not the gas pump. There's some cool things going on with nanomaterials. The ability to block out not just just visible light, but a wide range of the electromagnetic spectrum. It's the closest science could come to replicating my power, and it was a part of my training. --- How did the others take the news of an undesignated “heir”? Has there been any other hazing? Are there any who have been kind to you?
Kelila, she was downright torturous at first, and never quite warmed up to me even yet. But she hated my predecessor, and she’s normally a vindictive you know what, even to Aaron. He’s a good heart, even if he’s bitter about the lot he was dealt. And I wouldn’t blame him; after all, who wants to spend their life in a windowless bunker? Training itself has constituted worse hazing than I ever got in college. My first three months were spent in a black room. No light, except a dim glow for a few minutes every day so I could actually see what I was eating. I did mention that I haven’t really had the opportunity to paint, right? Anyway, by the end of it, the glow from a wristwatch display felt like the noonday sun. So when they locked me in a room whose walls glowed just below the blindness tolerance, left me there for a week, and told me to “make it dark…” Well, I don’t want to get into that. I’ll just say that for whatever sort of antisocial, dysfunctional collectivity of psychotics my colleagues have become, they do, in fact, care about my wellbeing. I don’t think they want for me what’s become of them. --- How can you tell who has which plague? Are there any readily visible signs, like a cool magical tattoo in ancient Hebrew?
I haven’t met all of them, but there are cues. No tattoos, since Jews don’t do tattoos. But there are signs. Kelila, the bloodbearer, she’s got a thing for the color red. Dyed hair, lipstick, rouge, the whole nine yards. Even her wallpaper. It’s all a bit too Picasso for my taste, this manifestation of her obsession. Aaron hasn’t seen the sky in so many years, meanwhile, that it shows. Pale, sallow skin, prematurely thinning hair. I saw a photo of one of the old boilbearers, and she had scars across her face from a particularly bad case of blemishes contracted during her training. There are no “proper” cues, though, and thank G-d. It means, assuming I can develop mastery over the Darkness, that I’ll be able to walk openly again, the way my predecessor did before his death. --- Are there any other groups who cooperate with the Mossad to control the plagues, like the Medjai from the Mummy movies?
Not as far as I can tell. Most of the Israeli government is in the dark about our true nature; they think this compound, and its associated bills, are a part of the nuclear research being done in Dimona. Even within Mossad itself, our existence is on a strictly need to know basis. It’s estimated that outside of the plaguebearers themselves and their heirs, less than a dozen living beings know of us. --- Are there any Egyptian good guys? Speaking of which, why do you consider the Mossad the good guys? After all they did literally kidnap you and hold you (at least initially) against your will in a foreign country. You must have resented that for some space of time. What convinced you that they are the good guys? Are you convinced?
I haven’t spoken to anyone from Egypt. Mind you, the “beef” that created us happened over 3000 years ago, and Egypt and Israel haven’t been at war in decades. But just like the US doesn't share every secret with her allies, Israel doesn't share us with anybody. I did resent being schlepped here, but the alternative was to leave an unrestrained, uncontrollable, living WMD in one of the most populated cities in the world. I might not like being the one they had to do it to, but I understand why the job had to be done. There’s no safer place in the world for me to be than where I am now. What really sold me, after Kelila convinced me this wasn’t a prank, hoax, or the ramblings of a delusional psychopath was the fact that I was taught, however harsh the methods may have been, to see again. --- Do the Mossad allow you contact with people back home? Do they censor what you tell them? Are any of the people that you know suspicious of your abrupt departure? Are there any of your friends or coworkers that you miss especially?
I’ll be allowed to contact the outside world in a few months, once my training is complete. I’m beginning to perhaps regret my habit of taking off without leaving contact information; everyone in New York probably thinks I’m off in Italy or something, looking at museums and painting the scenery. I gather that, yes, it’s vital to maintain a cover story, and there is a heavy amount of censorship, both self and state imposed, on all of the communiqué going to and from the Plaguebearers. Aaron says most of his family, some of whom are not an hour away (Israel is a small country, smaller than New Jersey), thinks he’s in Russia.
-------- Entirely OOC This is fun. A lot of fun. I like this idea a lot; I think it's a good exercise for character development for those writing a new story or, in my case, people editing and thus fleshing out characters who, even if they aren't two-dimensional, could definitely benefit from their creators really spending a few hours walking around their heads. I'm definitely putting this topic into a word doc once all is said and done.
[This message has been edited by EP Kaplan (edited March 31, 2011).]
posted
Your name sounds Jewish, is that true? Do the plaguebearers have to be Jewish? You said before that it was “transferred to the nearest living person” would it be more accurate to say “the nearest living Jew”? Is there some type of genetic marker that is required? Otherwise, was Darkness shadowing you (pun fully intended) because maybe he knew his time was near, even if he wouldn’t admit it? Is it possible that you were a chosen heir after all?
You said that less than a dozen living beings know about you. What would happen if they were all wiped out? What would happen if the secret ever got out? Has the secret ever gotten out? Has a foreign government ever tried to kidnap any of you?
Also, you said “living beings” are any of them non-human? An angel liaison would be awfully cool.
This business of “heirs” has there ever been an instance of a plague rejecting an heir? Is it really as random as proximity, or do you think there might be more to it? The almighty creator always has a plan, even if we don’t understand it, and this proximity business seems a little too unplanned to me.
posted
An interesting idea, I have heard about other humans who are the personification of some power or such. So in one sense you are not alone.
I'm not sure if I have any questions at this time. I will think it over though and may come up with a couple.
But do I understand it right that this happened to you totally unexceptionally? While others have some warning and training you had neither? You may have covered this and I missed it but did someone come to you immediately or were you left alone for a while trying to figure out what happened?
May you, like Moses, find peace and fulfillment within the responsibility and obligation HaShem has placed upon you. By your words, I appreciate a similar humility and acceptance when compared to other "plagued" colleagues you describe.
If I may, I would like to ask:
Aleph: How many of you are there? We know of the named Ten Plagues:
Blood (Dam) Ex. 7:14–25 Frogs (Tzefarda'a): Ex. 7:25–8:11 Lice (Kinim): Ex. 8:12–15 Wild Beasts (or Flies) (Arov): Ex. 8:20–32 Pestilence (Dever): Ex. 9:1–7 Boils (Shchin): Ex. 9:8–12 Hail with Fire (Barad): Ex. 9:13–35 Locusts (Arbeh): Ex. 10:1–20 Darkness (Choshech): Ex. 10:21–29 Death of the Firstborn (Makat Becharos): Ex. 11:1–12:36
But the Sages speak of 50 plagues, even more:
"Thus you must conclude that in Egypt they were smitten by ten plagues, at the sea they were smitten by fifty plagues!...you must now say that in Egypt they were struck by forty plagues, and at the sea they were stricken by two hundred plagues...Thus you must now say that in Egypt they were struck by fifty plagues, and at the sea they were stricken by two hundred and fifty plagues." --Passover Haggadah http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1737/jewish/Maggid.htm
Bet: How many are you are in the Negev bunker?
Gimel: How many are unknown and roam free? (scary thought))
Daled: How many do not know who and what they are? (scarier thought)
May you go from strength to strength.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob ---------------------------------------------------------- OOC Comment: Love the whole idea. Best of luck with it.
[This message has been edited by History (edited May 07, 2011).]
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If Egypt ever found out about you... Didn't God give the plagues to Egypt, after all? And now Israel has stolen them back? There would be a property dispute for sure. I can see where Egypt might feel entitled to have you all. Might it be that not all of you are under Mossad control? Might it be that some of you are incarnated in Egyptian bodies? Might it be that anti-zionist factions would use these plagues against Israel someday? How do you feel about the political nature of your existence? Where do your loyalties lie?
God sent these plagues to punish wickedness. Do you and your colleagues still feel that that is your mission? Where do you see wickedness in today's world? Do you have the obligation to stand up for oppressed people, stand up against oppressive governments, free captives or is it just the enemies of the Jews (right or wrong) who get to suffer from you and your colleagues?
[This message has been edited by Crane (edited August 02, 2011).]
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