Daily Prompt: The Patron Saint of Truth

The Challenge: In 300 years, if you were to be named the patron saint of X, what would you like X to be? Places, activities, objects — all are fair game.

The Delivery:

The year is 2315. The day began like every day since 2215. The clock chimed. The birds chirped. The voices below sounded off one-by-one. Today is. The expected high temperature is. The precipitation is. There will be no further interactions between citizens and officials until quarantine has been lifted. Please remember to wear your masks of truth, your badges of honor, your crests of hope, and your shields of purpose. The official announcement of the day is over. Please begin your day as you normally would. And, remember we have our installation of the Patron Saint of Truth at noon. The festivities can be viewed remotely via direct stream or through your unembedded mobile devices. We look forward to seeing you there.

… (Noon the same day)…

As humans, we are constantly trying to live up to the promise of our ancestors. Sometimes we succeed. Sometimes we fall short. In both cases, the underlining goal is to always remember our ancestors knew less than us, but gave more than us, just as we are expected to do for the next generation. We are to uphold our virtues so we honor their struggles, their advancements in science, their innovations in technology, and their successes in destroying the unrestrained pride genome deeply rooted in our culture for centuries.

Today marks a hundred years since EYHCS discovered the RNA molecules completing the genome for pride. EYHCS was known for stating, “At the brink of war the cellular composition just materialized as if an unseen force revealed it all before her eyes”. She refused to accept credit for the discovery. In fact, to this day if asked, she simply states, “it was divine intervention”. No one has ever been able to disprove her assertion, so it stands.

Now, as we install EYHCS as the Patron Saint of Truth, we revisit the words she delivered to the council 100 years ago today, ending the internal war of pride vs. greed.

“Council I have just left my lab. I did not even lock the door out of fear my delay could offset the tenuous balance between word vs. deed. I was hard at work looking for the final gene to break the code on pride. We have all watched our society’s infrastructure slowly fall into decomposition from the internal war of pride, grandstanding, and false goodwill. I made a promise to the creator to never fall into the trap. I ate from the leftovers of the citizens. I drink from the rivers of the Earth. I watched our citizens turn on each other. I watched our society crumb, but we never died. I turned down the politicians’ gifts of expensive jewels, five star dinners, and lavish vacations on the greatest beaches of this Earth. It was all a guise for me to stop my research. I refused. I knew as a society we could overcome the darkness settling in our community. Late this morning out of pure exhaustion I feel asleep in my lab while looking through a microscope. Awoken be a loud crash, there it was. The genome for pride loomed in midair. I quickly transcribed the data. I checked and rechecked the outcomes. I verified the genes, cells, and molecules composition. And confirmed, our divine creator had revealed the one thing, so many people had sought to hide in an effort to propagate a never-ending war. My lab assistants and I confirmed the data is real. No longer will we eat our own. No longer will we kill our own metaphysically or physically in hopes of advancing our own agendas. No longer will a dubious “I” usurp the collective. We have unmasked the secret to restore our ancestors’ original vision for our people. Going forward, we live by our words and our actions will affirm our truth on a single value: “first do no harm”.

And so, great citizens of this new utopia, we install EYHCS as the Patron Saint of Truth. EYHCS, refused to allow pride to win no matter the compensation thrown her way. Remember great citizens of the Earth, “Some things are not for sale”.

“Daily Prompt: The Patron Saint of Truth” by EYHCS (D. Boyland) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.