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There used to be a ride in the Golden Kingdom called Icarus Odyssey.

 

Enormous metal wings would get strapped on to your shoulder blades and you’d go for a ride over the park happily screaming, slung around like a puppet.

 

They tore it down around the same time the war got going.

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How did it all happen like it did? you may be wondering.   And the answer is shockingly simple: People are quite happy to obey.

 

Most people in this world will always listen to the loudest one in the room.

Some crave the craven men who pour poison into their ears, telling them everything is going to be ok, in just the right voice.

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            Hush, hush. There, there. I’m here now, and I’m going to fix everything…Make it how it once was when everything was simple. When everything was perfect. Just leave it to me. Rest your troubled heart. O you poor ragged things . . .

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            Orderliness at the expense of humanity—that’s what happened.

 

The small-minded preferring the knowns of this life over anything unfamiliar to their dying breath, even when what’s known is savage, inhuman.

 

Amoral or horrifying.

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Put differently, shackles can be made to appear as wings and a surprising amount of people won’t care to tell the difference.    They'd much prefer the illusion of flight.

 

They’d rather not look down to notice all the necks they’ve been stepping upon, how the weight on their shoulders shifts, pressed down just so as to transfer away the burden.

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Meanwhile, the sky has been stolen away by madmen with tapeworms for power.

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One thing you have to understand:

a few years without seeing the sky,

you start to forget what stars even look like.

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