combat writing badge C O M B A T
the Literary Expression of Battlefield Touchstones
ISSN 1542-1546 Volume 04 Number 01 Winter ©Jan 2006



Scum of the Earth




M E M O R A N D U M


      From: Father Flex
                Earth Mission

      To: Monsignor Curt
            Vega HDQT

      Via: tight beam

      Re: Native Resistance


Your Holiness:

The reduction of the savages here has proceeded along classical lines. Earth's native population, after recovering from its shock at our appearance, greeted us with an awed relief – because its two warrior tribes, China and America, had, as it happened, worked themselves up to a frenzy just before our advent, and were on the verge of a war of annihilation.

But once it was clear to this violent little world that our mission was peaceful, and that our custom diet would double any Earthling's lifespan, organized resistance quickly faded. Even the customary face-saving political speeches – which we have, of course, not prohibited – have grown infrequent.

Monsignor, ninety percent of the native population has accepted the Holy Quintet, all praise to the Blessed Geometer. And much of the credit for this amazing conversion rate must be given to Brother Tu Pezlox, who was the first to hit upon the concept of incorporation.

Most of the savages in the western tribe, called America, honored (in name only) a primitive trinity. Pezlox's idea, although superficially blasphemous, to my mind further glorifies the Quintet by identifying the three entities the Americans ostensibly worshipped with a subset of our five. This was done, needless to say, in accordance with their capacity to understand. And once they at last comprehended our Holy Witness, they flocked to the Geometer in satisfying numbers.

So why then can we not claim a complete success? ... especially since all other Missions in our Vega group must contend with a much larger pagan population? The reason is that the unbelievers here are concentrated in one sector, namely, the Achafalaya Basin in Louisiana, a southern parish.

To this bleak expanse have flocked the scum of the Earth: Cajuns, criminals, Pentecostals, feminists and other sexual mosaics – imbeciles all, even by human standards. These savages emerge from the amber swamps with makeshift weapons, work their violence, and then sink again into the methane to swim away like eels. How could they have guessed what their wisest leaders could not? ... that the energy required to destroy their holy shrines – Las Vegas and Shanghai – has exhausted our reserves, and that at this distance we are now very nearly their military equal?

Completely fearless now, these madmen kill everything – both sexes, children or infants, game or pets, human or not – even bugs! They pull down our temples and throw the rubble into the marsh. They consume our dwellings with fire, plow under the crops we have generously introduced for their benefit, and pour salt upon the loam. And when they have nothing holy left to destroy, they kill each other!

Scores of our most devout friars – on whom be peace – have been martyred by the Basin barbarians. Only one has survived – a monk, who, from all reports, has always been worthy and unswerving. But here, Your Holiness, the record becomes truly amazing. As implausible as it sounds – and I have this on good authority – this excellent brother has gone native. He has forsaken the music of the spheres for the violent din of the savages. He has pierced and patterned his flesh. He prefers now spirits to ambrosia. And most deplorably, he has forsaken his own mortified harem to compete for the attention of a single, filthy human squaw.

Nothing in the Procedures for Native Reduction has prepared us for this shattering abomination. Even Brother Pezlox, upon whom I have come so much to depend, is clueless.

It was during times such as these that the ancient poet sang, "Why do the heathen rage and imagine a vain thing?" (Ps 2:1 KJV)

Please advise.

/s/Father Flex





M E M O R A N D U M


      From: Monsignor Curt
                Vega HDQT

      To: Brother Tu Pezlox
            Earth Mission

      Via: decoded English transcription of coded communication

      Re: Father Flex


Brother Pezlox:

I have recently received an extraordinary communication from Father Flex. Although his message was pious and perfect in every way, reverent and worshipful in all respects, it was nevertheless written in dialect and riddled with native colloquia.

Consequently, Brother Pezlox, I fear I must now commit an extraordinary breech of protocol by contacting you directly in order to ask whether it is just possible that Father Flex has, in some subtle way, been contaminated by these savages himself?

/s/Monsignor Curt





M E M O R A N D U M


      From: Brother Pezlox
                Earth Mission

      To: Monsignor Curt, et al
            Vega HDQT

      Via: open missive

      Re: Father Flex, etc


Hey, Mon,

Don't sweat the boss friar. He's like washed in the blood.

/s/Tu Elvis Pezlox




[authorial note: with apologies to the late Arthur Koestler for the inadvertently shared title, despite the advertently unshared theme]



by David Choate
... who is a professor of mathematics with no combat experience outside of the classroom or beyond the halls of academe. His poetry ("Easter Island", "Ode to an Academic", "Song of Sums") has been published in Amelia and Defenestration; his science fiction ("The Kid Catcher", "There Came Forth She Bears") in Starwind and Space & Time; and his "Christianity and Cannibalism", a philosophical essay, in Sophia. Some of his other fine works have previously appeared in this literary magazine.




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