c7_assassin
3rd Level Black Feather
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2007
- Messages
- 8,720
- Points
- 0
Mark Zuckerberg is beside me, giving me a walking tour of his sprawling labyrinthine manor. He's tall and lithe, his body sculpted by daily fencing lessons and a Drago-esque assortment of punishment machines that have obviously been imported from countries with no ape-cruelty laws. His movements are precise like a dancer's, his speech rapid and articulate. When he speaks, his eyes remain locked with mine, never deviating. I feel the full attention of this billoinaire wizard and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up a little. I am looking, I suddenly realize, at man who has devoted his life to utter mastery of himself and the world around him.
"So what is it exactly that this forum of yours would like to know about me?" he asks me as we walk, catching me off guard. I can see that he has chosen this moment. Mark Zuckerberg chooses all his moments. We are walking down a long hallway of sealed rooms for which there is no explanation.
"Well," I stammer, "we tend to spend a lot of time gossiping and speculating about celebrities and well known public figures, and it just occurred to us that if one of us actually met one, maybe it would give us a little more credibility."
"Credibility as what?"
"A tickling themed fetish website."
Mark Zuckerberg stops and faces me. For a second I think I may have surprised him, but then another thought firmly pushes that one aside: Mark Zuckerberg is not surprised. Somehow I know that Mark Zuckerberg is never surprised.
"And why on earth did they send you to me?"
"Oh, they didn't. I see what you mean. Ha ha. No, they sent me here to track down Drew Barrymore and also to get candid pictures of the cast of Glee's feet. I basically took their money and their press credentials and then did my own thing. That's kind of how I operate."
"I see. And what is your personal interest in me, Mr. Seven?"
"Please, you can call me C. I was mostly curious about the recent interview you gave Fortune magazine, where you said you only eat meat that you've actually killed yourself."
"Ah yes." We've resumed walking. "What exactly about that strikes you as curious?"
Mark's face betrays no emotion; I check. I struggle to find the right words. "Well...I don't really know Mark, it just seems like that's a pretty unusual personal philosophy. I mean, if you want beef, you'll literally bring in a live cow and use one of those No Country For Old Men guns on it?"
"Oh, don't be silly. That is not how nature intended us to hunt our prey. If I want cow, I go out into the field with a blade and face the cow on his own ground. Only then do I have the right to call him 'beef.'"
"That..." my head swims for a second, but I recover. This hallway seems to never end. "That's great, Mark."
"This year I've basically become a vegetarian, since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."
"Yeah, I remember you said that in the interview too. I guess my concern is just...I mean, first of all, you do know that that's not what 'vegetarianism' means, right?"
Mark smiles broadly, but remains silent.
I push on in case my courage fails me, "And really, most people who become vegetarians feel empathy for the animal being slaughtered. Not out of allegiance to some kind of abstract caveman mysticism. I guess I'm worried here because it seems like maybe you're losing touch with how regular people feel about things."
"Regular people." He says the word like he's describing a dead man's stomach contents.
"Not even 'regular' regular, Mark. I don't mean Oprah watchers. I'm talking about people who went to school and have jobs and just live in the real world. I think you're losing touch with those people. I mean, I know almost none of them are nearly as smart as you or have the kind of education you did, and your net worth right now is basically all of them put together...but none of them, if you gave them thriteen billion dollars, would decide to go out and hunt their food every night. That's the sort of thing that only happens when a person's mind has been completely overloaded with sensation and privilege and power and hasn't experienced authentic human contact for a long, long time. Only then do you decide that butchering your own food is fun. I guess I want to know is, what the hell happened to you, Mark?"
We've come to end of the hallway. A steel door looms before us, but it remains closed. Mark Zuckerberg stares into the distance as if he can see things I can't.
"You want to know my past? It's a matter of public record that at 23 I became the world's youngest billionaire. I guess you could say I've always been alone. The only person with whom I felt any kinship died three hunded years before the birth of Christ. Alexander of Macedonia, or Alexander the Great, as you know him. His vision of a united world... well, it was unprecedented. I wanted... needed to match his accomplishments, and so I resolved to apply antiquity's teaching to our world, today. And so began my path to conquest. Conquest not of men, but of the evils that beset them."
What are you talking about? I want to ask, but I don't dare interrupt him.
"Privacy. Secrecy. Self-delusion. I endeavoured to break down the barriers that hinder human understanding, so that we can finally see the ultimate Truth of our existence."
"And what is that Truth, Mark?" I ask in a whisper.
He turns and faces me, and once again my every hair is standing on end like an unstable power grid was coiled six inches from my head.
"Every time you eat meat, a living thing has to die. Every joy comes at the expense of another's suffering. There is no shrinking from the chaos and cruelty of our own brief existence. I know that now. All a sane man can do is stare into the void and laugh into its fathomless depths."
I start slowly backing up, and Mark follows.
"Every time you use my Facebook, your soul is bared to the world, naked and senseless. Your meaningless kitty-cat memes and your excretious status updates. Your quizzes. Your Farmvilles. I connect the black void of human emptiness with the incautious world and now the world knows itself for what It is!"
"NO!" I scream. "You haven't idealized humanity, you've deformed it! You've mutilated it! That's your legacy!" I try to run, but Mark catches me around the throat.
"Oh, grow up. Do you think I would have explained my master stroke to you if there was any possibility you could affect the outcome?"
"What... do you... mean?" I gasp.
"This world is a hell of cogs and pistons, and the universal lubricant is suffering. I eat only those animals I've defeated myself; that is the source of my power. And I grant mercy only to those journalists who can show the same courage." Mark Zuckerberg drags me towards the reinforced door.
"Tonight I feast on grizzly bear, C-7. If you are truly worthy, you may attend as my guest. If not...farewell." He pushes a hidden button and thrusts me through the door into a dirt-floor arena. Zuckerberg leaps down beside me, now stripped of his clothes and holding a five-foot Viking war-axe. Four full-grown Kodiak bears stare back at us. Mark Zuckerberg smears chicken blood all over his torso and sprays the rest in my hair and then charges the bears screaming, and I think to myself, "Shitfuck."
"So what is it exactly that this forum of yours would like to know about me?" he asks me as we walk, catching me off guard. I can see that he has chosen this moment. Mark Zuckerberg chooses all his moments. We are walking down a long hallway of sealed rooms for which there is no explanation.
"Well," I stammer, "we tend to spend a lot of time gossiping and speculating about celebrities and well known public figures, and it just occurred to us that if one of us actually met one, maybe it would give us a little more credibility."
"Credibility as what?"
"A tickling themed fetish website."
Mark Zuckerberg stops and faces me. For a second I think I may have surprised him, but then another thought firmly pushes that one aside: Mark Zuckerberg is not surprised. Somehow I know that Mark Zuckerberg is never surprised.
"And why on earth did they send you to me?"
"Oh, they didn't. I see what you mean. Ha ha. No, they sent me here to track down Drew Barrymore and also to get candid pictures of the cast of Glee's feet. I basically took their money and their press credentials and then did my own thing. That's kind of how I operate."
"I see. And what is your personal interest in me, Mr. Seven?"
"Please, you can call me C. I was mostly curious about the recent interview you gave Fortune magazine, where you said you only eat meat that you've actually killed yourself."
"Ah yes." We've resumed walking. "What exactly about that strikes you as curious?"
Mark's face betrays no emotion; I check. I struggle to find the right words. "Well...I don't really know Mark, it just seems like that's a pretty unusual personal philosophy. I mean, if you want beef, you'll literally bring in a live cow and use one of those No Country For Old Men guns on it?"
"Oh, don't be silly. That is not how nature intended us to hunt our prey. If I want cow, I go out into the field with a blade and face the cow on his own ground. Only then do I have the right to call him 'beef.'"
"That..." my head swims for a second, but I recover. This hallway seems to never end. "That's great, Mark."
"This year I've basically become a vegetarian, since the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."
"Yeah, I remember you said that in the interview too. I guess my concern is just...I mean, first of all, you do know that that's not what 'vegetarianism' means, right?"
Mark smiles broadly, but remains silent.
I push on in case my courage fails me, "And really, most people who become vegetarians feel empathy for the animal being slaughtered. Not out of allegiance to some kind of abstract caveman mysticism. I guess I'm worried here because it seems like maybe you're losing touch with how regular people feel about things."
"Regular people." He says the word like he's describing a dead man's stomach contents.
"Not even 'regular' regular, Mark. I don't mean Oprah watchers. I'm talking about people who went to school and have jobs and just live in the real world. I think you're losing touch with those people. I mean, I know almost none of them are nearly as smart as you or have the kind of education you did, and your net worth right now is basically all of them put together...but none of them, if you gave them thriteen billion dollars, would decide to go out and hunt their food every night. That's the sort of thing that only happens when a person's mind has been completely overloaded with sensation and privilege and power and hasn't experienced authentic human contact for a long, long time. Only then do you decide that butchering your own food is fun. I guess I want to know is, what the hell happened to you, Mark?"
We've come to end of the hallway. A steel door looms before us, but it remains closed. Mark Zuckerberg stares into the distance as if he can see things I can't.
"You want to know my past? It's a matter of public record that at 23 I became the world's youngest billionaire. I guess you could say I've always been alone. The only person with whom I felt any kinship died three hunded years before the birth of Christ. Alexander of Macedonia, or Alexander the Great, as you know him. His vision of a united world... well, it was unprecedented. I wanted... needed to match his accomplishments, and so I resolved to apply antiquity's teaching to our world, today. And so began my path to conquest. Conquest not of men, but of the evils that beset them."
What are you talking about? I want to ask, but I don't dare interrupt him.
"Privacy. Secrecy. Self-delusion. I endeavoured to break down the barriers that hinder human understanding, so that we can finally see the ultimate Truth of our existence."
"And what is that Truth, Mark?" I ask in a whisper.
He turns and faces me, and once again my every hair is standing on end like an unstable power grid was coiled six inches from my head.
"Every time you eat meat, a living thing has to die. Every joy comes at the expense of another's suffering. There is no shrinking from the chaos and cruelty of our own brief existence. I know that now. All a sane man can do is stare into the void and laugh into its fathomless depths."
I start slowly backing up, and Mark follows.
"Every time you use my Facebook, your soul is bared to the world, naked and senseless. Your meaningless kitty-cat memes and your excretious status updates. Your quizzes. Your Farmvilles. I connect the black void of human emptiness with the incautious world and now the world knows itself for what It is!"
"NO!" I scream. "You haven't idealized humanity, you've deformed it! You've mutilated it! That's your legacy!" I try to run, but Mark catches me around the throat.
"Oh, grow up. Do you think I would have explained my master stroke to you if there was any possibility you could affect the outcome?"
"What... do you... mean?" I gasp.
"This world is a hell of cogs and pistons, and the universal lubricant is suffering. I eat only those animals I've defeated myself; that is the source of my power. And I grant mercy only to those journalists who can show the same courage." Mark Zuckerberg drags me towards the reinforced door.
"Tonight I feast on grizzly bear, C-7. If you are truly worthy, you may attend as my guest. If not...farewell." He pushes a hidden button and thrusts me through the door into a dirt-floor arena. Zuckerberg leaps down beside me, now stripped of his clothes and holding a five-foot Viking war-axe. Four full-grown Kodiak bears stare back at us. Mark Zuckerberg smears chicken blood all over his torso and sprays the rest in my hair and then charges the bears screaming, and I think to myself, "Shitfuck."
