It Rains, They Listen

By Kevin Harbison

(It rains, they listen)

Future accomplishments, future ideals, future goals.
All of these will refuse to be gazed upon
unless we are willing to stand still for a moment. Just a moment.
In this moment we mustn't look to the future or present.
These are the summations of the past.
Countless leaders have stood where
I stand now giving the same empty lyrics
of promise of security under their reigns.

I offer no such beautiful, faulty rantings.
No word-play to secure something as immaterial as followers.

I stood here seven years ago to the day
promising a unity this great Alliance was losing.
Promising that in seven years time
a new leader would have a nation free from dissidents,
finally free from the great evils of this world.
I, your leader, have failed you.

(They wait)

Just like this great nation, however,
this reappointment brings new life into
the necessary quests that define our survival.
As I stand here in front of this great alliance
I'm faced with the knowledge that many of
of you, the citizens of this great nation,
are surrounded by sleeping serpents.
Those who hide behind the mask of civility,
of acceptance of this great civilization.
But this mask is a lie.
These dissidents would rather see our way of life fall,
would rather see the evil prevail over this great good.

(They cheer)

They blind themselves to the nature of this entity's nemesis.
For millenia our people have tried to coexist with their being,
to live peaceably.
To share this great world of Terra Nova.
But they don't change.
They don't change because of the
incurable, sub-human evil natured inheritance
that is their being.
Their very continued unholy presence is a
disgrace to our morals,
a slap to the face of our righteous methods of life.
For seven years we've helmed this great war machine,
bringing the
very best and most righteous of our might against their being...
yet we have not prevailed.
I, as your leader, cannot offer any excuses.
No shifting of blame for this fault.
Our own far-sighting was too far reaching.
It was naive of us to think that there would be
no serpents among your numbers.
Those that cry out for us to stop our quest,
to bow down to their insult.

(It thunders)

I put it to you, the owners of this great democracy,
to protect it.
To identify the cancerous dissidents among us.
To help us cast them out of our nation,
to severe them as a doctor would his patient.
In the models of nature,
the villainous parasites live off of the continued life of others.
We mustn't let ourselves feel compassion for these masked entities.
Those that prosper from our wealth while
plotting the destruction of our efforts.
We must not think them on our level.
If they wish to join the serpents of our enemy,
then they will die with their surrogate brothers and sisters
and children.

Such pretty things as peace can't exist in a world with them.
We must not let our nation suffer such
dishonour for another seven yeared redux.
Our holy nation must prevail;
we must show the men of tomorrow that their nation will
always have the blood for survival.
To survive we must cast out the
mutinous sickness from our ranks,
we must continue to wage our war to its fullest capacity.
This evil is the strongest our being has ever faced and will ever face again.
But I know we have the strength to overcome.
It is my most solemn promise that when I
stand here again seven years from this day the
face of this world will be changed by our own hand.
The hungry will not plague our streets and our continents,
the poor will find renewed wealth in certain Utopia.
Why do I know this?

Because we will it so.

(They cheer)

We will remake this world in our own image.

(They cheer)

We will remake this world into perfection.

(They cheer to drown out the thunder)