Norton

[Arafelis]

(k) me
reduced, but not yet deconstructed.
assaulted, perhaps.
-----
When he was born, his face -- still covered in blood -- was so beatific that his doctor, a long-time atheist, converted to Islam.  She ultimately championed an interpretation of the Koran that promoted men and women as equal before God.  One of the nurses became a priest, although his career was more typical.

Norton's family was not wealthy, and he grew up halfway between the suburbs and the gutter.  He was approached one day by a bum who asked him for some change.

"           ", said Norton.  "                                               ."

During the "bum's" first term in office, crime and homelessness decreased exponentially and the school systems threw out standardized testing.  However, the quality of the work being published in the school paper and by the AV club was such that their students never had trouble receiving scholarships.  Over the next few years, other schools (in the area and elsewhere) adopted the new model.  Roughly fifteen years later, Norton's country swept the Nobel Prize awards.  The "coincidence" was heavily remarked upon, but it was becoming quite well known that the educational system was the best in the world.

By this time Norton had worked several jobs.  He couldn't seem to do anything for more than a few months at a time, but everywhere he went, change followed.  The CEO of a fast food joint Norton was employed with once, offhandedly during a regional tour, commented on how hard he (the CEO) had worked to get ahead in the world, to which Norton replied, "                                                        ."  Two weeks later, the CEO announced a complete restructuring of the company in which many management positions were eliminated, pay was largely standardized across the entire corporation, and most workers were covered under a massively comprehensive healthcare program.  As the stock value dropped steadily, the CEO bought out majority control and then began distributing shares among the workers, who by and large became the new board of trustees.  Despite the Wall Street predictions that it would close within a year, beneficial partnerships somehow materialized with shipping and agricultural interests that allowed the company to sell much higher-quality food than it had previously at competitive prices.  Wall Street, ever a crowd of sheep looking for a shepard, began to trumpet the value of motivating and partnerizing the employees, and incorporated extensive quotations from Marx, Engels, Bakunin, and their heirs.

Of course, by this time Norton had moved on.  And on again.

Each small change swept outward on a tide of improbability, in apparently blatant denial of entropy.  Industrial plants became cleaner, virtually completely automated, able to acquire and distribute goods for such little material investment as to gradually force a refocusing in the private sector on a service-based economy.  Legions of new teachers appeared, freed from menial jobs they had once had to pursue the dreams they had always nurtured of helping others help themselves.  Craftwork experienced a resurgence; though basic goods were available to all for virtually nothing, the market demanded the innovative and unique, and artisans sprang up to supply it.

And through it all, Norton's face gradually became known.  As "traditional" jobs waned, Norton became a vagabond, wandering from place to place and speaking at universities, synagogues, town halls -- wherever people gathered and wished to hear him speak.  His speeches were not long, and it seemed that everyone who heard one heard something a little different.  Recording devices were notoriously unreliable, too... sometimes among five devices, one would record a high-pitched squealing as though it had broken, three would record fragmentary speech that didn't appear to match up at all, and the last might later be heard to contain something akin to singing.  It became almost a game among some people to bring as many devices as they could to see what they could get from Norton's speeches.

He had a following, of course, but people would rarely stay for too long.  A year, perhaps, or two or three.  The seriously mentally ill would often stay the longest, yet they always seemed, somehow, to stabilize, to grow to a peaceful understanding of their different view of the world.  Once he was asked:

"i never know where i'm going to BE tomorrow you know.  know?  and so i can never go back to where i was because if i do it's going to be completely not... the same at all.  ...know?  you?  and so, it's so itchy, it's so itchy... it's so itchy.  you know?"

And Norton said: "                              ."

The young lady who asked him that soon after became a dancer.  She rarely spoke aloud, although she did seem to be holding a conversation under her breath almost all the time, but her strange style, jerky yet graceful, inspired an entire movement of imitators.  Of flatterers.

At the age of 32, Norton appeared in a town square.  Everyone nearby looked up, happy, patient, expectantly.  Norton drew something from his pocket -- it appeared to be a gun.  He pointed it up at the sky, pulled the trigger... a flag unfurled, saying, "BANG!"  Most of the people smiled, but few laughed aloud.  Norton himself smiled, pushing the flag back into the gun, resetting it.  He then put it to the side of his head and gave his last speech.  He said:

"One must have chaos..."

Pulling the trigger a second time, the sharpened pole buried itself deeply into Norton's brain, entering through a hole he had trepanned into his own skull for exactly that purpose, killing him instantly.  When the flag was later removed, onlookers wondered at the virtually perfect five-pointed bloody star directly in the center.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

 

[Thurnez Isa]

we need an emote for a sarcastic wow

[The Good Reverend Roger]

we need an emote for a sarcastic wow

This is where we get vampire novelists.

[BabylonHoruv]

Um, Arafelis does realize Norton was a real person right?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Um, Arafelis does realize Norton was a real person right?

Hard to tell.

[Arafelis]

Um, Arafelis does realize Norton was a real person right?

Wow!  And here I chose the name out of a hat completely unaware of the significance.  How random is that?

Norton was my last name;
My first was Joshua
When I lost the rice game
I just wouldn't wash uuuuh-
p!
King me.

[BabylonHoruv]

Um, Arafelis does realize Norton was a real person right?

Wow!  And here I chose the name out of a hat completely unaware of the significance.  How random is that?

Norton was my last name;
My first was Joshua
When I lost the rice game
I just wouldn't wash uuuuh-
p!
King me.

My assumption, due to the way you pretty much ignored the real Josh Norton, was that you picked the name from the Principia or a similar Discordian source and were treating him like Malaclypse the Elder, as a fictional character to play around with.

[Arafelis]

My assumption, due to the way you pretty much ignored the real Josh Norton, was that you picked the name from the Principia or a similar Discordian source and were treating him like Malaclypse the Elder, as a fictional character to play around with.

Nah.  It's like writing a story about the underground railroad and naming one of the characters Moses.

Also, I think one of the first times I heard of the dude was in Sandman.  Good story.

[BabylonHoruv]

My assumption, due to the way you pretty much ignored the real Josh Norton, was that you picked the name from the Principia or a similar Discordian source and were treating him like Malaclypse the Elder, as a fictional character to play around with.

Nah.  It's like writing a story about the underground railroad and naming one of the characters Moses.

Also, I think one of the first times I heard of the dude was in Sandman.  Good story.

That's where i first met him too.

[Telarus]

Be like Norton.

He no dead.