S M A L L G O D S

“ Choose they croon the Ancient Ones

The time has come again

Choose now, they croon

Beneath the moon

Beside an ancient lake

Enter again the sweet forest

Enter the hot dream

Come with us

Everything is broken up and dances. “

— Ghost Song: An American Prayer by Jim Morrison (1978)

C H A P T E R O N E

It was dark inside my head, yet I could still hear my annoying Levi (ˈli vaɪ), what was to be known as a "mobile phone" back in the days. 

Uhh, What a stupid name - I cringed to myself. I sometimes wonder how our grandparents used to hold their so-called smartphones in their hands and walk everywhere with them. Imagine having your lungs, a vital organ, outside of your body and taking it around with you all day, every day.

Levi is placed in a brain region most relevant to substance abuse disorders when a child is born. Thus, one might argue Levi is their most important organ after the brain itself; The artificial black box of a human….


'CRUNCH!!!'. 

Constantino disrupts my thoughts. As usual, my companion wants his daily nutriment. He may have broken something again, yet I refuse to open my optic organ. My nonna used to run his hands in my hair and tell me stories of how my companion has 9-lives and travels to parallel universes through imaginary dimensional portals. Her heart-shaped locket would fall on my face while I had my head placed on her skinny lap. Fortunately, She didn't live enough to see how humanity's true freedom has now flourished, and no one needs to even dream of such ridiculous stories ever again.  

After my nonna was gone, President Jonathon' X Æ A-09, with his forward-thinking Buddhistic ideologies, had decided that hair is the most useless organ of all and causes unnecessary earthly attachments. So by popular demand, the rituals of mass skull skin burning of citizens of mother Earth took place. My nonna was long gone, and I was relieved that I did not have to worry about her touching my bald scalp. By 2073, almost the entire planet's population has gone through baldness as a permanent transformation due to the frequent shock therapy pulses pushed through our physical vessels via the Levi. 

It's all within you. Your true freedom unlocks when you feel 100% safe. Securing your freedom, Arcadian.

— Social Media Ad, the Year 2068 

I remember the melodic tone to the Ad when I was not older than 6 or 7, thinking to myself, what's within me? 

Ignorance was the bitter-sweet remedy to my childhood days. I played anything and everything inside my head. It was dark, but I loved it. Inside my head, it felt safe.


Later on, in the same year, everything turned dark. Who needs to see when no one is there to see?

The only time I intentionally looked into another human's optic organ (a.k.a made eye contact) was when I was pulled out of my birth father, Milan. What a ridiculous, horrifying experience I had to go through, birth.  

Wait a minute! Light has not travelled through my optic organ since we entered the Era of Conscious Surveillance. Glad to know I am still able to surprise myself! I gave myself a broken half-ass smile in my head; what Milan used to call - A Smirk. 

Arcadian (Greek: Αρκαδία) means a vision of pastoralism; being in peace & harmony. Inhabitant of Arcadian (or Arcadia) is equivalent to living in heaven. The co-founders believed at heart that technology must be used only in ways to give back to humanity. So unintentionally, they re-imagined humanity's true form of freedom. 

Pioneers of Arcadian, the company with the social media Ad, were investors, engineers, and young entrepreneurs. The newly established company back in 2021 was the face-lifted child of a pilot CCTV surveillance project in the Middle East and Asia to spy on theorist activities and monitor countries like the Islamic Republic of Iran. The same years of recovering from a pandemic of some sort from a flu virus that I cannot recall now. My Levi must have needed an update.

I commanded a search. 


By 2021, Arcadian raised more than 1B in funds from North American Venture Capitalists and investors for their 10-year-long pilot project of running a purely AI-driven cloud video surveillance solution to resolve environmental issues. Collecting plastic out of the ocean, forecasting hospital's ER cases and future pandemics, stopping illegal tree cutting activities in Amazon jungles, and putting an end to the world's hunger was just the tip of Arcadian's revolutionizing high-tech iceberg. It was all meant to secure our freedom and future generations. 


489,935,004,940 results found for Arcadian. 

"Our vision is simple - to enhance the quality of life, to give citizens the freedom they deserve, to make safety 100% of a norm in every society… As the Earth must be the safest playground for our children, you shall be your own God." — Arcadian Co-Founder, 2021 

It didn't take long for the government bodies at the time to notice a transformation. Extreme isolation, self-censorship, and anti-social behaviour on top of an alarming increase in the number of autistic children being born were symptoms of something greater - a domesticated society. 

Soon the quantitative and qualitative data collected from the extended mandatory quarantines, combined with public fear of constantly being watched under Arcadian's Surveillance, enabled leaders to re-imagine securing our safety and saving resources for our future generations. 

Today, the Consciousness Surveillance 3.0 project is what gives us true freedom, no interactions, no more light, no borders, no socializing; Our pyramid of needs has wholly transitioned to not needing anyone or anything. Our planet is safe. Our resources are plenty. The great revolution had happened inside every one of us. The freedom is inside all of you. Travel to every parallel universe, to every dimension, to every timezone inside of my darkness. I am there to watch. I am there to guarantee your safety. You are free. 

Enough. I whispered to my Levi in my head.

K A Y D E N 

"KAYDEN." Someone screamed from on top of their lungs. Then Silence. 


I felt humidity, heavy breathing. It got cold. Do you ever get those chills? Not the kind of cold you feel at night, the chill you get from a Christian death angel passing by to haunt down a soul. Or the ones you get from listening to a great tune. 


Someone has entered my container. I squeezed my ma’s heart-shaped, locked with my sweaty touch organs.


I was not afraid.

There's a bittersweetness to the state of such heavy shocks. I have read that humans function better when in danger to escape faster. 

I didn't tend to freeze nor go quiet. I even started to think with more clarity. I became bold. I became brave. I became irresistible. I became cold, just like God. 

My name is Kayden. I am 29. I have high-functioning autism. I am the creator of my reality. I am the Generation of Small Gods.

“ Do you know the warm progress

Under the stars?

Do you know we exist?

Have you forgotten the keys

To the kingdom

Have you been born yet

And are you alive?

Let's reinvent the gods, all the myths

Of the ages “

— The Doors: An American Prayer by Jim Morrison (1978)

T H E E N D.

Disclaimer - The writer, Marie Roohi, has a story to tell. The short story you just read is an abbreviation of a half-baked booked yet to be published. The novel further expands upon revolutionizing events of a near-future dystopian society of high functioning autistic citizens (GenerationGod - 2053 to 2071) born and raised by our current young GenerationAlpha, 2010-2025. The main plot happens in 2084, where our gender-neutral humanity is far from an ideal form of society. The protagonist - Kayden, 29, female-born - wakes up to break free from a Consciousness-Surveillance monitoring government to comply with demands for justice to re-establish a "well-ordered society." 

Copyright @ 2021, Marie Roohi. All Rights Reserved.