Page 27 - Unlikely Stories 4

Garden Snake

immediately drive them to invent reasons for what they experience.
Some of them will create a mystery around their existence—you
know, the same paradox of awareness to which I am subject as a
concomitant of imperfect knowledge—and correctly identify me as
their maker. They will do that entirely without evidence, of course,
and there will be other explanations, but that one will be dominant
because it is difficult to disprove and fits in nicely with the sort of
authoritarian social structures to which such infantile creatures are
attracted.”
“You mean you don’t really want them to know what makes you
tick?”
“That’s right. Instead they will have an inferior sort of
comprehension called belief. Now here’s their problem: all the
violent and stupid things they do will have to be reconciled
psychologically with that belief. They will tie themselves in knots you
can’t possible achieve or conceive to overcome the cognitive
dissonance between mortality and suffering, on one hand, and their
ideas of ultimate justice and virtue on the other.”
Ouroboros refused to react to the implied insult to his
limblessness.
“And they won’t blame you for setting things up that way?”
“I’m the last one they’ll blame. I’m going to give the whole thing a
push in the right direction with your help: you will start them looking
for other villains. You will be the agent of their downfall. I’m going
to send you into the Garden to coax them to disobey my orders—in
this case, not to bite off what they can’t chew: an apple from the Tree
of Knowledge.”
“Apple? Is that anything like a bunny?”
“No, you child of whimsy. It’s only attractive to them. You see,
they are already programmed to defy authority as well as crave it: that
is basic to their immaturity. That particular gastronomical breach will
leave them aware of their transgression. Then I’ll come along as if I
don’t know what they’ve done, and when I find out I’ll throw a fit
and curse them—and you, as well, but you can ignore it, if you’ve
done what I asked. Then it’s open season on bunnies for you!”
“You promise they won’t come after me with a stick?”
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