Love Doesn't Work by Henning Koch Page A

brutish sensibility, a people of thunderous ignorance. Surrounded by an army of mistaken notions, we skulk in our citadel and wage our lonely struggles against insanity and starvation.
    As a young man I found a marked tendency in the humanoid species to talk nonsense and do ridiculous things. Therefore at the age of thirty-eight I decided to take control of the world and impose systematic reform. Now that I am approaching a grand old age of ninety and face my own journey into darkness, I will set out some thoughts so that those who follow in my enormous footsteps may understand my reasoning in all that I have done.
    What follows are some brief notes on the fifty years that I have held the human race under the sway of my dictatorship.
    The instrument of my mastery, if you will, was that I invented a way of atomizing anyone who resisted me. When I say invented, I mean that I discovered an inner capability that effectively rendered me a god. What human could ever defeat a world leader who, on the merest whim, could disband the atoms in any given body and turn it to vapor?
    Furthermore, I was capable of reading people’s minds. Hence conspirators were rooted out as a matter of course.
    My rise to power was inexorable. I quickly removed a host of figures invoking liberty and democracy and raising armies to fight me in the name of high ideals. It took me no more than a morning’s work to rid the world of my opponents.
    It may seem sadistic to admit to these things, but I remember rather enjoying the unceremonious removal of the world’s political leaders. I particularly enjoyed breaking up a veritable legion of freemasons and other morbid, secret societies, whose members often included some of the most powerful and the most childish people in the world.
    I recall many impassioned speeches by these rhetorical hooligans. I made a habit of visiting parliaments and civic halls in every country. There I would sit in the speaker’s chair and listen as orators stood up and spoke about the torch of liberty passing from one generation to the next. I wanted to give them a chance to absolve themselves. As a philosophical ruler, I always had to understand the arguments of my opponents.
    Afterwards, I patiently explained to them that they must not fear the darkness that I would soon impose upon them. Life is an utter illusion, and whether we face the darkness today or in thirty years makes precious little difference.
    Oh, but how pitiful the arguments were. Societies in those days were ruled by high principles, while practical day-to-day life was brutish and deeply immoral. Presidents and prime ministers excused themselves from true responsibility by declaring themselves mere custodians of their positions of power. They were not free to act outside the rule of law. The judiciaries of these same societies would similarly declare that they were not empowered to change the law unless so instructed by higher powers.
    The main thing going wrong in those times was the notion that individuals were entitled to things, anything they could buy. This was known as economic liberalism. People worked so that they could buy things they wanted: houses, cars, clothes, holidays, jewelry and other fripperies. Among the less intelligent, and by that I mean the vast majority, rich men attracted beautiful women, and vice-versa. The yardstick of human worth for a woman was beauty, and for a man, wealth.
    I took the opposite view. It seemed to me that people were not entitled to anything. They had to learn to be grateful for anything they had, particularly consciousness, which is a marvelous gift.
    People’s desires had begun to transcend the world itself. Millions of tiny proles were driving about in filthy cars, spewing out various gases that began to throw the planetary climate system into imbalance. The universities were full to bursting with ignorant youths. Every year these sickly little shoots were released to proliferate like noxious weeds. And before long