Dopecentury XXXVI --- Smoke Signals
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
The oppressors infiltrated our communications; when we used signal lights, they would shoot out our lights; back in the days of radio, they monitored all frequencies with scanners, and when we tried to implement an operation, they would broadcast jamming signals; with phone calls, they tapped the switches; when we moved to encrypted communications, they bugged our devices and listened on the other side of the encryption; it was always a game of one-upmanship, and we were always, inevitably, on the losing side.
You would think that it would be weapons, or logistics, or personnel that would make the difference; but let me instruct you: the biggest advantage — the one that makes all those other things possible — is communications; and the oppressors always seemed to know how to hurt us there; it’s not the thing that hurt us most — what hurt us most was of course the arbitrary destroying of our homes, the embargoing of our goods, the cutting off of our utilities to punish our people for perceived slights — but in terms of carrying out actions, comms is what was beating us down.
“We cannot have an effective movement if we don’t have the ability to communicate with our people,” the elders would say in covert meetings in basements.
“What can we do? everything we try, they infiltrate and undermine.”
“Are meetings like these even safe?”
“Who can say? certainly safer than electronic messages of any kind.”
“The problem,” I suggested, “is technology; we keep trying to beat them on the field they dominate — that they likely always will dominate — I say, if they have the high technologies, let us utilize the low; the more modern their technology, the more ancient will be ours.”
“How do you mean? Do you suggest we return to the days of signal lights? what would prevent them from simply shooting those out again?”
I shook my head, “no, no. more ancient than that: let us use smoke.”
One elder laughed, “a camp fire on the hill? wafted with a blanket?”
“Perhaps it will come to that! but for the moment we need something somewhat more sophisticated; you know the oppressors never harm our small industrial neighborhood in the south end of the city…”
“Please,” one scoffed, “they never harm it because we refine the oil that they rob from us at a pittance of its value, and the only reason they don’t refine it themselves is they don’t want to expose their own neighborhoods to the pollution and contamination; don’t give them some humanitarian credit there!”
“Not at all, not at all,” I said, “I do not deny that their reason for leaving that area be are unjust, but whatever the reason, they are weak there because they depend on us; because of that, we have an opportunity, a small one, but very real; my good friend of many years works in one of the refineries, in particular he is responsible for operating the flue — or whatever the mechanical equivalent of such a thing is called on the Big Stack; I am sure I could convince him to modulate the smoke the stack produces to act as a signal for our people.”
This suggestion was received like all suggestions at these meetings: a murmured mixture of support, doubts, procedural questions, and questions of trust; the elders spent the next four hours arguing the drawbacks and benefits of such a means of communication, but the end decision was that it would likely be beneficial, and I was instructed to contact my friend and see what might be done to arrange things.
I met my friend in a small tea shop nestled right in the heart of the poor district that was his home; we had grown up together, but our paths as adults had diverged, his instinct for quiet self-preservation taking him to a factory job with steady work, and my revolutionary core driving me into the fold of my compatriots in resistance; still we had remained friends, if friends of a delicate nature.
In this case, I could not be delicate though; after the usual pleasantries, I explained my idea to him.
“You know I cannot do this thing; it is too big a risk; I have a family to support, and as you point out the oppressors leave our industry alone — helping you would give them cause to harass us.”
“They need your industry! You know that; they would never do anything to undermine that: what? they would refine oil in their own cities?”
“I think not.”
“Precisely; besides that, it’s smoke! it’s literally nothing but gas; who would ever be able to say that it was anything but?”
“No; I do not wish to take risks; I am not like you and your friends.”
“You deny they oppress us then?”
“I do not; I just don’t have the courage, stamina, or desire to further risk what little I have.”
“I am not sure you get to make that choice; life it not about what you have, it’s about what your family, your people have; and most have very little control over that; this is one small opportunity where you can make a difference, you may never get a chance like that again.”
It took more hours, and more tea, but eventually he agreed to participate.
The industrial area in the south part of the city where all the refinery work was done had a number of smoke stacks, all streaming black pollution that mixed together and dissipated into our clear air; most of the stacks stood more or less in a row, pointing upward like fingers held up to count; the Big Stack was in the center of a group to the east, and a nearly-as-large stack stood in the center of the group to to the west; from the south end of the city, they were visible from most locations in the oppressor’s cities; but the Big Stack was also visible in all parts of our city.
My friend, upon questioning, explained that, indeed, he could control the flue-like device of the big stack in such a way that he could potentially make it “puff” — to a limited extent — and thus send some kind of communication.
A test was arranged: four puffs followed by two long streams of smoke; word was passed among our people: when they saw the signal, they were to cheer in the streets; we would issue the signal on the upcoming holiday, so the cheering would seem a spontaneous reaction, merely exuberance for the holiday.
The test was carried out, on the day of the holiday, tens-of-thousands of our people spent much of the day with one eye on the Big Stack; when the signal came, the cheer arose — and then lingered on and on, long enough that I feared the oppressors would become suspicious; particularly when some of the standard anti-oppressor slogans were woven into the cheer; in a few places those slogans got people killed when they were uttered in too-close proximity to oppressor guards; but overall it seemed the oppressors did not suspect or understand the noise we generated, likely attributing it to our cultural whims which they considered strange and ineffable to begin with.
With a successful test concluded; the elders met and determined that the smoke of the Big Stack would be used as the signal for the final uprising, which seemed necessary to carry out soon; an upcoming day was chosen (derived from the usual arcane and drawn-out proceedings of the elders); I passed on the instructions to my friend at the Big Stack.
The day of the signal dawned clear and blue; the Big Stack was already chugging huge black rifts up into the sky, even before daybreak, running hot to meet some increased demand for oil from the oppressors; just as people were beginning the toil of their work day, the signal came: a long series of puffed black balls that went on for about half an hour — to draw the attention of all our people that the signal was coming — and then the signal itself: a long stream of thick blackness, like the burning excrement of Hell itself, thrown up into the sky, propelled by a flame that burst from the mouth of the big stack; such was the exuberance of the signal.
Our people lifted their weapons from their hiding places, raise a cry, and charged as one towards the cities of our oppressors.