Paradise Preoccupied

In the Land of Blog, deep in the forest where the growth is so thick that many a visitor has been known to recount the trip in with a rousing rendition of “Forest? What forest? All I saw was a bunch of trees!”, sits a house. To passersby of reasonable proportions, the house appears tiny, but to the occupants it is palatial and commodious.

This difference in perception is due to the fact that the house belongs to Seven Mental Midgets whose perspectives are so circumscribed and miniscule that every mole hill is to them K2, and their collective Borg-like agreement reinforces the K-2-ishness to the exclusion of conflicting POVs.

A person of close to normal stance, one Snow Write, has been trapped in the cottage, imprisoned by her seven dwarfish jailers in the only room in the place that can accommodate her expansive self. To keep her quiet, and possibly dupe her into revealing innermost secrets and dreams that could subsequently be used in torture against her, she’s been provided with a computer and wireless internet access. Through the wonders of the technology she participates in the doings of Blog despite her imprisonment.

With much time to think and ponder, Snow has developed some strong opinions on issues of importance in Blog, and because of uninterrupted online time, she has researched long and hard and amassed a great deal of knowledge.

Since she has little contact with her captors, and none at all that she enjoys, she fills her days with discussions on the diverse and vital topics that surround life in the land of Blog, and the wider world. Over time, her judgment has been deemed by many to be clear and fair, and her observations unclouded and on the money, despite … or possibly because of … her captive status.

However, her captors have more on their minds than simply restricting her freedom.

All seven — Pissy, Bitchy, Simpy, Judgy, Haughty, Snotty and Aggrieved — are determined to keep even Snow Write’s thoughts confined, and her opinions unheard, or at least unappreciated.

Each post Snow publishes and every comment she adds is methodically dissected by the collective mind that allows the seven to function, each being far too weak-brained to do as much as formulate even one original thought on its own; then assigned to the little mind with the highest likelihood of influencing the views of others in Blog.

Haughty, Snotty and Aggrieved are the bulldozers of the bunch and full frontal assaults are what they do best. Between looking down their noses, grabbing all they can find of self-righteous superiority and assuming the position of “only credible POV”, they seek to drown out poor Snow’s voice and bully others out of even thinking of taking up for her.

Judgy takes the end-around and cuts Snow’s legs off by reminding everyone that the girl is a prisoner of their making, so cannot possibly be taken seriously, and insists that she’s not really supposed to be having anything to say, anyway, strongly suggesting that listening to Snow indicates a weak mind, a lack of sense or a well-hewn system of denial.

Pissy and Bitchy are shin-kickers in a hit-and-run sort of way … a slap here, a spit in the eye there … and being experts at this they don’t even need to bother leaving anything of substance behind. Most people don’t know what hit ’em.

Simpy is sneakier than the others. An expert in ‘set-up’, what comes first almost sounds reasonable and in agreement with someone somewhere, often posing as a caring individual startled by a comment, shocked by a post, but always working toward a flourish of the negative and nasty. Never without a proviso, there’s an attempt at escaping the hook by pulling up the end of the train with a “just a thought” or “respectfully” which is shorthand for, “Don’t hold me accountable”.

Swimming against The Seven takes strength and fortitude, and a whole heck of a lot of time, but Snow is strong and brave … and stuck in that damned room with little but her thoughts and her computer.

Lately, she’s been hoping to post evidence of her predicament, but being without a digital camera she’s had to send out film of a few shots of The Seven holding and tormenting her, planning to scan the photos into her posts, but so far they haven’t returned from the lab.

No worries, though, as she’s been heard singing hopefully, “Someday my prints will come”.

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