The Elegance of Decadent Cleanliness: A Review of Laetum Iter by Malcolm Theressa.

 The Elegance of Decadent Cleanliness: A Review of Laetum Iter by Malcolm Theressa.

As Earth progressed away from the Long Death, mankind progressed as well. The separation of hyper-nationalism, bio-engineering debates, and the ethics of biological mannequins faded. Modern Earthlings focus on 3 aspects of their life, re-settlement, art, and reconquista. I was personally invited to Earth to the hyper megalopolis of Buenos Aires. Home to nearly 300 million people in layered concrete garden arcologies, a utopia. My visit was only for less than a week but it was like a blissful dream, as of writing this I can scarcely remember the wonders there.

But the most important and impactful of my visits was to the National Opera House, where the state troupe performed a locally made Opera “Laetum Iter” or Happy Journey, which is a moralist opera detailing the journey of Triko, the Toy. The opera house was packed with the “middle class” of the new regime, the petty operators and controllers. I sat in the top box alongside Delta Control Minister Cecil Clementine, a thin shapely man in his early 30s. He had invited me and my crew to Earth to write a traveling review, and most of that first draft was rubbish.

But as I sat nervously and flustered next to a man who was almost godlike on earth, controlling the motherworld and nearly 6 billion souls in South America alone. The stage was set up in an odd manner, in the center was the stage where the actors performed the opera itself. On each side of the stage were at least 6 men and women in bright white spandex suits. This assortment of people sat blankly in a tight formation like a regiment ready for the killing fields. Below them was the pit where the musicians prepared themselves, an assortment of classical and electronic machines sat at the ready.

As the soft echo of a woman singing started informing us that the opera was beginning. My host was talking in a soft unassuming voice about trade and money, but we both became enraptured by the music and he just shut off, losing all emotion in his face. As the play began a small child dressed in rags and without a right arm hobbled onto the center stage. They spoke in old Spanish about the horrors of old ghetto life, of the cannibal warlords and the nilhi boys, and the starvation. But as they finished they prostrated themselves towards us, specifically the controller. A blinding spotlight shined on us. I could only glimpse as the delta minister stood up straight, and began to give some strange speech to the entire auditorium about how we are so great since we are bringing life back to earth, hurrah hurrah for the clean daughters.

The child stood up and bowed, then began to disrobe and peeled the skin from their featureless body, tearing ribbons from their abdomen and ripping their face off. Revealing a white plastic body with soft pastel spatterings of a companion mannequin. The mannequin carried the flesh ribbons under their arm and skipped off stage. I was already disoriented from my first 5 days on earth but I felt this was the strangest introduction to their “perfect” entertainment.

The opera began with a fat old woman rising from the ground on a pillar, this woman was dressed in ritual flowers and greenery, and she spoke in Italian. She was mother Gaia and she was proud of her daughters and sons for saving her from her fowl addictions. Singing praises to the audience itself, and bowing to us. The audience clapped along as new actors emerged, a man in a stained lab coat with a disgruntled professor’s face. He chased a naked woman with the face of a “biological recreation” mannequin. She was laughing as the scientist chased her around the pillar as Gaia sang the intro. Mother sang about how two rival tribes ruled by godlings controlled the world, the eagle tribe, and the bear tribe. The two hated each other for their beliefs and each wanted them dead.

As she introduced them the two actors in elaborate “Bauhaus” costumes sprang onto the stage. Mock fighting began as Gaia explained through song the origins of the Long Death. The two ballet dancers began twirling ribbons at each other until another woman emerged from above, this was Aunty Outer Space. This woman was dressed in a black translucent gown with a large elaborate headdress, resting on a giant static cloud.

As this was all happening a soft voice near my ear spoke the words of the opera in English, I instinctively looked around at first to no avail. The delta minister looked at me with a blank smile and whispered “The building speaks to you, and tells you what you should know”. The two sets of people near the stage were doing synchronized interpretive dance, a kind of “sign language” I think the Earthlings created. All the while the scientist and his mannequin chased each other around mother Gaia laughing along to her song. Aunty Outer Space descended a thin plate on a string to the two world superpowers. This was The Frequency, the only way to travel between different Earths.

As she descended the plate, the two superpowers were shocked, then they began to dance happily around each other and twirl their ribbons at the plate. Two more pillars emerged from the stage next to the first, each had different versions of Gaia on them with different types of greenery. The women all began to sing in synchronization about how wonderful meeting your sister Earth is, a glorious day, a glorious day! The scientist and the mannequin then began to chase each other through all the pillars smiling all the while.

But then three women emerged from stage right, dressed in robes and masks, these were the furies of prophets. Each is marked with the iconography of the Neo-Catholics, Corenbelas, and the Movement Church. They all twirled their ribbons at each other to represent the Cult Wars. As the three masked women danced around the two now-friendly superpowers, they accidentally hit the bear mask, causing a blinding light to explode from the stage and a sound that left my ears ringing.

When the light faded the stage was empty, then after a few minutes a soft song began to play, it talked about how lucky we are that we had expanded out into the unknown which saved humanity. A fat old man sitting on a cut out of the moon descended from above, singing about how very nice it is to be an Air Baron and how much he loves being evil. Then half way through his song a group of people on wires flew around him and he got scared. 

The women and men circled his moon throne, A veiled woman floated down to the center stage and began to dance. This was the founder and messiah of the Cleanly movement (Muriel Clemintine), which dominated the moon and now rules all of SOL and 1/3th of the entire HUMINT Sphere.  She could not talk since that was sacrilege towards their beliefs. So the air baron spoke to her as if she was talking.

The air baron went from scared to joyous after talking to Muriel, and enthusiastically joined the circling flyers, as Muriel ascended to claim the moon throne. Then an intermission as per her request. I spent the intermission using the restroom and standing stupefied by the sheer amazement of the opera so far. It was like nothing I had ever seen, they forbid video cameras since it “diminished the ceremonial ritual of performance”, whatever.

As we went back, the Minister wore a fake smile towards me until he saw my reaction and showed a real smile as the play started again. When we returned the throne of the moon was surrounded by metallic cylinders that hung around the moon throne like stars and glistened like them too. The prophet stood up and waved for Act 2 to start! This prompted the curtains to be drawn and new music to play. The regiment of interpreters next to the stage was a different color, a kind of greyish white, and with faces like a service mannequin, blotches of vibrant pastels.

The stage opened with an egg on center stage. I recognized this as a comical reference to the other “penny theaters” that the Earthlings made and broadcasted to us lowly outworlders. The audience began to laugh hysterically at the joke, I let out a soft chuckle, and the minister looked on with a gleeful and childish laugh that scared me. 

An android emerged out of the black egg, a stick-figure mannequin with a pastel face similar to the interpreters. I recognized this machine, a replica of Triko, the first machine to visit Earth after a long death. His brother Lowpa and him, emerged from the egg and did silly dances with each other while singing in electronic operetics about how much they loved life. The two were singing gleefully until their creator Muriel emerged on the moon throne alongside her O’neil cylinders. 

The two stood upright like soldiers and were told they were to travel to Earth and make contact with the king of motherworld. So they both climbed into a mock shuttle and flew to Earth with the help of invisible stagehands. They jumped out of the shuttle in an elaborate ballet sequence lasting 4 minutes. 

After the dance, the two traveled to Buenos Aires, the most populous city on earth after the war. They slipped and told jokes which got the audience to laugh a lot. But as they drew closer they learned of the horrors of the long death war, disfigured, disabled, and starving populaces. Nearly 100 people on stage were all crippled, a kind of visual suffocation with the two biological mannequins standing tall above the crowd of the meek. As the brothers waded through the crowd they emerged upon the rulers of the refugees. 

The crowd dispersed in fear as 8 men sprung onto the stage dressed in barely anything but leathers, talismans, and other folk horror paraphernalia indicative of the cannibalistic nihilists after WW3. The two brothers tried to greet the men formally, and when they were laughed off, they tried to sing and dance for them to no avail. Then a horrible squeak shot out from the left stage, and 3 slaves brought out the infamous warlord “Kiki Loco” the leader of the Razor Child Cartels. 

An obese Siamese twin with bowed legs carried on a carriage of human bones and scrap metal. The two men spoke in unison and greeted the mannequin brothers as esteemed guests. The twins lifted themselves onto the ground and began a performance to explain life and why they rule in the mega ghettos outside Buenos Aires. The other nihilists from before were backup singers or danced around the twins as ballet dancers as the android brothers comically looked on.

The twins dubbed the brothers Toy 1 and Toy 2. With them being incorporated into the opera and sung along making comedy out of the hellish conditions of WW3 refugees. The audience laughed and sang along with the songs clapping at the exaggerated (barely exaggerated) performance of the warlord. Then the twins said they wanted to eat the brothers, and they frantically began to flee from the cartel men, scaling the giant impenetrable walls of Buenos Aires with ease. The brothers stood at the top next to the loyalists of the Generalissimo in shock. The soldiers brought the brothers through the grand townhouse slums of Buenos Aires, to the general's mansion, a giant elaborate stage set with multiple floors connected by spiral staircases.

The soldiers entered the mansion and the general's regent greeted them. The reagent was frozen in shock, believing them to be old war machines. The general emerged from the bath on the top floor, the audience erupted in laughter at the comical general. He was a short balding pinkish man covered in a comical amount of body hair, always with his cap. The soldiers explained the situation which prompted the general to start singing about how much he loves war, killing, and how he will use the brothers to destroy the refugees. The general sang his funny opera until his robe came loose as the audience exploded into laughter at the stupidity of the general. 

The general ran backstage to get changed, as the beautiful daughters of the general entered the stage and were enamored with the brothers. The three of them began to sing and dance as the bumbling loyalists tried to catch them. The general emerged again with his elaborate outfit with furious anger. He screamed at his daughters to quit their childish antics. The daughters began their opera explaining how the brothers were for childish love rather than warfare. The general did not care at all and told his men to deactivate the brothers. One man used his disabled tool on Lowpa, killing him instantly. Our protagonist tried to resist.

But the men killed him too. The stage cleared as Act 3 was declared. It was the afterlife, inside the frequency where Triko wandered through the darkness lit by an ambient stage light. Until a blinding white light appeared, overlapping tesseracts and rectangles interlacing. A humanoid figure emerged representing death, they dressed in a dark silver robe, and a large featureless mask. They pointed with a long albino finger to the largest tesseract on the way back.

Triko eagerly ran towards the portal and thanked death for this opportunity. The phrase “Toy marches on” was said by the audience repeatedly as a kind of mantra. The stage cleared and the curtains were drawn. When they ended it showed a great operating table, where Triko and his brother lay to be dissected. His brother was torn apart and inoperable, but Triko broke free from his chains, snatched his brother, and ran out of the prison-like a gazelle.

The stage moved from the prison to the city, with many extras appearing on the stage. They all sang together about how life here was bad, Triko and his brother’s corpse traveled past the peasants who ignored them. Eventually, Triko heard their song and joined in as all of the urban peasants looked on in shock. The peasants heard his song which told of the cruelty of men, and how bad it was here a retelling of their song.

When the peasants heard their song again they followed but this time with deep hatred in their voice. They all rallied around Triko singing their hate out and dancing circles around him. The peasants traveled back to the general's mansion. The general is standing on the second floor while the peasants and Triko are on the ground floor. A fight breaks out amongst the loyalists and peasants leaving many dead, shown by red ribbons everywhere. The peasants rally around Triko who never kills but defends the weak from attackers. This ends with him saving the life of a little girl from a stray bullet that destroys him. The peasants and loyalists look on in horror as he clutches the child from death. The loyalists drop their guns and throw their icons. The general looks on in horror shooting his revolver to no avail as the peasants overwhelm him and throw him offstage.

As Triko lay dead, the moon descends as the crowd looks up in amazement, and a weeping Muriel grabs the brothers and cradles them like La Pietà, as the peasants look down in respect. The lights dim and then another blinding crash of light. The stage is clear, pitch darkness. Then the most beautiful melody I have ever heard plays, with an assortment of performers and the interpreters running onto the stage and playing alongside giant mannequins, the collection of scenes and actors is connected with them all separately but in tandem playing or singing the song. 

This ends with a great stage finish as the actors jump into the audience below and run out of the theater and into the real world. At the center stage is a statue of Muriel and the brothers with her cradling their dead bodies as a reminder of what we all lost. Then a great crescendo, and silence then a roar of clapping I join in the roar.

As I exited the theater I was lost for words. It was the greatest performance I had ever seen. As I reminisce on my visit to Earth here on Marja-Ra. I always come back to that final scene as a picture-perfect reminder of Earth society, grand metaphors, and iconography cemented in stone mined off-world, a good metaphor of what Earth learned from the tale of Triko the living toy.