The World's Greatest

I was in a cult once.

That was a long time ago. 

My time with them began about 24 years ago, although pinpointing the exact year has proven to be slippery for me. 

My time with them came to a close around five years after joining.

I find myself thinking about them often.

They called themselves "The World's Greatest." We were anything but, of course, which was kind of the joke after a while. 

Yet, in retrospect the name served a purpose. When we called ourselves "The World's Greatest," amid self-aware chuckles and incriminating sidelong glances at one another, there was still something... aspirational about the title.

Whether or not we actually were the world's greatest was debatable. Greatest at what? How was that measured? Who said so? It still gave us something to aim for. 

The World's Greatest was an exclusive, invitation-only membership with a strict color-specific dress code, and whose members were each responsible for upholding a single piece of the group's guiding principles, or "Credos".

My piece was simple: "Commit." It was given to me starting on day one with them. It was my role, my duty, and my burden to bear this piece of the Credo in mind for every decision I made, every thought I had, every interaction I undertook while a part of the group. Every choice had to be defensible in the context of that one word:

"Commit."

I was more or less 'assigned' this piece of the group's Credo by default, as all the others were taken when I arrived. Some were more colorful, and more cryptic, than others, and while I sometimes wished I had gotten another—in the end, I feel as though I was molded to the Credo, or the Credo molded to me, to such a degree that I now can't imagine having served any other.

There were twelve Credos in all. Decide for yourself whether or not I lucked out with my assignment.

In no particular order:

"Honor the tongues and the roots beneath them."

"The told outlives the tallied."

"Less is more."

"The cure is recovery of the lost."

"Favor a dozen."

"There are infinite doors. Some are locked."

"Let the strange pass unkempt; harbor not its oddity."

"No assurance is given that the workings herein shall suit all purposes, nor that their course will proceed without interruption or fault. This proclamation is not to be taken as the sole recourse in matters where error may bring harm to person(s) or property. Any such reliance is undertaken at the user’s own peril, and all burden arising therefrom remains expressly disowned."

"Understanding does not announce itself."

"Walk a mile in someone else's shoes."

"Commit."

"[This space intentionally left blank.]"

Nobody ever wanted the "No assurance is given..." piece. You could say I lucked out that it was already taken by the time I arrived. Moreover, once you're assigned a piece of the Credo, they are non-transferrable and non-negotiable.

That is your piece of the Credo. That is at least, until... 

Officially, there were only three ways one could leave the group:

1) Reconciliation

2) Relocation

3) Repose

Reconciliation. All of The World's Greatest members were flawed human beings (although animal members were theoretically possible). Some members were normal people harboring relatively minor moral dilemmas, while some were outright criminals showing varying degrees of remorse for past or current misdeeds that ran the full spectrum of atrocities. But there was something wrong with all of us, and eventually—especially the longer you were in the group—you would come to know everyone's imperfections in horrific detail.

We endeared ourselves to one another, this way. 

You may have heard what they say about the people in life you meet: that everyone is enduring some deep, personal battle that only they are fully aware of. In World's Greatest, you come to understand what those personal battles for your fellow members are. And as much as you may try to resist it, eventually, your personal battles are put on display for your colleagues' scrutiny as well. 

It's unpleasant, but, there is a method in the madness. 

Sometimes, despite all the unpleasantness, fighting, name-calling and animosity it might sow, these struggle sessions where your life's baggage is sold at auction to your fellow World's Greatest, have a fully predictable but completely unwelcome side effect. 

You feel yourself starting to get over some of your past bullshit. 

This can actually lead to Reconciliation, the conditions by which a member of the group is allowed to officially depart the group because they have gotten over the trauma of their past. 

It is noteworthy, however, that I only ever directly observed this happening with one of our longest-tenured members. And, incidentally, upon his "Reconciliation," he decided to stay on. So, take that for what it's worth.

Relocation. This was more theoretical among us, though we did have members who claimed to be relocated from other groups. Kind of a transfer from another campus. 

Alleged relocation always led to a lot of questions for incomers making these claims: are there other World's Greatest's? Do they operate differently than we do? Can we communicate with them? 

The details on these other groups, provided by supposed newcomers, were always vague and, to my mind, questionable at best. And they would be highly motivated to lie, as newcomers being welcomed into a strange new group of admittedly abrasive individuals. 

Claiming prior involvement with a similar group affords them immediate clout in a new, uncertain social hierarchy.

It affords leeway to make unverifiable allusions to how things were done in an analogous group that allows them to purchase with the more gullible members of our ranks, susceptible to this sort of talk.

It also allows them to avoid being put on the back foot when acclimating to ideas proposed by more senior members of the group, who would normally 'outrank' them (though there wasn't a firm ranking system; everyone had a piece of the Credo and that made us equals, insofar as we could actually apply wisdom from our understanding of our piece.)

There could possibly have been other World's Greatest's out there, but, the proof is in the eating. 

We did have one member who, upon their departure, suggested that they were being relocated to another World's Greatest in Des Moines, but I had my doubts, and asked later: "Now why don't she write?" 

If I had a gun to my head, my guess would be that she wanted out, circumvented Reconciliation and bypassed Repose.

Repose. Death. This was really the only real pathway for release from the group. There was always a closely guarded hope, harbored in each of us, that we'd be Reconciled someday, and be allowed to leave.

But the more of your life's garbage that got dragged out for review by the group, the more you saw how much you really had to work through. The more you worked through your baggage, the more you resigned yourself to the ultimate, final truth:

Death is the only way out in life.

It was the only way out of World's Greatest, too—at least in practice.

I've seen it. Over and over again. Members who think they're finally there with their Reconciliation, finally overcome the trauma that's held them back in life, walking confidently toward that exit door and reaching their hand out to turn the knob and walk... 

Only for nothing to happen.

The door is there. But you can't go through it. Not yet. Still more work to do.

"There are infinite doors. Some are locked."

The group began to feel like a life sentence, and you could tell that the ones who had been there the longest had the little burning candlelight of hope in their eyes slowly dim, especially compared to their starry-eyed newcomer compatriots. 

Those older veterans talked about past members I never knew, who had occupied the group and died long before their theoretical Reconciliation, stretching back years—even decades—before my story with World's Greatest began.

"There has always been a World's Greatest. And there always will be."

So it was said.

One of our most respected fellows was relieved of membership in death. I still think about him often. Then again, he was also the only one I knew who had been Reconciled, and decided to stay regardless. Is it telling that both instances were with the same member?

His piece of the Credo was: "Honor the tongues and the roots beneath them." Based on what I know of the group today, that piece of the Credo is still vacant, waiting for a new member to take it up.

What did we do? What was our mission? Who did we answer to and how did we spend our group time together? 

It should be mentioned that no small amount of our time was spent asking ourselves these very questions. 

I often think of the ancient Hebrews' priestly class in the B.C. times. In their society, in their time, their unique roles as priests were defined by reading, endlessly interpreting, debating and reinterpreting divine scripture amongst themselves before instructing the rest of the community with their laws.

The majority of the members of the group were of this sort. This "priestly" class (my term, not an official World's Greatest designation) speculating endlessly over what we should do, what we ought to do, who we were beholden to and how to spend our time together.

But in ancient Hebrew society, there was also another role beyond the priestly class. 

The prophet. (Again, that's my term, not an official World's Greatest membership title).

Officially, they were known as the "Comptroller". A peculiar term that I wasn't familiar with when I first joined, so it tinged how I interpreted what real comptrollers were from then on. I had to learn that real comptrollers are kind of a bureaucratic stakeholder overseeing compliance and auditing on behalf of a city government or sprawling institution.

Within World's Greatest, the "Comptroller" role was also an area of deep speculation. But during my entire time with World's Greatest, we were only "led" by one Comptroller, who serves in that role until they are Reconciled, Relocated or Reposed. 

Our Comptroller's piece of the Credo was "The told outlives the tallied."

I gather the previous Comptroller had a very different style than ours did. To me, our Comptroller always struck me as a decent man, if not noticeably stymied by reluctance. Other 'priestly' members of the group would, in turn, wield more dynamism as a result of the leadership vacuum, and impose their wills upon the group from time to time.

The Comptroller would often allow us plenty of slack to debate and interpret how we should go about our work (which, I know, I still have yet to fully address) without offering a firm stance on which way the wind should blow. It was obvious that it was a responsibility he never asked for, and never wanted.

I soon learned why.

Because of what our mission was, eventually, everyone's backstory came to light. He was no different. He had his personal hell, all his own, that he lived through and had to re-tell every time a new member joined, and if he wanted any hope of Reconciliation. 

You told your story again and again, hoping you could get past it this time and reach some new, elusive revelation that would heal your soul and allow you to move on. Even if it sucked, you still did the work.

Some years prior to his arrival to World's Greatest, a significant number of people whom he was responsible for came to a tragic and especially bloody end.

Use your imagination. You'll get the picture, and maybe be a little more pleasant than what the truth really was, for him.

That history hanged heavily on his conscience. He escaped that horror, only to arrive as "leader" of our group, against his will. It was a burden he was genuinely uncomfortable with. 

Although... as time wore on, I do think our Comptroller learned how, and when, his influence should be properly applied.

When I joined, I was among an incoming class of four fellow new members, all of us joining in relatively short order.

I wasn't officially employed in the way the IRS means it when they ask for taxable income. I independently operated a "gypsy cab" service for people who needed a lift. That car was also my home. Those were the days before Lyft or Uber. 

I wasn't even 18 years old when I got a call. I've tried to remember the details of that conversation, but I don't. All I know is that they requested a pick up at a nearby address. I drove over, and waited outside what appeared to be a local cultural heritage museum. 

I called the number back, but no answer. Eventually, I got out of my car and walked into the museum, and discovered a group of what must have been nine members at that time, arguing heatedly, before they looked up at me. I asked who had called for a ride.

That was all it took. They interpreted this as an "invitation," fatefully adopting me into their group.

Some were delighted at my presence as a welcome distraction to the argument they had been having, while others (the more impassioned debaters) were frustrated that I was delaying a resolution. 

In the moment I appreciated the welcomers, but in time I felt myself identifying with the frustrated coalition.

The "welcome committee" began orientation immediately, describing details in scattershot fashion, much as I've laid them out here in writing. They focused on details and definitions and allusions to history that were overwhelming, especially since they were submitted for my consideration in triplicate by a boisterous cheerleader who was one of the members at the time, though I never saw her again after that.

As the evening wore on, I became increasingly agitated by one thing the group was circling in their rapid-fire exposition, and another thing they were avoiding telling me entirely. 

I stopped them, and said:

"Hey! Just say it plain. What do you all do? And who called for the ride, anyway?"

They answered the second question first. "No one!" They felt absolutely certain about this, with a level of confidence I found absurd. If it wasn't them, how could they be so sure it was no one?

But eventually they got around to the first question—slowly, because, as it happened, that had been precisely what they had been arguing about before I walked in. 

It's what they always argued about.

The World's Greatest's purpose was to tell stories. That much was fairly established. The problem arose because of how much was left open for interpretation.

Which stories do we tell?

How do we tell them? 

Who needs to hear them?

Why should they be told?

How well do they need to be told?

How do we know when we've told them correctly?

How do we know when we've told them wrong?

The official 'answer' to these questions was supposed to be found in the Credo (the whole Credo and nothing but the Credo):

"Honor the tongues and the roots beneath them. The told outlives the tallied. Less is more. The cure is recovery of the lost. Favor a dozen. There are infinite doors. Some are locked. Let the strange pass unkempt; harbor not its oddity. No assurance is given that the workings herein shall suit all purposes, nor that their course will proceed without interruption or fault. This proclamation is not to be taken as the sole recourse in matters where error may bring harm to person(s) or property. Any such reliance is undertaken at the user’s own peril, and all burden arising therefrom remains expressly disowned. Understanding does not announce itself. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Commit. This space intentionally left blank."

But you can imagine that these mottos could obscure just as much as they edified. 

And because there was some knowledge about how one could "escape" the group (Reconciliation, Relocation and Repose), it was devoutly wished by some that the purpose behind telling the stories was so they could leave. 

That interpretation was deemed unsatisfying to many who felt that the name of the group, "World's Greatest," signaled some greater purpose than merely to get out of the group that entrapped us. Not to mention the deep 'sense' that some had that we were meant for something more.

Some thought that there were certain stories that we should focus on and that by telling them honestly, carefully, with understanding and with intention, that the telling would have some undefined positive result, somehow. 

But that interpretation was deemed unsatisfying to many who felt that the lack of quality storytellers in the group was an indication enough that was evident enough simply by dint of the name we called ourselves by, "The World's Greatest". The idea was so laughable that it wasn't even a joke worth taking seriously. 

Not to mention the deep 'sense' that some had that we weren't meant for anything special, whatsoever.

"The powers that be are little men on clouds, fucking with us."

And so the debate raged on and on anew, every time they gathered. Their failure and misery became a self-fulfilling prophecy that got them nowhere. 

Somewhere in the middle of it all, speaking from my privileged position as a newcomer who didn't know any better, I spoke up, saying the obvious: 

"It seems to me you guys just need to choose. Decide one way to go. Do it, and then if it doesn't work, move on to another way of doing things and... repeat that until you've found something that works." 

And that's when one of them looked at me, the one with "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes," grinning excitedly and said, "You're 'Commit!'" with the confidence of someone who could tell your astrological sign after a brief conversation.

If the other members harbored any uncertainty about whether or not I should be there, that more or less confirmed it. I was the newest member, responsible and answerable to "Commit."

 

If it seems beyond believability that someone might get embroiled with a mysterious and dysfunctional social group that may or may not be a "cult" this way, consider that the mystery and dysfunction were precisely what was weirdly compelling about them. 

It made me keep coming back. And everyone else, too, despite how frustrated or vitriolic thay may be toward the process. We all came back. 

Even the ones who didn't, a spot was always left open for them. If they weren't Reconciled, Relocated or Reposed, we knew they weren't done yet.

They may be through with World's Greatest, but World's Greatest wasn't through with them.

For me, every time I returned, I found myself buying in a little deeper, digging my heels in a little further, in incremental pushes, all while ruminating on the vague advice inherent to my piece of the Credo:

Commit.

In time, I took it to heart. Maybe it was easier for me than for others. Commit itself invites conversion, especially compared to confusing and somewhat ominous sounding Credos like ""Let the strange pass unkempt; harbor not its oddity." The members with that piece always seemed to get hung up, strange as it might sound.

It wasn't long before I was in it, fully. I bought the ticket, I took the ride. 

And then she arrived.

I was among the "rookie" class of newcomers for a while before the next phase of recruits was admitted. 

One of them came in claiming to be a Relocation case. 

How convenient, I thought.

I've been transparent about how I felt about supposed 'transfers' between groups. 

So I didn't like her from the start.

And that's when I should have known I was going to fall for her.

My crushes always begin with dislike.

She became "The cure is recovery of the lost," and I can't remember if she said that was the same piece of the Credo she had in the other group she just came from, or if she was taking on a new piece because it was a different group—I don't know. Admittedly, I may not have been listening closely at the time, because I just wasn't buying it.

And I gave her a hard time at the onset, I know. As someone who had been the "new member" for a long time by then, I was eager to welcome a new recruit that I could boss around a little bit—have a little seniority over at long last—and then when one finally does arrive she gravitates immediately to already having some mysterious foreknowledge about World's Greatest that would just so happen to give her rank over me. 

I was bitter about it.

And at that time we really had not made any progress into understanding any of the swirling questions around our mission to tell stories, but she—Ms. "Cure is Recovery"—saying that her previous World's Greatest's purpose was to get rid of stories, not tell them.

That revelation threw everybody through a loop, but I resisted. 

"Commit," that's what I do. So, I resolved myself to digging my heels in and being stubborn over this.

I took it upon myself to challenge that, and confront her, in front of the group. 

I can be an ass sometimes. 

But, to her credit, she didn't budge. And she looked amazing as she stood her ground.

That's where I weakened. Just in the way she looked when not yielding under my scrutiny. And I began to admire it, so that made me push even harder, just to see what would get her to shift.

But she didn't. She never changed her story. And it turned me on.

Not that I let on that it did at all, of course; all while Committing myself more and more to undermining her. But she never backed down and earned my respect when she would look for ways to get under my skin, back. 

That really turned me on.

I wasn't meaning to—in fact, if you'd have asked me then, I would've said I was trying to avoid her—but I found myself working with her often on storytelling projects.

In a way, she was better at it than I was. Playing devils advocate, if she was from another World's Greatest, and if their job wasn't to tell stories but to memory-hole them, then I guess it made a certain amount of sense that maybe she understood something about how they're engineered in the first place, and might be discerning enough to understand which stories were good, and which stories were bad.

She was "The cure is recovery of the lost," after all. And true to her Credo, that was her focus. 

She really poured her efforts into investigating lost or forgotten memories.

And while I never came so far as to ever admit I changed my mind about her "Relocation," or felt any different about how she cut ahead of me in the line of seniority, it didn't stop the inevitable from running its course.

She told me her story. I told her mine. We knocked boots.

We spent a lot more time together, on purpose, after that.

When you get good at something, more of it happens.

That was true of her and I, after we formally "connected," but it was true of the group, as well.

All of us noticed that there was a "clicking into place" that occurred at roughly that period. 

Some of the frustrated contingent stopped coming. Not officially relieved of duty, per se; they were still members of the group, technically, but on "sabbatical." 

And because a dozen was "favored," a dozen were supplied. 

Despite some sabbaticals, more recruits joined who bolstered our numbers to the "ideal" twelve. This was significant, because for the first time in our time together, we had hit that prescribed membership total. Could more still come? Sure. But we did know that we should "Favor a dozen."

Getting some fresh perspective in, while older members with hesitations around a "new way of doing things" made way—allowed our Comptroller with leadership-PTSD to exert a little clout, gain a little steam, and make some executive decisions.

I can't say that my "Commit" Credo had an outsized impact compared to other Credos, all of which were beginning to have their equal say—but I do think my shit or get off the pot mentality forced our collective hands, at times, to embrace some consistent best practices with regard to longstanding unresolved issues about our purpose. 

Which stories do we tell? The ones at risk for erasure.

How do we tell them? One word at a time.

Who needs to hear them? Start with whoever will listen.

How well do they need to be told? As good as we possibly can.

Why should they be told? We'll know when the story is done. Not before.

How do we know when we've told them correctly? When we know why they needed telling.

How do we know when we've told them wrong? When questions remain.

This wasn't "official," by any means, but it was justifiable under the oversight of a Comptroller who was willing to back an agenda, and guiding principles, around curation of stories and storytelling.

And just as I had suspected, back when I didn't have reason to know any better upon my arrival, just by committing to a course and testing it answered a lot of questions about what worked, and what didn't. 

I don't want to make it sound as though "Commit" was the solution, but, I feel like it was. 

Sure as any of the other members would likely tell you that their piece of the Credo was the crucial missing ingredient that made the perfect secret sauce. 

What it all boiled down to was this: 

We realized that we could tell stories. 

We realized that it was making a difference—with us, at first, and then... maybe a bit further than us, as we kept at it.

We found that people were willing to listen. A few at first, then a few more. Eventually, we were realizing that we were beginning to tell lots of people. 

When you get good at something, more of it happens. 

We were getting noticed, and some were beginning to take note.

It may not be immediately obvious to anyone who hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about stories, but if you pay at least a little bit of attention to the kinds of stories we like to tell—and how those stories change (or stay the same) over long stretches of time—you might begin to notice some patterns.

Some good. Some bad.

Those patterns can reveal a lot about the kind of world we live in. They can also tell you a little bit about the sorts of people who gravitate to certain stories... and others who would benefit from some stories going away.

Once you realize that, you may begin to see why the World's Greatest's job was so important, after all. You might be surprised who has an interest in what stories get told, and which don't. And once we started doing our job well enough to get noticed, we began feeling a kind of pressure we were entirely unfamiliar with.

Pressure to propagandize, or move aside. 

I have to be careful here, because now I'm beginning to describe people, entities and events with enormous power and pull—many of whom I'm still embroiled with to this day. I don't want to jeopardize my or anyone else's wellbeing by saying too much—but...

But I'm also convinced, now more than ever, that some stories need to be told.

So while certain details have been changed to protect the parties involved, I'm going to reconstruct as much of the dissolution of the World's Greatest as I can recount. And before I do, please note that no assurance is given that the workings herein shall suit all purposes, nor that their course will proceed without interruption or fault. This proclamation is not to be taken as the sole recourse in matters where error may bring harm to person(s) or property. Any such reliance is undertaken at the user’s own peril, and all burden arising therefrom remains expressly disowned.

It might be important to mention my 'priors' before moving forward. 

I like to maintain a healthy level of skepticism for powerful, external entities. Multi-billion dollar international corporate conglomerates are too vast and complex to trust wholesale. 

Do I believe that all their endeavors are inherently nefarious by default? No. I'm a realist. I acknowledge that nature itself organizes itself around successful entities that transcends life itself. Think: matter gathers around the largest center of gravity to create supermassive stars. This isn't motivated by celestial greed—deep wells gather more water. And while individual motivations can guide business practices in a way that they cannot motivate celestial orbital physics—by virtue of being neither an astronomer or economist, I have the luxury of recklessly conflating the two principles.

Big business naturally entices more business. More money generates more income. I don't try and resist this because I take it as a matter of fact. It does no good to project animosity toward something that happens naturally. And not everything "big business" touches turns to woe and ash. Big business is also capable of facilitating enormous philanthropic campaigns to the benefit of many. 

I'm not one to cry "billionaire boogeyman," but I'm not going to be a "monopoly apologist," either.

"The Company" made initial contact through a specially assigned corporate relations liaison they provided us. It more or less began as a business inquiry. 

We like what you do.

Are you looking for corporate sponsorship?

Investing in locally sourced, non-profit social advocacy groups is a win/win for both our institutions.

You receive endorsement to do what you do so well (and we love what you do!)

We receive state and federal tax deductions for our support.

Telling stories! Honestly, it's refreshing to see volunteers like yourselves taking such an interest in the common people.

And you're all so quirky! Really envious of your universal appeal.

We're always struggling with PR issues, so I sure wish I could do what you do!

All we need...

All we ask...

We don't want to change a thing!

But all we need from you...

The only thing we'd like to see...

Is programming!

"Programming." Sounds innocuous. Sounds productive, actually. And, given the World's Greatest history of having internal challenges debating the merits of the kinds of stories we tell, and why, a word like "programming" had the veneer of solving our core problem.

A problem that we were solving by ourselves so well, in fact, that "The Company" assigned us a liaison, by the way.

But at the onset "programming" seemed more than reasonable. In fact, it seemed to be the direction we were already going, so how easy could it possibly be to say 'yes'.

And, encouraged by the recent success we'd been having (there were still nominal hiccups, but generally trending in a positive direction), there was acknowledgement from within the group that "sponsorship" could be leveraged to our advantage.

What if we didn't have to work anymore? 

What if we could commit ourselves entirely to the business of telling stories?

How much better could we get at it?

And of course... motivated by every member's desire to be "Reconciled," like a soft warm glow in the back of our minds, if we could get better at telling stories, we might even get better at telling our own. If we told our own stories better, even to ourselves, could we get over our life's unfinished business and... move on?

The liaison was talking about "win/win," but we favored a dozen, so, at least to the majority of us it sounded more like a:

"win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win/win."

"Honor the tongues and the roots beneath them," seemed reluctant to buy in, however. He asked what "programming" would look like.

That's the beauty of it, our liaison said, ready for the question. You decide! The only difference is, you let us know. That's it! Give us a schedule. A menu. A calendar of upcoming events. Tell us the next story you've got cooking so we can align our advertising with the amazing work you are already doing.

What struck my girlfriend, "The cure is recovery," is the strangeness of The Company (which will remain nameless for fear of libel) would take an interest in us. 

We're talking The Company of Companies. Global footprint. Multifaceted industrial diversification. Immediate household brand recognition. A storied legacy with a reputation to match. Beloved around the world while enigmatically at the root of dozens of far-reaching conspiracies and even proven wrongdoing, but while feeding starving children in Africa, helping to rebuild war-torn, impoverished regions, and looking damn good while doing it.

The World's Greatest was still just a little podunk group of wayward misfits with Wednesday nights and some weekends free. Half group therapy, half cult, half open mic.

It felt a little like the President of the United States coming to a small town Public Parks and Zoning Commission hearing. 

Nonetheless, we did enter into an agreement with the liaison, further emboldened when we realized this arrangement could be executed without signing any pesky and soul-draining legally binding MOU. Not that any of us would be qualified to interpret corporate legal jargon anyways, despite what "No assurance is given," might suggest. The member in charge of that piece of the Credo was a high school sophomore. 

The liaison understood this—probably counted on it. Even if we had signed a contract, it probably wouldn't be worth anything even if it ever was brought to court, to our benefit or even to the benefit of The Company. No. This arrangement was a handshake deal. Under the table. No money down, no questions asked. 

And we came away full of enthusiasm, ready to take advantage of new "corporate sponsorship" opportunities we had earned, patting ourselves on the back—thinking we may have finally "made it," excited for the opportunities ahead.

"There are infinite doors. Some are locked."

As we had gotten in the practice of doing, we were soon investigating new stories to tell. You might be disappointed to peek behind the curtain at this process. It wasn't anything mystical or profound. It was less Maharishi and more Wikipedia. 

We would disperse. 

These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions...

"I am sending you out like sheep among wolves."

We'd go out and live our lives, encountering whatever people, places or pets we would, and like little collectors, gather up these stories and bring them back the next week to go over. 

"I was my job at the grocery checkout aisle when an angry customer, a little old lady, told me very sweetly told me she wanted me to 'roll over and die,' when I asked her if there was anything I could do to help her."

"I watched a couple in a hotel outdoor jacuzzi have sex when they thought nobody was watching."

"I saw a baby being pushed along in a stroller innocently grabbing a bag of coffee beans on display at a local cafe, and observed the Mom notice and do nothing to stop it." 

"I was caught in a traffic jam for over an hour. When I finally got to the scene that caused the hold-up, I saw the wreck of a sports car that had run directly into a cow on the highway. The blood and entrails still waiting to be cleaned up were unlike anything I'd ever seen before." 

"I watched my stepmother die slowly of cancer, her final joy was strawberry flavored Jell-o and morphine drops."

"I stubbed my toe so hard that I thought my pinky was dangling off my mangled foot by a thread of skin, and fell to the floor and wept in what began as a response to the pain but ended in my utter dismay at the state of my wretched life."

And then we'd go over each of them and start telling them. First, as briefly as possible. Then, if another member got interested in something and asked some questions, we'd tell a little more. Then, we'd dramatize the situation. We'd consider it from multiple perspectives. From the point of view of another customer in line. From the hotel security guard watching camera footage. The barista thinking about her psych test while stocking impulse items. 

The cattle rancher. 

The stepmother's cat. 

The toe, itself.

And that became our lineup. The stories we'd tell for the next few weeks. That weekend, we'd go to the grocery store. We'd go to the hotel. We'd go to the cafe, the highway, the stepmother's house, or the store where that one member went to buy his socks, and we'd tell that story. 

To anybody who was there to listen.

And bear the consequences, whatever they may be.

Sure, we'd have business owners asking us to leave. Sometimes we would, sometimes we'd push back. 

Once, the police were called.

We had our share of hecklers. 

Some would pass us by as quick as they could, ignoring us as much as possible.

But some would stop, and listen.

After we'd told the story, without fail, at least one person would always come up to us and say something about what just happened. It was almost always positive.

I yelled at a store employee once and still feel terrible about it.

I miss when my daughter was still a baby. We don't see each other anymore.

I had a toe, once, too.

But now, we were also responsible for programming.

Oversight with The Company, our corporate sponsors. 

We had a lineup of stories to tell—so, we reached out to our liaison, who was so friendly and exuberant and excited about the programming we had put together to share with The Company that, honestly, it was a little embarrassing how overflowing her praise and compliments were. It felt flattering in a way that was disarming. We left, with a check in hand for $6,000.00, a grand per story donation. 

This is just the start, the liaison told us. If we like where this partnership goes, there's always room to grow.

That was the note we had ended on. It felt like another step forward in The World's Greatest's journey to telling stories better, 

We were surprised to see the liaison was there, in person, at the start of our next meeting.

Thank you so much for the program, she said. 

I love it! I wouldn't change a thing, she said.

But... 

There were a lot of changes.

Does she have to be so mean to the cashier? Maybe she should be really nice about it! Have you thought of that? Kind of a reversal? Like, you expect for the customer to be rude, but she's actually a sweetheart?

Our board of directors didn't see the artistic merit in a story about someone voyeuristically observing an illegal act of public fornication. They thought, maybe, the couple could be drowning and that someone could come in to save them! Wouldn't that be heroic?

The note back on this one was that the Mother should have told the store owner what happened and explained the situation. Kind of a no-brainer, there, right? 

We thought you should cut the cow story. It's... well, there's got to be a better story out there somewhere, am I right? Or, hey! I'm not the professional or anything, but what if, like, they both survived? The driver and the cow? Think about it.

I love that this one is a call-out for strawberry Jell-O. Okay? Like, I love strawberry Jell-O. I'd like to know more about why the stepmom loves strawberry Jell-O so much. I think it would be a fun idea to tell a story earlier, before the cancer, when you're kind of having a nice memory making strawberry Jell-O with her, together. Wouldn't that be nice?

Oh my god. Been there! But seriously, everybody stubs their toe. It's super universal. Our team just wanted to be sure we understood—how long would you say the person is crying for? Let's think about that.

"Sorry," our Comptroller interrupted. "I appreciate your thoughtful feedback, but, excuse me for saying this and with all due respect... what the fuck?"

The Company's recommendations, without fail, consistently undermined the seemingly obvious purpose of each story.

It's just. Look, I'm not the professional, okay? And trust me, I liked the versions you had! But our board of directors are very good at what they do. They just had some notes so that we could feel confident about brand alignment with your product.

Product? Brand alignment? 

And, I give him credit, despite our Comptroller's prior aversion to leadership in general, and despite his former reluctance to taking a firm stand within the internal debates among members of the group—for the first time, when confronted with opposition that came from outside the group, he really seemed to take that personally.

"Yeah, but, and again, my apologies for any misunderstanding on my part, but full disclosure: what the actual fuck?!"

An argument ensued the likes of which hadn't been seen at World's Greatest since the fracturing of the frustrated contingency among the group, but instead of the venom being aimed at fellow members of the group, for the first time it was directed at an outside entity. The liaison and, by proxy, The Company.

"Why do you care whether or not we tell a story from the perspective of the stubbed toe? Your board of directors are getting bent out of shape over the voice and perspective of a toe?"

Doesn't that go both ways, though? she asked. If the voice and perspective of a toe is not worthy of the board of directors' criticism, why do you care about telling the story from its perspective?

It trivialized us. Made it seem like the argument was around the merits of a toe's point of view. In a way, that both undermined, and confirmed, how epically trivial our mission truly was, and while it seemed of utmost important, it was also hard to defend.

We were just ordinary people. Not skilled debaters. Not savvy corporate business executives. All we had was our individual personal tragedies and enough boredom to dedicate our lives to mundane but quietly meaningful stories.

The liaison said something that stuck in my craw, though.

If we can't trust you in small matters, how can we trust you with large matters?

There it was. This really had only just been the beginning. It starts with stories about toes and cow dismemberment on highway 89—but eventually becomes the sinking of the Titanic, the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the beheading of Oliver Cromwell, the renouncing of riches by Siddhartha Gautama. 

They were getting in on the ground floor. Commissioning our influence and channeling our attention in the direction they wanted stories to flow.

The check. The sponsorship. The appearance of deciding on our own programming (with feedback*). All part of a slow and methodical enlistment process. Making us incrementally complicit until we don't even realize it anymore.

So subtle it may have gone unnoticed.

Be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

Perhaps they knew it would always come to this. I felt that the charade around sponsorship and programming had really all been pretense and foreplay for what The Company really had in mind: recourse. 

I assume you've already spent that sponsorship deposit? she asked, coldly, and accusingly.

In response, "[This space intentionally left blank]" took out the endorsed check and tore it to pieces right there, little pieces of paper falling to the dusty floor of the cultural heritage museum that had served as a frequent gathering place.

That's a surprise, she said in a monotone that was so artfully flat that it reeked of overflowing disdain in its entirely even pitch. Regrettably, this sponsorship pathway is now revoked. 

And she left. And we let her. We suspected that wasn't going to be the end of it, and it wasn't. But what we weren't prepared for was how escalatory and ugly the revoked pathway was going to be. 

What ended up happening may have always been what was going to happen from the moment we tore up that sponsorship check, but what we did next may have expedited its execution.

Our Comptroller, uncharacteristically fired up from confronting The Company's liaison over our storytelling integrity, decided immediately—and without debate or discussion:

"We have our next story."

The story of The Company.

There was a gravity to everything we did to prepare to tell that next story, a weightiness that loomed over every choice and meeting we held to research it. 

The liaison was going to be a part of that story we told. But so would we. We'd tell our own stories, because who we were and what World's Greatest had become were integral to telling why we couldn't sell out our own consciousnesses when deeming which stories had worth, and which did not. 

Yes, even if that meant defending the stubbing of something as small as a toe.

Because even if it's only a tiny portion of the body, if you hit it just right, you collapse onto the floor and can weep for hours about your whole fucking life.

We knew that. And The Company knew that, too. That's why their note was careful to part those two ideas. The pain of the stubbing; and the pain of existence.

We poured everything we'd ever learned about storytelling into this exposé on The Company. We wanted to know everything. The good (carefully measured to be just good enough to make the bad look negligible in comparison), the bad (genuinely evil), and the ugly (we hadn't yet realized how ugly it could get). 

We looked at The Company's founder. What was startling wasn't the skeletons in the closet, but how well-documented, catalogued and established the knowledge about those skeletons was. There were no secrets. The dirty laundry was all out in the open, and everyone seemed to know it. Even I, who knew about The Company before joining World's Greatest, but didn't spend much time thinking of them until this "sponsorship" campaign began, had heard stories about their founder, but thought it sounded so overblown as to be exaggerated or attributable to urban legend. 

No, turns out some urban legends are accurate and established. Blackmail, conspiracies, bribing, hostile takeovers and even murder. But more than that—at a certain level of international power—you're able to guide global political affairs, fund wars or choke rebellions, back corrupt bids for power and run massive propaganda campaigns that—crucially—recontextualize, or even downright silence, counternarratives. 

I know it. You know it. We all know it happens. 

But it's one thing to understand that this kind of corruption goes on without your direct involvement (even though some corruption is so sweeping that everyone is complicit to some extent), and another thing entirely to have the full fury and aggression of that corrupting force aimed at you. 

They knew we were researching them. We knew they knew we were researching them. I was dimly afraid for myself, and my girlfriend in the group, that the blowback would be significant.

I really wasn't prepared for how bad it could get. 

It was after another World's Greatest gathering. We had spent another evening gathering to share the little bits of research into The Company that we were able to collect. The more we looked, the more we saw. Parent companies, subsidiaries, expansion partnerships, federal judge appointments, supply chain management infrastructure development projects, soirees with local, state, federal and international political figures. It was David versus Goliath, except twelve David's versus a multinational, multibillion Goliath conglomerate. 

Notably, the gathering that night had also revealed that The Company had an entertainment wing; a popular film and television media service that was well known for their stories. Notably, adapting classic tales and 'fitting them' to our times. Taking out the controversial bits that the original tales wove into the fabric of the telling. The dark bits, like how the evil queen in Snow White is thrown into a barrel by the seven dwarfs with nails hammered into it from all sides and then thrown over a cliff. Or how Oedipus laid with his own mother before gouging out his eyes in shame and horror. 

Y'know, all the really juicy bits. 

The result was always milquetoast half-measured fairy tales that rung some dim, hollow moral bell without exposing all the gritty and messy innards that all real stories with authenticity invariably carry. 

A term got thrown out, and we all laughed at it.

"They're homogenizing stories," someone said. "Like the milk."

We all laughed. Remembering that laughter, including mine, feels uncomfortable now.

That was the part we were seemingly being primed to play, it seemed. 

What's the harm in that? one may wonder. These stories are antiquated. To get the most out of the lessons they still have left to convey for modern sensibilities, more outdated aspects of them should be modernized to match todays moral structure and tastes. 

"Honor the tongues and the roots beneath them."

"The told outlives the tallied."

"The cure is recovery of the lost."

Besides, the original authors of these old stories were problematic to say the least. Some lived in a time of slavery, oppression against women, abuse against children, colonization of the underprivileged, and malicious abuse of imbalanced power dynamics. Lessons deemed to uphold those racist and bigoted viewpoints cannot be tolerated.

"Less is more."

"There are infinite doors. Some are locked." 

"Let the strange pass unkempt; harbor not its oddity."

All we are trying to do is update classic tales for a new generation, improved with values that we embrace today. Empathy and understanding. Compassion and equity. Living your truth, and resisting oppression wherever we find it. 

"Understanding does not announce itself."

"Walk a mile in someone else's shoes." 

 "Commit."

We find resistance to these modern values deeply troubling and reflective of a disturbing xenophobia and oppressive mindset that seeks to end discussion, not open a new conversation predicated on acceptance, tolerance and updating hurtful institutions of the past. 

"Favor a dozen."

"No assurance is given that the workings herein shall suit all purposes, nor that their course will proceed without interruption or fault. This proclamation is not to be taken as the sole recourse in matters where error may bring harm to person(s) or property. Any such reliance is undertaken at the user’s own peril, and all burden arising therefrom remains expressly disowned."

"[This space intentionally left blank.]"

My girlfriend, "The cure is recovery," had asked a good question right at the beginning, and I hadn't given her proper credit for asking it, then. 

Why is The Company interested in us? 

We were small. We were unimportant. And, at least for the majority of World's Greatest's time together, we were largely ineffectual. If our mission was to tell stories, we were actively bad at it for so long, it made our name a joke.

What changed was that we focused. We refined our mission. It wasn't just about getting out, anymore. It was about deciding to really care about something for the first time.

"Commit."

That's what The Company was afraid of. 

Not telling stories. Not even getting rid of them. But committing ourselves to telling them the way they actually happened, and not buying the homogenized retelling that ignored the tragedy of life.

And once it was clear we weren't welling to "recalibrate," their support was "revoked," and The Company sought "recourse."

It happened quickly, right after that final gathering, and with startling efficiency. 

"The cure is recovery," was going back to her place. I was going to drive around and haul a few fares and see what other stories I could collect. I kept odd hours at the time.

We kissed. Exciting promises were made. For the last time.

I got in my gypsy cab and drove off into the night looking for folks who needed a lift. I thought my engine sounded unusual even before I idled out at a four way stop. It was dark, so I saw the headlights in the rear view mirror from a long distance out.

I usually don't get nervous about that sort of thing but I felt nervous, then, for some reason. Highbeams. A sudden approach, closing the distance behind me quickly. Parking. The door opening. First on the passenger side, then the driver's side. Something in my gut new these weren't good Samaritans offering to look under my hood. 

My driver's side window didn't roll down, so I cracked the door when the driver stepped up to my side. I could see the passenger walk up the other side of my car, slowly, looking in from the back, checking.

"Car trouble?" a voice asked. "Can we look under your hood?"

A hand on my door, opening it wider than I had cracked it. I might've said something, I don't remember. They grabbed me and pulled me out, and I tried to push them away but it was big lout. Some massive Cro-Magnon type of guy, his arms and torso and testicles were filled with concrete wherever I tried to punch or kick.

I wasn't the fighting type. I was wiry, and could scrap, but not well nourished, or well rested. None of us really were. "Understanding does not announce," might have fared a little better than I did, but, in the end, Mr. Cro-Magnon made short work of me.

I don't even remember how he did it. One second I was trying to dig my knee into his balls, and the next I was out.

Now that I've gotten to this part of the story, I'm not sure how to tell it. In the beginning it felt like "torture," but then after a while it felt more like "brainwashing," until, right before it ended, it started feeling like therapy. Healthy. Productive. Healing.

The first thing I remember was being secured with zip ties to a very uncomfortable wooden chair, soaked with sweat, facing the corner. I could crane my head this way or that way—but the room was unusually expansive, so large that even if I turned my hall the way to the left or to the right, I'd still only just see long, wide walls. Beige carpet. Soft tones. Lamp lighting. The legs of the chair I was in must've been bolted to the floor because, in the length of time they had me there, waiting, I tried to tip the chair over so that I could get a look at what, or who, was sitting in the room directly behind me, out of view. I had an acute feeling that someone was there—at least one person but maybe more—silently watching and observing me from behind, patiently, maybe even apathetically. But that wasn't really what was bothering me most.

What stirred me from the unconscious state, or the sleep, or the delirium I was under when they placed me here was the noise. 

From somewhere in the room behind me there must've been huge speakers or amplifiers set up all around.

It gives me shrill, cold gooseflesh recalling it now. But what those speakers played were either eerie silence, or cloying loud screeching, each in about minute-long intervals.

Over and over again. Minute after minute.

Silence.

Blaring nails on chalkboard, unceasing, for a full minute.

Silence.

Nails on chalkboard.

Silence.

Nails.

Silence.

Chalkboard.

Silence.

When you imagine torture, you can't help but envision startling horrors that feel upsetting in the context of your life. In the mundanity and routine of daily toil, bamboo shoots under fingernails, testicles strapped to car batteries or waterboarding seem daunting to the imagination.

The Company never did that to me, so I can't say for certain. All I know is that it doesn't take anything quite so drastic or dramatic as that to whittle your soul down into a soft, rounded nub.

All it takes is silence. And din.

Over and over. 

For hours upon hours.

Or days upon days.

No windows. No change in the lighting or the walls I was facing. No variety. No end. No hope.

Just silence and noise.

It could have been a week, it could have been less than half an hour, when I felt like I would've sold every single member of World's Greatest for a chance at leaving that chair and walking out of that room. The malaise and irritation, without even the freedom of wiping the sweat off your brow or escaping the foreboding silence or grating screams, was maddening in the fullest sense of the word. 

You scream for help, for them to acknowledge you or tell you anything that they want, just so you could more eagerly provide it to them—but no answer. Even your own frantic screams don't assuage the unsettling vacuum of that heavy minute of silence, before another painful, ear-splitting cry renders your spine as jellied as tofu.

It wasn't about selling any of the other members out. It was about unmaking me from the inside out. 

Besides, I just assumed that they had the others, too. 

And that meant they had her. "Cure is recovery." I knew it in my bones, they had her, too.

It felt like eternity. It felt like an eternity of eternities. But as awful as that time was, 24 hours of non-stop pulses of silence and discordant wailing, being relieved of that room was a unique terror all its own. 

Eventually, hands clasped my head on both sides—a sensation after my stressed state that was painful and alarming beyond description. My head was held firmly fixed to stare at the corner of the wall ahead of me, and I felt my heart was going to bounce out of my ribcage when a photo was held in front of my eyes. It was her. A close up of her face. She looked distressed and exhausted. I saw just a flash of it before it was pulled from in front of my face. The message was clear: that they had her and it wasn't going much better for her than it was for me. 

There was a bitter and unpleasant relief in seeing the picture, though. It meant that, if they already had her, I didn't have to endure the anguish of selling her out for my release from this torture. 

The knowledge I would have done so is bad enough without actually being asked to do it.

And in so doing, they forged our bond together—hers and mine—more than it already was. But it twisted our relationship as much as it entwined our fates together.

My eyes burned with light as gloved hands dropped down in front of my face and snapped a picture of me. The hands remained firmly clamped against my head, even as I heard footsteps depart. I could only guess, to show her my miserable face just as they had shown me hers.

They told me, without a word, that they had gotten to her. They were going out to tell her that they had gotten to me, too.

They slapped a pair of earmuffs on me, pulled out whatever bolts had secured that chair to the floor, tilted my world at a 45-degree angle so I was facing the ceiling, and dragged me out of the room. The corner of the wall ran away from me as the room grew and grew in my vision on my way toward the door. The guy pulling me out may well have been the Cro-Magnon made of cement who clobbered me into submission on the road. I wondered what they had done to my gypsy cab.

The earmuffs were a mercy. I'll never know how long I had been subjected to that silence-and-noise treatment, but even with the earmuffs one my eardrums were still ringing in minute-spanning periods of imagined silence and phantom shrieks. Hearing real room tones again after what my nerves had been treated to might've sent me into shock. 

They brought me to another room that had a bed. I slept, woke up, stayed awake in bed for a long time until I fell back asleep again. 

What came next was a series of hostile interviews. I folded immediately. I wanted all of this to be over, and I would do and say anything to get me to whatever the finish line looked like. A bullet in the head? Fine. A prison sentence? Fine. Turned loose to wander like a vagrant on the city streets of Las Vegas? Fine. I was going to do and say anything it took to get me there.

I would admit to anything. Agree to anything. They had the same guy come in and interview me every day, multiple times a day, and his whole deal was to make me feel like scum. He was good at it. But I already agreed with him, by then. It didn't matter. He had his job to do and he was going to do it.

He was the one who said the word, again. The first time I'd heard it since my last night at World's Greatest. 

He looked at me and seemed to decide I had reached some milestone they had been waiting for. I'm not sure what reaction he saw from me that told him this, but he said, You know, you're starting to look alright to me, finally.

"I am?"

Yeah, he said. You're starting to look-- 'homogenized'. He laughed, like he knew that's the word we had used. Like the milk.

Eventually, the interviews gave way to negotiations. They started answering questions for me. It didn't feel obvious at the time but I see it for what it was now. They were teaching me a new narrative for how I was going to look back on what had happened.

You didn't know what this cult was doing, did you? Not completely.

"No, I didn't. I didn't know what the cult was doing. Not completely."

If you did, you would've seen how misguided they really were. You were naïve.

"I was. If I knew, I would've seen how I was being misguided."

You didn't realize that [name], who you knew as the cult's "Comptroller," was a murderer. Did you know he got his past disciples killed?

"I... I knew people he cared about had died..."

He didn't care about them. He used them. You're lucky we found you when we did.

As for her, "Cure is recovery," my girlfriend, I didn't bring her up.  I avoided mentioning her specifically because I was afraid. Afraid that they'd tell me they'd killed her. Afraid they'd tell me she was still being tortured. Terrified if they were going to ask me to betray her. But more than anything I thought I would shatter if they told me that she had folded on me, like I was prepared to fold on her. 

Eventually, they brought her up.

[Name] asked about you today.

"Oh?"

That's right. She asked how you were.

"Oh?" —a breath more than a word.

Do you want us to tell her how you're doing?

Hesitant. I dared. "Yes."

Well. How should we say you are doing? 

I didn't know. What did they want me to say? What would she want to hear? 

Which stories do we tell? The ones at risk for erasure.

How do we tell them? One word at a time.

Who needs to hear them? Start with whoever will listen.

They waited for my response.

"Say... 'good,'" I said. 

Good. We'll tell her you're 'good'.

I dreaded, and hoped, that they would rush out and tell her, so that they could rush back and tell me what she would say in response. 

It was a few days afterwards when they brought us together for the first time since that night. When we had kissed, with exciting promises made, for the last time when we were still the World's Greatest. 

They brought me to her without telling me that's where we were going. They led me to the door and opened it, and I saw her. She looked at me, destroyed, just like me, but more beautiful. They closed the door on me and we stared in awe at each other. 

She looked older. Smaller. Brittle. She had been so energetic, so sexy, so sharp and so biting. Now she looked like a puddle and it broke my heart, because my girlfriend, "Cure is recovery," was... almost all gone. What was left was [name]. 

She looked at me, and I could see the same battle being waged in her eyes. When she looked at me, she didn't see "Commit." She saw [my name]. She fell in love with "Commit." She didn't know me by any other name. 

We held each other all the same. 

From then on, all of our therapy sessions took place together. Jointly. As a pair. 

We were told all the horrible things the cult we had been a part of had done. Were planning on doing. Were still hoping to do—because they were still out there. 

They had gotten us, but, the cult was still out there, somewhere. Planning. Rebuilding. Planning to attack again.

They never asked our help. They never invited us to sell them out or give up information. I guess it seemed to me as though they were projecting a level of knowledge and capability that didn't need our help. 

They never asked because they always made it seem as though they already had the situation under control. Even if the group was still out there, somewhere, they already had a handle on where they were and how to stop them, if they really had to.

"Cure," and I sat side by side, answering questions the same way, imbibing the new narrative, our hands on our laps, a foot apart, not reaching for each other, but still within arm's length.

Years passed. I ended up making the right connections through the therapist who worked with her and I, and got a job with The Company. Well, not with The Company itself, but with a subsidiary company that's specialized for the agriculture industry. They kept me away from words, and they kept my title and job duties shifting—not wanting me to get too committed, I think, to any one task. 

You do your best work if you remain interdisciplinary, they said. Jack of all trades, they called me. 

I liked the work okay. It felt good to have something to do, even if I wasn't especially talented at it, or skilled. I was always working with a professional who was more dedicated to that specific line of work they had me do, usually for about a year or so before I was reassigned. Just when I'd start getting good at something, they'd reposition me within the department. 

But the pay was steady. "Cure," too, got a job. Hers was actually with The Company, but much farther down. She was in product services. It was a good position. She cataloged complaints.

We never got married, but we lived together. Every day, her and I. It's like a marriage, but...

I liked to go to some of the livestock houses, the big industrial warehouses, and look at the animals, sometimes. The chickens, the pigs. And the cows. 

I remembered the story we had told about the car stuck in traffic. Hours later, they finally passed the scene of the accident, where some sports car had struck a cow.

They described the amount of blood on the road.

Who had told that? God, was it me? 

Kind of a gristly story to tell... and for what purpose? Why had it seemed so important at the time? 

We don't make love. Not like we used to. It's clinical, now, like scratching an itch. Something that has to be done. 

There are times when we're making love and I want to fuck her like we used to fuck. Desperate and needful and pushy and kinetic, the way I remembered we'd fuck when we both really needed each other.

But I don't because if I do, it'll suggest that there was something from our time in World's Greatest I want again. A part of her that doesn't exist today, how it used to then. 

That would mean there's a part of me that was lost between then and now, too.

So instead we make love how we do. Transactionally. Without much strength to it.

My indoctrination with the cult was over two decades ago, but I still thought about it often. I thought about our other member, "Honor the tongues," who had been Reconciled, and who stayed around, only to Repose.

I thought about "Less is more," and "Favor a dozen." I thought about "Let the strange pass unkempt," and "No assurance is given." I thought about all the arguments we'd had. The stories we told. About ourselves and about babies stealing coffee beans, or public fornication in hotel jaccuzis, or toes dangling from webs of torn skin.

 And then one day he called.

The Comptroller; "The told outlives the tallied," sounded... exactly the same as ever he had.

"It's good to hear your voice," he said, sounding earnest.

"Hey," I said, sounding surprised. Conflicted. Concealing pain and bitterness and shame and the sudden urge to urinate.

The conversation expanded like an out of body experience. All the sudden I found myself, in my life, at the grocery store trying to find something to buy, talking to the Comptroller of our long dead World's Greatest again, catching up the way... people do.

I was trembling, and my skin felt oily underneath my clothes, like I was exuding some stress-sweat. Dim, but still palpable, was the intermittent cadence of silence and cacophony ringing in minute-intervals in my ears, like a chaotic beat underneath the words the Comptroller was saying to me. 

We were talking about mundane things, like the weather, what we had been up to, current events, but all of it tinged with a creeping knowledge of inevitability. We both knew where the conversation was going to go.

I must've said something funny, or said something that I didn't intend to be characteristic of our past in World's Greatest, but he laughed.

"That's such a 'you' thing to say," he said, good naturedly. I could see him in my mind's eye. Smiling. Cordial. Accommodating to a fault. Friendly. I remembered the monster The Company went to great lengths to convince me he was, and the people who had died under his care before his arrival to World's Greatest.

I also remember the way he told that story. How it had haunted him. How reluctant it made him to leading us, until the threat came from outside and he had to.

"You know why I'm calling," he said, with finality.

"Yeah," I said, but couldn't say it out loud.

"We have an unfinished story to tell," he said. 

Panic and dread. "But, that's fine. But. I'm not in World's Greatest anymore."

A slight pause on the other side. "Commit. You know as well as any of us there are only three ways to leave the group."

"Right," I said. "Reconciled.

The Company captured me. Cure is recovery and I both. They took me and... they cured me."

He said my name, sweetly. Consolingly. Without saying he was sorry, it held an apology in it, somewhere. 

"They didn't Reconcile you, old friend," he said. "They homogenized you."

The shaking made it hard to hold the phone to my ear. 

"The only way any of us are Reconciled is by doing what the group is supposed to do. We started telling a story, and it needs to be told. Their story. Truthfully. Carefully. Fully."

"Look, I—I'm a member of The Company now. I mean, not directly. I'm in agriculture. But... Cure is recovery is, too. She works for The Company directly. I don't think we can..." 

"Cure is recovery!" He said in response to her name, jovially. "That's what she told me, too. I called to tell her we were gathering again a few days ago. She didn't mention it?"

She hadn't mentioned it. The idea, whether true or not, took my breath away.

"You did?"

"I did! I've been contacting everybody. Everyone that's left..." he said, frankly, with a tinge of respect for the dead. 

"And I've been pleased that, so far, Commit, everyone has been on board with it."

I breathed heavily. He had called her and asked her if she would return to the group... and she agreed? 

It wasn't disbelief. It was... the opposite. I believed it fully. Completely.

And I understood why she hadn't told me about it. She might have assumed I had gotten the call, too, or knew that the Comptroller would be reaching out to me soon.

I thought of how she used to be. How we both were. We were the World's Greatest. 

"So, you in?"

A few weeks from now, for the first time in nearly two decades, World's Greatest will gather again. All those old friends and rivals. 

I never thought it would happen again, or if it did, that I'd willingly reinsert myself into those ranks again.

But... my piece of the Credo was "Commit." 

I have to be there.

Despite the risks, repercussions from The Company, or what might happen to me if we're inevitably discovered telling stories that should go untold, I'm looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to seeing them all again.

I'm looking forward to seeing her again, too. 

Maybe I'll finally ask her if she really is a Relocation case, or just said so to cut in line, when she and I both get there.