Screwing up is not easy. Many think it is, but it is not. To screw up, it takes a lot of commitment and conviction on the doer’s part. Even though we have Murphy’s law (if anything can go wrong, it will) on our side, the ‘Side of the Screw Ups‘, the chance that that something will go wrong at the precise moment when we’re working on it is miniscule, which makes people like us a rarity. We are a group of forgotten heroes who undermine the efforts of billions of people single-handedly. We can do anything from ruining a peaceful morning in a placid neighbourhood to setting off bloddy wars between two nations that have been at peace for thousands of years. You cannot see us on the roads, wearing a cap that has ‘Screw-upper’ emblazoned on the forehead. You cannot find us in the Yellow Pages. Google cannot track us down online – in fact, if it were for us, Google wouldn’t even exist. Your complaints to anybody, written or otherwise, signed or otherwise, forced or otherwise, can’t aid you in anyway in tracking us down. We are from every country, although it is a common opinion amongst us that we don’t represent our countries. We don’t have uniforms, no communication networks, no code words, no secret gatherings – we did once, but I’ll come to that later. We come. We see. We conquer. In fact, that is our motto. Julius Caesar flicked it from one of our men. I think this piece of information also tells you we date back to thousands of years.
Just as in any other secret society, we don’t know the complete identities of our fellow men – i.e. for reasons more than one. However, unlike in any other secret society, our recruitments into the society are completely voluntary. If you want to join, you join. Our doors are open day in and day out, and there are registration fees, no rituals, no voodoo crap. In fact, you inadvertantly become a member when you screw up. We have no satellites in space, no CCTVs rigged into your household, and members from other secret societies will never ever be sent out to kill you. Even as I write this, I don’t think you, the reader, get the largesse of what I am trying to say; so, let me give you a perspective. We are so secretive, Dan Brown knows nothing of us. Nor does Walt Disney. Nor does Galileo. Nor does Jesus Christ. Like I said, forgotten heroes.
During World War II, because of the extreme chaos that also seemed all-pervading for a stretch of six years, a screw up became inevitable. Not only did many people do it, but they did it repeatedly. The inherent value was lost, and people no longer cared if you screwed up or not. This idea negated the principles of our existence itself. Even though this was not the first time such an idea had been ideated – just imagine the number of battles the people of this world have fought – it was unnerving because of two reasons:
- The dawn of the 20th century was of momentous consequences not because of the chronological analogies, but because it happened simultaneously with industrialisation. Man had begun to build machines that would surpass his skiils and efficiency by integrating his own intelligence a thousand times over. The world became smaller as faster transport began to be built, and telephone, radio and television reduced the time taken for information to traverse the edges of the earth. In such a time as this, the value of a screw up soared. Soared? It shot through the skies! If a screw could happen in this century, then it would be legendary. (Right then, Hitler had a nightmare about Jews)
- The second reason is simple – it, in fact, followed from what I said earlier and what was described in the first reason. In a time of good value, we don’t need bad tidings.
And so, the Screw Up Society convened for the first time ever. In order to conceal from the general populace the sheer numbers that would come together, we did two things. First, we changed the name of our society and registered ourselves as the ‘League of Nations’. Second, we asked every country to send in a team of ten representatives. We gathered together in a prominent city so it wouldn’t attract too much attention (gathering in an unknown city does, don’t you think?), and we sat and talked for days together. The press was swarming around our halls all day long for the whole time, and all they had to say to their bosses and the people was this: (imagine a lady’s voice – and her emotions as well) “The League of Nations, which convened a special meeting this week, has representatives from all member nations. Although they have been inside for hours now, there have been no updates as to the status of their talks. As France is increasingly exposed to the dangerous threat of a German blitzkrieg, the leaders have been silent in their actions. Only time will tell.”
So there! Under the glare of so many cameras and twice as many people, the Screw Up Society held its first and last meeting. If only the outside world had known the gravity of the situation then and there, it would have been a different world that we see around ourselves today. Anyway, by the end of the meeting, we had come to a desicion: one of our members would be placed as a mole within the German ranks in order to undermine their war efforts. Although this is a simple solution, the hours we spent cooped up inside were spent in deciding who the spy would be. We had finally settled on one William Joyce, who would thereon be referred to as “Lord Haw Haw” (his code name). Joyce was succesfull for a few years, until the day he double-crossed. The Germans tracked him down, and just as they were about to shoot him, a RAF warplane bombed the region. Joyce escaped with a scar on his face, but couldn’t evade the British for long: he was finally captured on the Germany-Denmark border in the town of Flensburg. His voice betrayed his identity to the soldiers.
Although no SUS member attended his execution a few years later, his wife, Margaret did. Since attending the funeral itself was a political screw up, Margaret became one of us and, officially, one of us did attend the funeral. But hey, all’s well that ends well. I narrated this little story to you just so you could form a mental picture as to our greatness and power – both of which we never misused. We only did what we should have, and because of our steadfastness in our beliefs, it was always what we could have.
Note: The Pugwash Conference and NATO are some other groups that constitute SUS members. Although these groups did come together for meetings and stuff like that, they were never recognised as full-fledged meetings because they didn’t compare in size to the LoN conference.
We were there!
However, you will notice an aberration here: if I am one of the SUS, why am I even talking about these things? Well, the answer is this: when Osama Bin Laden piloted those planes into the WTC in NY, we received a distress call from one of our overseas members. Seemingly, a small section of the SUS had gathered for the evening in order to celebrate – September 11th was the date of the first SUS meeting – in the upper floors of WTC Tower 1, when the plane crashed into them. Then, when they expected the aircraft to blow up, one of the SUS men exchanged winks with the pilot, and pressed a button the wall. This set of a series of explosions within the building that brought it down. An investigation followed, through which was uncovered the fact that the SUS had itself been infiltrated. After this, a second meeting was convened in secret. But, this time, there was a difference: we did not all sit down in a big city and talk for hours. Instead, we made the SUS pseudo-public, i.e. we exposed ourselves and our intentions through a secure channel to leaders of nations from around the world, and made them an offer: we would need to use a part of their country’s land for our secret operations, in exchange for which the country’s government would receive exclusive information – the kinds which none could come in possession of. The deal was finally brokered with Indonesia, and East Timor, generally thought to be the last country to secure independence, became our international headquarters.
And this document, lady or gentleman on the other side of this screen, is important. It is important because you should know that we are trapped. This document is, I think, the only surviving distress call our leaders have sent out. Indonesia is strangling us! They are perfecting everything, and our men and women are returning home from work distressed and despairing. Please help us, whomsoever you may be. We need to be able to roam the streets again. An improving world, they say, has no place for people like us, and they execute us when we disagree. I have told you so much, and I think you will agree when I say that life is interesting only when one screws up, and our organisation, our beloved SUS, stands for that and that only. If you read this and believe in this, please pass it around. Help us today, and we will help you build a better tomorrow.
– George W. Bush
Clathration Therapy 