The Almighty Ough
Free was a Restrict. He had been in The Module since birth. There, he and others were educated. They were taught The Prayer, which reads, “You have brought me through the drought and filled my trough. Your blessings are thorough and enough.” These were the only words the Restricts were taught how to read. The Prayer, their instructor taught, was everything. It was all they needed to know, and all else was simply for reference to help them understand it. They said The Prayer before being fed a sizable meal of bread and water.
At the start of each day, the Restricts were brought into an auditorium. There, they’d watch either a family or group of friends sit down for a sumptuous meal. They’d listen in on conversations that the Diners would have on various topics. When the meal was finished, the Diners opened the floor for questions and answers from the Restricts. For example, if the Diners mentioned a dog, one of the Restricts may ask what a dog is. The Diners would answer by pulling up a picture or video of a dog on a computer that was connected to a projector. The media would show on a screen behind the Diners, and the Restricts would then know what a dog is. This process is also how they learned how to communicate with words other than The Prayer.
After that, they’d go back to their classroom where they’d take what they learned from the Diners and try to figure out what the words of The Prayer meant. For instance, the instructor would ask the pupils what a “drought” is. The Restricts would give their answers, most of them asinine. If they’d just learned what a tree was from the diners, one of the Restricts might answer that a drought is a tree. They were never told if they were right or wrong. They’d just keep guessing.
Free was one of the star pupils. Most of the others would agree with him when he’d give his guesses, and his questions to the Diners would be the most interesting to the other Restricts. When he came of age, he was told that he was being awarded for his intelligence by being put in the chamber. Other engaging pupils were placed in separate chambers. Throughout their schooling, the Restricts were told that the chamber was the goal. The instructor told them that it was free from all light because light was childish. They were also told that they’d become leaders in the chamber and their voices would matter. The rest would be cast out of The Module into the outside world to become Potos, who were more unenlightened. In the chamber, their days would be devoted to The Prayer and trying to figure out what it meant.
The chamber was pitch black other than a large screen on one of the walls. It would show words of The Prayer along with random pictures and muted videos of Potos doing a plethora of activities on the outside. The walls of the chamber were made with a material that would absorb sound, then rapidly spit it back out in a different pitch or tone. The pitches and tones were endless. Free was seated in the middle of the chamber facing the screen. He was bound by the neck and legs to a post so that he couldn’t move, except for his arms or look away from the screen. Whenever he would speak aloud, he thought that the echoing voices were others in the chamber following his lead or agreeing with him. The louder he spoke, the more voices would echo. There was a microphone hanging from the ceiling of the chamber that would record his voice.
The screen would show The Prayer at sporadic times. When Free said read it aloud, his voice would be echoed by the walls, so he felt like a prayer leader. The words would not go away from the screen until they were read aloud. When the words were said, an unknown person would come down in a pulley lift behind Free with a tray of bread and water. When the unknown person hit the ground, they’d walk over to Free and turn on a light that was under the brim of their hat so that he could see the food. They wore a mask, so Free couldn’t see anything besides their eyes. When Free was finished eating, the unknown person would turn off the light, pick up the tray, get back on the pulley lift, and ascend back to the top of the chamber. Free assumed the unknown person had food for the other voices and that they’d gone on to serve them.
Until the next time The Prayer appeared, Free would watch the random pictures and videos of Potos and make his guesses as to what the words in The Prayer meant aloud. The echoing voices reinforced his guesses the same way the other Restricts had done when he was in The Module. Because of his schooling and the gradual deterioration of his mind due to his predicament, he never realized that he never received any answers. He just kept making guesses.
In reality, all of his guesses were recorded through the microphone. The microphone fed into a robot that would transcribe his guesses, then turn them into scripts for content that the Potos consumed for entertainment. The Potos also knew The Prayer and were highly amused by the absurd interpretations of it. Many of the Potos believed in The Prayer, but they were given the free will to look for truth outside of it.
One day, as Free watched a Poto surfing a big wave on the screen and wondering if the surfboard was a “trough,” The Prayer appeared. Instead of saying the words right away, Free really looked at them and analyzed them. “You have brought me through the drought and filled my trough. Your blessings are thorough and enough.” He noticed the recurrence of the letter pairing of “ough.” Taken aback by this new revelation, Free thought some more. “Is Ough the ‘You’ that The Prayer is referring to,” he thought to himself. Before he got too deep into thought, he said the words of The Prayer aloud. The unknown person came down, gave him his food and departed.
Instead of watching the screen trying to figure out what the words meant, Free closed his eyes and visualized the words as he’d seen them forever in his mind. He came to the conclusion that Ough was definitely who The Prayer was to. “That’s it! That’s who we’ve been praying to,” he yelled in astonishment. He took it that the echoing voices had also seen what he’d seen and agreed. He then sounded each of the “ough” words out in his head. Brought. Through. Drought. Thorough. Enough. The differing sounds confused him very greatly. How would he adequately address his new god, the Almighty Ough?
He figured he might as well take the issue to his audible following. He presented the facts. It could be the “ough” sound in brought, through, drought, thorough or enough. He then put it to a vote. Whichever sound got the most vocal support would be it. He first asked loudly if it was “Aw.” As the “Aws” were bouncing around, he asked if it was “Oo.” Then, if it was “Ow.” Then, if it was “Off.” Then, if it was “Oh.” Finally, he asked if it was “Uff.” The argument among the voices was furious and lasted for minutes. Since he’d said “Aw” the loudest, it was the sound that outlasted all the others. This made sense to Free because it was the first “ough” word in The Prayer, so all of the others must have come from it. Free started praising Ough out loud at the top of his lungs, delivering sermons to the aplomb of the echoing voices. He made new prayers to Ough, which were repeated.
Ough had become “Aw,” and Free was so deluded that he forgot how to read the words of The Prayer the right way. He’d been at it for a long time before The Prayer appeared back on his screen. His delusion so entertained the Potos that they decided not to interrupt his thought process. They’d never loved any content as much as what Free was providing. The Prayer was eventually put on the screen because they knew he needed some sustenance. However, when the words appeared, Free read them as “You have brought me thraw the drawt and filled my traw. Your blessings are thoraw and enaw.” The echoing voices joined in. Free said it again louder, “You have brought me thraw the drawt and filled my traw! Your blessings are thoraw and enaw!” Still nothing.
Free got distressed. He knew that he needed to eat and that his followers did, too. He kept saying the mispronounced words to no avail. The words stayed on the screen. After a while, Free started to despise the Almighty Ough, feeling that their god had abandoned them. Soon after, his sermons and prayers of praise became vile, vitriolic rants cursing Ough. The voices backing him up made him more confident in his growing hatred.
When the voices died down, and Free sat looking at the words, he thought about everything. When he said the words before, the unknown person would come down with the food. He concluded that the unknown person was Ough and vowed to kill him. He raised his voice again hipping his following to this new discovery and declared war against Ough, fully convinced he had a powerful army behind him. He spent the rest of his days trying to devise ways to get the unknown person to come back down with the voices until he withered away and perished due to starvation.
