Poem: "The Gingerbread Protocol"

This poem came out of the September 3, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by siliconshaman.  It has been sponsored by janetmiles.

The spies were getting nervous.
Just when they had finally
penetrated the internet
and achieved near-total surveillance,

something began to go
terribly, horribly wrong.

They were compromised.
They didn't know how or why
or who was doing it,
but the effects were undeniable.

One agent after another
fell prey to the unseen attack,
became uncomfortable with the work,
and resigned.

Some of them even became activists,
defecting to the other side.
It was appalling; it was terrifying.

They tried everything they could think of
to scan for psychotropic chemicals
or hypnotic programming,
but nothing worked.

They were closer than they realized,
with that last search --
they were looking right at it
and never noticed.

It was there,
had always been there,
in the very files they were reading.

The automated espionage
could only go so far;
human agents had to read
the suspicious missives,
infiltrate the meetings
where progressives gathered.

When you gaze into the abyss,
the abyss also gazes into you.
What you see becomes part of you.

There is no way to observe
without absorbing some of it --
this is an old warning
about undercover work,
turned around on itself now,
dark to light, like a snake
swallowing its own tail.

By spying on the pacifists,
the spies leave themselves open
to the methods of nonviolence
and the thought patterns of peace.

It hurts.
It doesn't fit
the worldview
that they have chosen.
It stretches them out of shape.

The ideas are in them now,
typed and spoken and taught
by thousands, scattered like seeds,
compiled by computers and required
for careful analysis in case of thoughtcrime,
and every word is like a drop of acid
eating away at the reality tunnel

until another spy's mind
drops screaming into freefall.

The pacifists are gentle
only with their hands.
With their words and their wisdom
they are ruthless, enlightenment
as piercing as laser beams.

It's like the old story
about the gingerbread march
that overrode the minds of soldiers
until they could think of nothing else

and this is what the pacifists
whisper to each other:
speak your truth,
teach the path to peace,
for whatever is looked at
must be seen
and whatever is seen
will soak in.

And the spies come,
they cannot help but come,
drawn as irresistibly to the speech
as fairytale children to a gingerbread house.

The knowledge is sweet
and nourishing, but oh,
how the transformation burns.

They are unprepared for it,
vulnerable, helpless
in their open curiosity

and no matter how they try
to cling to their memories
of MREs and rat bars,
in the end

there is nothing but gingerbread left.

* * *

Notes:

Internet surveillance is a serious and growing problem.  But it has inherent weaknesses, one of which is that it's extremely difficult to control people if you expose them to contrary ideas; and you can't control contrary ideas without exposing people to them.

Enlightenment can be contagious, even in contemporary culture.  You don't necessarily have to mean it or want it.  Sometimes it just gets in your head and won't go away.

Thoughtcrime appears in the novel 1984.  People are reading this book with an eye toward recent snooping scandals.

"Nothing But Gingerbread Left" is a classic science fiction story.

The gingerbread house is an icon of food as temptation.  Many things are sweet and gratifying, good in some amount, but harmful in excess.  Those with no self-control may find themselves in trouble.