A transparent state

States high was a normal high school. Bitchy teenage girls, football jocks, geeky nerds, sprinkled with a few goths. A formula for a classic high school. Sleeping around were jocks, wishing to be sleeping around were nerds and world was a fucked up place doomed to darkness for goths. It won't be complete without gossips among 'mean girls'. All in all a classical american high school. Peace prevailed in open and chaos behind the closed doors.

But change was imminent. Omen was in the air as vicky walked the corridors. Vicky Leaks, a new entry to States high from the land of kangaroos, was a quiet and creepy young girl. Though no one was sure about the girl part. Guys, even not-ever-getting-laid nerds, stayed away from her and bitches.. well they bitched about her. Acceptance is what Vicky had always struggled for. Some argued that thats why (s)he became she though creepiness never left her. But the corridors that were undisturbed by goths could easily take one more creep. Very soon everyone forgot about her and States high returned to what it was before. And continued frustration of not being noticed returned to Vicky.

All her life she had struggled to be recognized, struggled to prove her existence. So much so that the doubts of her own existence and invisibility occupied her thoughts. She tried to commit suicide, picked fights with other girls, and stole things from grocery stores, just to get noticed, just to prove that she very much existed. But that wouldn’t last for too long and as normalcy would return and so would her doubts about her own existence. But this too was set to change.

A week before States high's football game with Mideast high she overheard some of the school cheerleaders gossiping about who's who of 'sleeping around' in school's football team. This was Vicky's chance to prove to the world forever that she very much existed. She knew if this information was leaked it would bring disaster for school especially just a week before the game. She could threaten to release this information. The idea of holding such a baton filled her with sudden surge of empowerment. Thrilled was Vicky for her awaiting future but she knew that the power can corrupt people. “Who cares” her inner voice seemed to say. It was the least of Vicky's worries and her thoughts seemed to suggest “what is far more important for you than the corruption-of-mind is the exposure of corruption. Its about the time people know who you are”.

Yet a justification was needed. Justification to expose those secrets, least of which shall include her necessity of being noticed. But what could be such justification she thought. As she struggled to put her idea into a moral framework one word rung a bell. Corruption. What fights corruption? Transparency. Yes transparency. That was her answer. She knew that to the world of opaqueness she needed to bring transparency. And that was her justification. Her moral framework.

She realized however that she need more. She needed diversity of information whose leakage would justify the moral framework of transparency beyond the gossips of who slept with who. This was Vickey’s day and ideas were pouring over her in abundance. She had found the treasure trove of questions, answers to even one of which would be explosive enough to bring her to spotlight. She needed to find what were teachers upto, what was the principal, who was school’s football coach as well, upto, what was SCHOOL upto?

But how? How could she know what they were upto? Locker room gossips could only reveal as much as who slept with who. As she walked past classrooms in the long silent corridor the answer walked past her. “Dos is dead” “Debug this.. bitches”…… , their T-shirts read. She knew geeks were her answer to the burning questions of revenge in her heart. But she hadn’t left a great impression on anyone including geeks. She needed a way in among geeks.

As she lay down in her bed contemplating what would appeal geeks and the ways to befriend them, the weight of her own thoughts put her to sleep. But she had already found an answer the next morning she woke up. And it had worked. The geeks turned around in awe and surprise as Vickey walked the school corridor with a t-shirt that read “you can pipe your output here ;)”. Geeks were sold. To the principle of transparency on surface and to their only hope of getting laid underneath. Subsequently they hacked their way to know everything about teachers, principal, school and everything that was to bring transparency.

Storm was coming. Lightning could be seen and thunder could be heard in distance as Vicky made everything public from who slept with who of football team to teachers’ affairs and closeted principal. “Girlfriends need to know what cheating bastards are their boyfriends” “Football team needs to know who their coach really is when they share their locker rooms with him”. Principal broke down. Quarterback, one of the “cheating bastard”, with few others, was ambushed and found beaten with “they deserved it” banner. Needless to say the football game was lost even before it could be played. But transparency was brought.

Most importantly for Vicky, revenge was served. And notice was made. Forever.

Delusional Vampires

The species and the disease:

Generally found in places like supermarkets, coffee shops, school etc. these diseased homo sapiens are much like vampires where the growth is spread via infection. The diseased live under the grandiose imagination, although entirely contrived, of an eternal heaven they are heading to. The disease is spread by motivating the diseased to infect other normal homo sapiens. They are told of this heavenly regime where different levels, a hierarchy, of grandiosity exist. The level of the grandiosity of the heaven, the diseased will be living in, is conditional not only to the number of homo sapiens the diseased directly infects but also to the number of infected homo sapiens whose lineage of infection traces back to the diseased in question. This forms the part of a classical motivational argument made by the diseased in order to lure the normal homo sapiens to "volunteer" for getting infected. The argument goes somewhat like this: Once you reach a certain level in the hierarchy (pyramid) of grandiosity you dont have to hunt anymore to spread the disease since the diseased homo sapiens you have directly or indirectly (via lineage) infected will be trying to hunt and infect in order to move up in the hierarchy which automatically will account for you via the hierarchical structure of the disease. The result infact, in the real world, turns out to be a strategy of "How to alienate people and loose friends".

Although the patient zero of this infectious disease has not yet been found for further diagnosis, the nature of the disease and the way it is spread compels us to believe in the existence of some kind of anti social virus which blurs the diseased's vision of the real world and strips him/her off of his/her friends and social capabilities.

The diseased are called delusional vampires since, much like vampires, they survive by infecting other homo sapiens and delusional because they think hunting and infecting is easy just because they have been duped and infected so easily (Not to mention the delusional grandiosity of the heaven they think they will be living in, seriously what the heck?).

The game of hunting: The predators and the preys

Unlike "mythological" vampires, these, rather real, delusional vampires are immune to light and dark. Most common hunting ground for these predators are supermarkets, coffee shops, schools. Although the accounts of the preys that successfully evaded these predators from infecting them show that the hunting grounds as absurd as street crossings or sidewalks (footpaths) have been used. Being the master of disguise these predators are hard to spot based solely on their appearance, although some naive and amateur predators (freshly infected ones mostly) dress up in suits when they go on hunting, making it easy to spot them without having to engage in a conversation. Fortunately, since most of these delusional vampires have not yet mastered the art of 'duping via conversing', it is easy to recognize the predators once they open their mouth.

Here is a scenario that can be used as a tip to recognize them: You are at a grocery store and a complete stranger smiles at you and/or walks up to you and says "Hi". This is generally the first sign and you should prepare yourself to run away unless the person who said "hi" to you is a hot chic and you think, and you seriously think, that this chic is in your range. Although the chances of a hot chic approaching you and saying "hi" to you, and honestly lets face it guys, is very small and nearly null. So at the end you should prepare yourself to run away anyway. Now, if you have made a mistake of replying to the "greeting" and have not yet recognized the predator here are some of the follow up lines used by them. "Are you Indian?" (This one is really lame although most of them are), "I have seen you somewhere". The advice at this point is to run away like a roadrunner. The aforementioned hunting strategy is generally used by most of the delusional vampire predators. Although in some cases when a more expert, disguising and, in an unlikely scenario, an attractive predator approaches you, it usually becomes hard to recognize a potential delusional vampire even for the most expert and experienced potential preys. What makes it difficult is their art of blending in with the conversation. For example if you are looking for some item at a supermarket, perhaps in a medicine section, then an expert predator perhaps will open up with a sympathetic line like "oh you are sick?". And there you have fallen for it. Fortunately it doesn't take too long for these predators to reveal themselves. Within the exchange of four or five lines the predators will deliver their ultimate blow. And this will be your last chance and if you don't dodge this blow you will be infected and become one of them. This ultimate blow will go something like this: "Are you interested in making money while studying?" or "Are you interested in business opportunities?". This is your sign and if you believe that life is beautiful and you don't wanna ruin it, RUN. Run for your life. Only the most gullible and perhaps the lonely homo sapiens will fall for it and those are the kind of homo sapiens these vampires prey on.

Now if running away seems too extreme and having recognized a delusional vampire you want to make a swift exist and be nice then you can use "I gotta go, I am late for something" or a classical graduate school homo sapiens exit line "I have a lot of assignments to take care of". On the other hand if you have been a victim of such hunting attempts for too many times and s**t tired then you can exit with a rude blow that will freeze their balls: "I know who you are, a delusional vampire, seriously whats wrong with you, go get a life" (Sorry for the profane language).

Lastly, if you have been infected and your other normal homo sapiens friends have made you realize of the infection then the quickest way out of it is to block all kind of communications with your predator.


The Cure:

Luckily the disease is cured naturally as time passes by and as the illusion of the grandiose heaven becomes more and more vague and eventually disappears like fog. At this point of time the diseased realizes the mistake they have made and slowly get out of it. It may turn out of to be hard for them to adjust into the circumstances they have left far behind but good rehab centers (which unfortunately don't exist as of now) can quicken the process.