A TALE OF FIVE MILITANTS.

A rare, early photo when the five militants were seven.

There are five people and they are militant but mostly it’s just raw militancy the kind of militancy you like to see as a connoisseur of militants but little organization so there needs to be a head militant a militant in charge of the others if there is to be any militant progress at all it’s usually obvious who this should be as she or he is the militant who’s accomplished the most militancy plus she or he usually wants to be head militant (plus she or he excels at the administrative aspects of being a militant) so this person is head militant of the five militants now she says stuff like “stand at attention” and “police up those coffee grounds” and “what’re you lookin’ at punk militant?” but it’s good for the other militants to have a leader and a role model militant in their lives it’s good for them but they don’t know it’s good for them because at their hearts they’re militant so they plan to overthrow the head militant with elaborate poisons or booby traps but eventually one of the four under-militants tips off the commander they meet in secret away from the militants as they sleep their smoldering campfire visible at a remove like the glowing coal of the villain’s cigar the commander makes the tipper-offer a lieutenant and now orders go through him who changes them a little bit like for example one order (“write a five page paper about how you see yourself as a militant several years from now”) becomes something else (“write a three page paper on which lieutenant has most influenced your militancy”) perhaps it was the lieutenant’s plan all along muses the commander but soon enough the under-militants regard their situation as a classic labor vs. management  struggle and decide to unionize by joining a manufacturing union which welcomes these new members by noting that a proud tradition of polemic has existed in its ranks for years but when the under-militants seek signs of change (one of them becomes a delegate for the local chapter) they have a hard time seeing it through all the militancy they’re expected to perform every day and this really leaves just two of them as the true grunts seeing how two are officers and one’s the delegate and pretty soon owing to the need for complete regimentation one of the two is promoted to corporal (he made a cracking bean dip one night) which leaves only one true under-militant who feels marginalized “the union does jack nabbit” she thinks “the corporal’s a huge douche and the officers are off engaging in cordial trysts with the officers from the very group we attack with our militancy!” so she stands in the mirror dressing in thrifty risqué outfits reciting self-help compliments like “I’m hot” or “I’m the one” but she can’t change her abiding mindset: “there is no militancy—only institutions that squander my love.”

Too polemic? Want domesticity? Click on TOAST STORY.