Not Even Not Zen 398: The Mood War, Scene 1

cover art copyright 2025 Acacia Gallagher

THE MOOD WAR

by Secret Hippie, Eric Gallagher

Copyright © 2025 Eric Gallagher
All rights reserved
Secret Hippie a Trademark of Eric Gallagher

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456

Cover design by: Acacia Gallagher
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
Version 0 - First Edition.

For Tucker Mostrom, who wanted me to write a war story.


Human Resources Subject 31, Robert Daniel Cruzak
The Mood War Incident
MOOD WAR: DAY ZERO


[I] Details from Interview 2 in Cell 3C

ICC Detention Center, the Hague
Scheveningen, the Netherlands

HR-T1: Do you know why you are here?

Cruzak: You said this is a human resources meeting.

HR-T1: (Clears throat.) Certainly that is true. We must find out what happened.

Cruzak: I told you the other day.

HR-T1: That was not complete. Also, (sound of a throat clearing) our conversation occurred when you were in the medical area waiting to be released. You were on painkilling drugs. Now you are not. By human resources rules, you are free to speak into a recorder.

Cruzak: This is the official account then, our talk today?

HR-T1: Official, yes. The process will take more than a day, Mister Cruzak. Even a week is too short a time to expect. My guidance shows this will be a long process.

Cruzak: Am I still getting paid?

HR-T1: This matters? (The interviewer pauses. She speaks slower.) Yes, you continue to get paid throughout the human resources investigation. This question makes me unsure that you understand the situation.

Cruzak: We were building a railroad and got attacked. This is an investigation about it. Is there more to explain?

HR-T1: You said that you were shot by a UN soldier. That is not correct according to the event summary I have. Already there are things that must be clarified. The incident is being discussed in public. That makes things different than when we first met. It is more urgent to my supervisors.

(Movement noises. Upon review, the interviewer indicated that she moved the heavy table between her and the subject.)

You want an explanation. Well, I have been given an interview script and assigned reading. I am a translator most usually, but I have been told that I must begin the human resources fact finding process.

Cruzak: A translator. Is that why you have such a good accent?

HR-T1: I do not have an accent.

Cruzak: You barely have one but I can hear it. French, maybe?

HR-T1: Your UN identification says you are Canadian. Do you speak French?

Cruzak: No, not really.

HR-T1: Then let us continue. I have done the required reading.

Cruzak: But you’re a translator.

HR-T1: There are many of you involved in the fight. We have only so many human resources investigators. I understand the process as it has been summarized. You are required to fill out ST-103 about your injuries, ST-149 for lost personal items. You may want to fill out form ST-19 to report other staff for misconduct.

Cruzak: That’s a lot.

HR-T1: No, Mister Cruzak. It is the beginning. There are many more forms and processes. Some of them are for me, like the ST-222. But you don’t need to concern yourself with the ones filled out by the human resources officers. I have been given a full list.

Cruzak: Just so long as we get through this.

HR-T1: Of course. That is not a question. (Footstep sounds appear on the transcript recording. They are light and brief, followed by the movement of a chair.)

Cruzak: I’ve got to warn you, I’m not great at filling in forms. I have to transcribe stuff. You know, talk it out first. Or draw it. I’m okay with diagrams.

HR-T1: Well, you are a mechanic, yes? This is to be expected.

Cruzak: Do you want me to draw a diagram of the fighting? I mean, our place on the mountain and stuff.

HR-T1: Not at this time. The United Nations has collected overhead photos, I understand, although I have not been allowed to see them.

Cruzak: Why wouldn’t you review them before all these questions?

HR-T1: Perhaps I will be given such materials later. I do not know. For now, I have a list of preliminary topic areas. Based on your responses to these, my instructions are to ask follow up questions in order to clarify your account. My supervisors will review the transcripts of our sessions. If they feel you have not provided sufficient clarity or I have not asked for information they need, I will return to you with more questions on the same topic.

Cruzak: Fair enough. Fire away.

HR-T1: Fortunately, I know this is an idiom.

Cruzak: Right.

HR-T1: First, we should correct your earlier account. You said that you were shot by a UN soldier. That cannot be true. You are a UN employee.

Cruzak: You picked me up from the hospital suite. Why else would you think that was?

(Sixteen seconds of pause, some small noises from movement. The interviewer reports she was inspecting the head bruises on the Cruzak subject.)

HR-T1: You also said you were shot by an unknown person. Your wounds are probably from that. (Rattles paper.)
Cruzak: Did I say unknown?

HR-T1: You did. That was yesterday, off the record.

Cruzak: (Slightly interrupting.) Because that’s not quite right. I know who it was. We all did, after a while. But we never had the sniper’s name.

HR-T1: No mention of snipers in my notes today. So it is back to the U.N. soldier you mentioned. He had smart weapons. The weapons should have refused to fire on you.

Cruzak: That’s right.

HR-T1: So when were you shot?

Cruzak: I was shot right then. It was the second time I took a bullet in the fighting. Third. Fourth?

HR-T1: You were shot right at that moment? As the soldiers came to your position?

Cruzak: Pretty much, yeah.

HR-T1: When was the first time?

Cruzak: I thought you didn’t want to hear about that.

Not Even Not Zen 397: Samsara, Back to the Flow

copyright 2023 Acacia Gallagher

Samsara

Back to the Flow

We are reborn to the river of life even though, like everyone, we are never born in the truest sense. We are always becoming. The flow is in us and we are in the flow. We understand the illusion of self. Responding to changes in circumstances requires no consideration from us.

Free of expectations, we laugh when a small eddy in the current surprises us. Paying no attention to the mundane, we take delight in it. We care for the trivial tasks of the world and for the people in the flow, those buffeted by events, hurt by them, whether they are fallen into sorrow or into ecstasy. We care for the pain and disappointment, the pleasure and joy, the growth and healing, the injury and decay.

All creatures and non-creatures are immersed in the swirling stream of the world. We are nothing. We are small. We are effective. We are essential. We are trivial, so our selves are not important. We care not to influence the patterns of life and yet we do. We are the origins of the way. We are moved by it. We proceed in it without effort.

We feel the flow of all tasks, of humanity, life, non-life, and beyond.

Not Even Not Zen 396: Puthujjana, Back to the Ordinary

Puthujjana

Back to the Ordinary

We immerse ourselves in the ordinary tasks that are part of the flow. When we want, our chores move us toward the goals of good will. Such a will is always with us. We cut bread with good intent, sit on the grass with it, walk the stairs with it, and wash clothes with it. We live in mundane bodies and do mundane things.

Our motivation is true. Our resolve, however small, is a thing that changes the world. We do ordinary things with holy intent.

We know this will lead us to ordinary ends, to endure normal lives, to come to unexceptional deaths. We carry the usual burdens to average conclusions. We maintain awareness of the moving patterns and the configurations of the world in this, our state of natural ease in the ordinary things.

We know where events lead. We laugh at tiny surprises in outcomes, for we know ourselves. When we are us, we are accompanied by good will and our long-cultivated traits, surrounded by nature, by humanity, and by being in harmony with our true nature.

We forget the workings of the littlest fragments of the mundane world. We do not work. And yet things are accomplished. We are part of the river of life and we are aware of it in an intimate way. The flow of joy and sadness around us is not a matter for thought. We do not need to think as we are helping others with the vital, the important, the very forgettable, the very ordinary ways.

Not Even Not Zen 395: Arhant, Freedom

wikimedia, baharlooe

Arhant

Freedom

We are free to put down and pick back up our human goals. We exult in the freedom from desire. And we do not exult. Freedom from desire is the background of life, an element of the water in which we swim. We are alive in our power to put down our cares and pick them up again, at will, as is useful.

We do not need. We do not want. Even our good will, we can pick up or put down. Even freedom, we can use or discard. We can tie ourselves to the mundane. We do so to swirl and whip against the currents along with others, our friends. We can let go; and we can be free again.

 

Not Even Not Zen 394: Anagami, Good Will

wikimedia, nai

Anagami

Good Will

In our freedom, we inspect the core of our being. We find love streaming from us, given freely, without thought. It flows like a river around the world, unceasing, sourceless, constantly refreshed. Our endless affection is a part of our existence, of being in a human shape, of having a body and mind, mortal or immortal. We are ceaselessly in love. We do not need to make a choice about affection. Nevertheless, sometimes people choose.

We choose to cultivate our skills in kindness. We pay attention to the results of good deeds. We turn inward and outward with a discerning eye to improve the good will of our humanity. We learn to love with the clarity of purpose brought by a teacher of tenderness, a student of friendship, a lover of all joys and sorrows.

We give of our lives with a tenderness powered by all human essence. We reach out the way life reaches to life, even the way at times non-life reaches out. It is a lazy interaction. It happens without intention. At times, we add to it. We bring the forcefulness of will, of discipline, of our discerning eye.

Our will is good. No choice is needed to make it so. Often, the choice is made.

 

Not Even Not Zen 393: Sakadagami, Ceasing Desire

wikimedia commons, alexisnyal

Sakadagami

Ceasing Desire

Our yearnings produce our sorrows. We know it. We have come to this understanding not only with our rational mind, not only with our emotions, not only with our bodies or souls, but with our total self and not-self beyond. We comprehend this truth utterly.

We practice letting go of wants. We test our abilities. With repeated letting go of desires, with experiments for longer lengths of time, we improve. We become skilled at discarding desires. We release them. We let them drift away altogether.

 

We want nothing.

We can sit. We can smile at the lightness of existence, at the ephemeral nature of ourselves, our bodies, our lives. We are empowered, weightless, because we have let go of a burden. Our lack of clinging, our lack of resistance to the currents of life, lets us drift free. Our spiritual liberty suffuses us. We can let go even of the mind, of the concept of self.  

Once, there were scenarios in our heads, our human ability to say 'what if,' and with that ability, a tendency to focus on hypothetical cases, on status, on circumstances, on imaginary rewards that produce actual disappointment, on imaginary failures that aim us toward real failure.

 

Once, we were the cause of our suffering. Having realized our responsibility for our travails, we have let go of human desires.

Not Even Not Zen 392: Sotapanna, With the Stream

Wikimedia Commons, Chernilevsky

Sotapanna

With the Stream

We understand the flow of humanity, of life, and of non-life. We are not moving beyond the ordinary. Our skills within the flows of life allow our achievements to come to us easily. We swim in the currents with less effort than we once did. We let events carry us to where we want to go.

It is a wonderful thing to glide with the swirling world, to move in harmony with it, to fit naturally within its patterns. We often see events before they occur and guide ourselves accordingly. Even when we do not look ahead, even when we do not direct ourselves to any goal, we find ourselves moving naturally to where is best, to doing right things with little effort, to achieving what is the most necessary.

 

Many do not strive for more. They mark this as success. Still, there is striving in us. Still, there is disappointment and suffering. Still, we feel a connection to the river of life, the flows of joy and sadness. We see that we should address the source of disappointments inside.

Not Even Not Zen 391: Puthujjana, The Ordinary

Puthujjana

The Ordinary

In time, we awake to the moving patterns and the configurations of the world. We reach a state of ordinary awareness about ordinary things. We gain a sense of the events around us, where they will lead, how friendships are formed through adventures together, how people brush shoulders and become enemies, how we make decisions, how we adjust to the decisions made by others, and more.

We may be curious as to why things are but we may only uncover how they are, instead, how they come to be, how they decay, and how they affect a sequence of events. It is something to understand this much, even, to know the workings of the littlest fragments of the mundane world.

We strive and learn the ways of our nature, of the world around us, the sciences of life and non-life, of the arts and rules of human and non-human interactions. We feel our connection to the river of life, the flow of joy and sadness around us. We become aware of gulfs of sorrows and of the sources of disappointments inside.

We may not yet know how to leave behind such disappointments. We are testing the ordinary ways.

Not Even Not Zen 390: Samsara, the Flow

wikimedia commons

Samsara

The Flow

We are in the flow but we are not aware of it. We are born to the river of life but arrive ignorant of its currents. Early on, we are surprised when circumstances around us change. Even after we grow wiser, for a long while we respond to changes in the flow immediately, without consideration. We wonder why we feel pain and disappointment, pleasure and joy, growth and healing, injury and decay.

All creatures are immersed in the swirling stream of the world. All of them create the eddies, drifts, and rushes. Together we make the way. We influence the patterns even before we are born. We shape them after we die. We are an origin of the current even as we are buffeted by it, driven by it to our injuries, to sorrows, to tears, to despair, to peace, to rage, to calm, and to love.  

We are in the flow.

Not Zen 203: Suddenly Not So Sudden

wikimedia commons (granger)

Suddenly, Not So Sudden

The day after harvest, a farmer drove his cart into town. On the way, he passed over a wooden bridge he had been using for years.

"That's twice as much as last week!" he exclaimed, when he was asked to pay a toll. There was a guard on the end of the bridge near the town. He had been there for six years, ever since the mayor imposed charges for using the road.

"Chief raised it," grunted the guard. He tilted his helmet down low to his eyebrows.

"For no reason?"

"I don't ask questions." The other man's expression turned to a scowl. "You ask. He’s your second cousin, not mine."

 

"Don’t blame this on me. I don’t know him."

"Maybe if you did you wouldn’t have to pay a toll. But you do. Everyone does." The guard stuck out his hand. "It's twice as much as yesterday, not last week."

With no good choice, the farmer reached into his hidden pockets and found enough to pay. He drove into town and, on the main road, dodged a police officer to whom he would have to pay a bribe if stopped. When he got to the market, he set up next to the other farmers. After they each sold another something for luck, he asked them why the bridge price had gone up. No one knew. They were all angry about it.

Before noon, three farmers paid a priest to ask the chief for the reason. At the town hall, however, the chief barred the doors. His men, after an argument lasting almost an hour, turned away the priest. So, starting the next day, the farmers raised their prices. Townsfolk hated the extra costs. Eventually, though, they adjusted to the consequences of the higher toll.

Two years later, the area experienced its longest season of fine weather in anyone's lifetime. Even the dangerous part of the pre-harvest months saw no large storms. Usually, there were a few and they did some damage to the crops. Not this time. The farmer and his family gathered in their best yields in a decade. Of course, the tax collector knew how to find them. He arrived at the farm one morning  as the family was loading carts.

 

“Collection is on time this year,” said the collector. “The governor wanted to reach everyone promptly.”

“But that’s half again more than last year,” the farmer protested when presented with the bill. “I haven’t got that much.”

“But you will,” said the tax collector. He gestured to the laden carts.

The farmer paid for a priest to travel and plead his case. He enlisted his friends and family. Even his second cousin the mayor chipped in by hiring guards to ride with the priest. Everyone felt the sudden rise in taxes had to be due to corruption. Their little country hadn't started any new services or built any new roads. They weren't used to open extortion from the governor. Even the mayor seemed surprised.

 

The town sent its delegation but the news that came back from it wasn't good. No other town seemed upset enough to protest. They met no other delegation. The governor didn't care to meet with their town priest, either. He did send someone from his office who talked about patronage for an hour and tried to solicit bribes. In fact, the governor's representative seemed to feel the main part of his job was to accept favors on behalf of the governor.

"Well, I think we could try bribing the tax collector," said the mayor when he learned the news. He held a meeting of farmers and small businessmen. He gave advice to the few men around the table with him.

"He means he already has," whispered one businessman.

"Oh."  The farmer nodded, surprised.

"Don't tell anyone who is not in this meeting, though," the mayor continued.

"That means don't raise the bribe price by offering too much or weaken the benefit by spreading the news," clarified the businessman.

"No problem," said the farmer, who wondered what he could afford.

Later that week, he met with the tax collector and, red-faced, he arranged the bribe amount. He wondered about the mayor. His second cousin had kindly included him in the secret town meeting. He felt grateful for it. But he knew in his heart he didn't quite deserve it. He didn't understand how this could go on, how his own relative had proven criminal about the bridge but had protested the corruption in farm taxes, how the man who had barred the doors of town hall and refused to listen to the priest had nonetheless sent the priest to petition against a higher level of malfeasance.

Two years later, the farmer's lands suffered a flood. It nearly wiped him out. The governor refused to assist. He still sent his tax collector with his outrageously high demands, though.

In five years, after a fine harvest, the governor raised the farm tax again. The mayor raised tolls, too.

The greatest disaster, though, took place after eight years more. Then, the country got a new ruler. He didn't rise to power through using violence, although he incited riots in large towns. He exerted just enough unrest to rally his cause. He did much more damage when his reign began. The astonishing thing was he announced he was going to steal from the country. And his followers accepted it. He broke ground on a bridge he didn't intend to build. He laughed about it. He pulled troops from the mountain border and sent them to patrol inland, keeping down any talk of rebellion. He raised highway taxes. At the same time, he said there would be no upkeep spent on any road.

"He has throngs of people on his side," the farmer complained to the priest.

"He does," agreed the priest.

"But he steals from the docks, the roads, the harvest, everything!"

"So it seems to me." The priest nodded.

"He takes money from local taxes and regional funds. He sells bad equipment to the army. That's the same as stealing from them. He says he will make this little nation great and powerful. But how? What does that even mean, really?"

"It is just a popular thing to say, I think," explained the priest.

"He enforces different rules for people in power than for ordinary people. He allows better privileges for his friends and family. It's fascism, they say. He allows the rich to buy themselves immunity from the law."

"That's what corruption is, yes. I'm not sure why there is such a need to call it something else."

"Because it's different?"

"You were quick to notice his frauds. But our country was corrupt before. Many years ago, I remember you complained about it. But you stopped complaining."

"It wasn't this corrupt."

"Did you become accustomed to corruption? Do you now only recognize it because it is worse? When it hurts you more than others? It was complacency about the old level of corruption that got us here. Our country got worse because, little by little, our people grew accepting of our corruption."