This is The Book of Joseph.
Only a couple thousand were made and given away to those who bought the Mondo edition of Far Cry 5.
I thought this would be a much easier way for his word to be spread so everyone can read it. It very much goes in depth...
" Do not be afraid to punish those who bar your path to the original paradise. Worry not about the justice of mankind. For theirs is the justice of the guilty and the dead."
I remembered Jacob as a child. More than anything else, he loved nature and the forests, and only felt comfortable in the outdoors.
I could not see him living in Atlanta, or any other city for that matter, so I decided to look for him in northern Georgia.
I visited every small town along the vast Chattahoochee forest. Day after day, I followed the narrow roads and lanes that sometimes led to woodcutter shacks but more often led to clearings with not a soul in sight. I asked everyone I met whether they knew anyone named Seed, or even Jacob.
There were plenty of Jacobs, but no Seeds.
I would return exhausted from meanderings, covered in sawdust and insect bites. I expanded my search further north, into Tennessee. I went into every bar, every store. Sometimes I would find a job if they were hiring. Storekeeper, dishwasher, gas station attendant - the type of work that didn't matter.
But still no Jacob.
In despair, I decided to look for John. He had been adopted by a rich family at the time of our separation and I thought he might have gone to college. Unlike his brother, he would enjoy the city.
It was no more ridiculous to search through the wilds of a city than through a forest. So I went to the capital. Atlanta, a place that was likely to attract smart, ambitious young people.
I had never set a foot in a large city before, but I was no longer a child and I had already seen too much in my life to be impressed by much. The backdrop may have changed, but people were the same everywhere. Whether in Rome, Georgia, along the banks of Ganger River, or beneath the shadow of the Pyramids, the same drama of lies and desire played around the world. I knew that inside those ostentatious skyscrapers, proud men dreamed of moving ever higher and expanding their dominion over us pathetic ants below. I knew they sometimes amused themselves by watching our wretched lives through binoculars, like cruel, selfish children, that they would love nothing more than to crush us, to make magnifying glasses large enough to burn us alive. To them, we were nothing but numbers statistics and growth curves.
Soon, those arrogant towers would crumble and their lords would be dying under their ruins.
I began by looking for a place to sleep and a place to work. I didn't need much. I sought neither physical comfort nor professional success, only my brothers.
Once again, I squatted in an abandoned building that awaited the whim of city planners who could decide between restoring it or knocking it down. I found a job as a garbage collector. I was assigned to Atlanta's nicer neighbourhoods. Our routes began very early in the morning. Rich people don't like seeing garbage trucks, don't want to see the people who carry away their trash, and don't like the way the garbage or the workers smell.
Sometimes I met locals with shiny trashcans that were cleaner than any car in the Rome of my childhood. They would look at me strangely, like an anomaly. Why is this man, who looks so much like me, working in such a lowly job?
They did not like anything that disturbed their world. Soon, they will have no world at all.
But this schedule suited me. I could spend every afternoon studying at the library. Plus, the houses were charming, the streets were tree-lined and welcoming , and the roads were nicely paved. Even the songbirds seemed livelier and in better health than in the Rome of my Childhood. As I recalled, the birds of my childhood were grey and sang as if they had smoked their entire lives.
I discovered what people threw away when they owned everything.
I discovered that there was as much to be learned from observing what people threw out as from what they kept and cherished.
I learned that the rich aren't as prudish as the poor.
I learned that the habits of the richest of the rich evolve, and others imitate them, from where their salmon is caught to what brand of toilet paper they buy.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
At least we never found dead homeless people or drug addicts in the dumpsters, as sometimes happened in less-affluent neighbourhoods.
Two or three of us would stand at the back of the garbage truck and chat. My co-workers talked about their benders, their sexual exploits and their dreams. I talked about the Voice. After a while, they tired of my talk and complained, and once again, I was fired.
I must confess that after that, I went through a period of depression. After all, the Voice had only spoken to me once and I had been so young. A single, enigmatic message had promised our miserable brotherhood an extraordinary destiny. But in reality, I had completely failed to find my brothers or keep a single job, no matter how pitiful. Though every day my heart told me to believe, now and again the serpent of doubt would creep into me.
But I did not give up and soon I found a job at a psychiatric hospital. This was an old dilapidated building where poor people were committed. It was for those who did not have insurance or jobs.
The poor fools.
Inside the paint was flaking off the walls, the rusty bedframes squeaked horribly, and the place was understaffed. But at least the thick walls prevented the wailing and screaming from being heard outside. We were not there to heal, but to keep the patients from bothering the rest of the world. And so, they were given copious amounts of drugs to quiet their illnesses and sedate them. For some residents, their daily dose looked like a bowl of children's cereal: multi-coloured and full to the brim.
I suspect there were other, much more luxurious places for the rich schizophrenics and psychopaths, places with manicured gardens, thick carpets, and the private rooms that were completely secluded. Surely, those institutes would not be called psychiatric hospitals, but rather wellness centres or rest homes. Even euphemisms come with a price tag. I wondered if they despised the poor who shared their mental troubles or if they formed strong family bonds regardless of the money.
To my great surprise, I discovered that most of the residents were less unhinged than those on the outside. They were simply a nuisance: less prone to silence, incapable of hiding their quirks, of understanding that some things you keep to yourself instead of sharing with the world. For the most part, their only problems revolved around etiquette and proper behaviour. Their main illness was not being able to accept the world's hypocritical rules and so society had created a prison in which to keep them hidden.
All the residents were extremely sensitive, and nearly all of them could sense that I was different. Some were fascinated, others were frightened. They were worn out by life, beaten down in one way or another. Even then, I knew that those who would answer my call would only be those exposed to suffering and rejection: The pure souls would be found among the wounded, veterans of the endless war society waged.
The hospitals doctors were not among them. Far from it. They protected society and acted as a buffer for it. They would never shout in the street or leave the house stark naked. They would never mutilate themselves in order to offer up a piece of their body to a loved one. They would never even miss a dinner without apologising, attend church without a tie, or watch a military parade go by without removing their hat. They would never be able to understand my message.
