. . . Stormed the plains of Patagonia in the year1835, 6 months prior to the day Charles Darwin arrived at the shores of Chatham Island in the Galapagos aboard HMS Beagle, where his step fell precisely on the rock that, only a year earlier had been used by Gonzalo Attardi to hastily crack open a tortise egg which he hungrily consumed. It was the first nourishment that Gonzalo, direct descendant of the Incan nobleman Tottiqat Goyburu, had received in 6 days since a violent tempest off the Peruvian coast shattered his fishing boat, casting him haplessly into the sea. Alas, poor Gonzalo died 2 days later, succumbing to the extremes of heat and wind on the barren rocks by the ocean. The gulls and tortises pecked at his flesh for another 3 days until the next passing tempest carried his corpsic remains out to sea.
And so General Consciousness engaged conniving campaigns from the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego to the northern jungled outreaches of MontiVideo, from as far west as the Chilean coast to the eastern-most rocks of Los Iles Malvines, rocks destined to become entangled in many an iron-willed confrontation.
Turmoil came to the plains of Patagonia as the inhabitants cowered, awaiting the arrival of General Consciousness. To assuage their sins of ignorance and bliss they slaughtered their herds of sheep and cattle by the thousands, littering the plains with animal caracasses in hopes that these actions would appease General Consciousness. Word arrived that General Consciousness marched on. The inhabitants of Patagonia might have considered barricading themselves behind deeply entrenched jugular cuts, as the refugees at Masada had done years eariler, but no. In their reticence they accepted their fate to enslavement and subjugation under General Consciousness.
And so General Consciousness consumed the entirety of the Patagonian plain. The expected radial shifts in government never came to pass.The expected riots quelled before they began. General Consciousness reigned supreme. Soon no one came to suspect that things had ever been any different.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu