Yakhaf was a caveman. Smarter than most. While the other cavemen spent their days hunting and doing caveman things, Yakhaf sat comfortably in his cool-ass cave crib, surrounded by hot cave ladies listening to the latest cave jams and eating the best cave foods. Little did Yakhaf know that his success would set in motion the greatest advancements in human history, for he had created the mother of all industries — even older than prostitution. Yakhaf had created the INDUSTRY OF FEAR.
See, Yakhaf noticed that every time his cavemen friends fought, they threw rocks at each other. One day, he decided to collect ALL the rocks and bring them to his cave. Now, anytime his friends fought, they had to trade something for some rocks — food, clothes, women, anything of value.
That worked out great for Yakhaf, for a while, but he lived among a pretty chill, happy group of caveman who got along more than they didn’t, which means, Yakhaf would often run out of food for himself and his harem of hot cave babes.
That said, Yakhaf began to dispatch his hot cave babes out on “missions” to stir trouble among the cavepeople. They’d show up at the local cave bars, looking all cave-sexy in their beaver pelt skirts (which is where the term “beaver” for pussy actually originated) and get the cave guys all hot and bothered. Ultimately, the testosterone would flare and soon they’d all be fighting over the cave babe.
The fights would escalate, and ultimately, cave dudes would be lining up at Yakhaf’s cave to buy more rocks, both to attack their enemies and to defend themselves from attacks.
It worked like a charm. For a while. But soon, every caveman had their own arsenal of rocks. And you know, they’re ROCKS, so when you throw one at an enemy, you’re essentially handing them a new weapon to throw back at you.
Ultimately, all the rocks were bought up, and Yakhaf’s business began to suffer.
Next, he hatched an even bigger plan. He dispatched his army of hot cave babes to the other side of the Great River to set small fires everywhere. That night Yakhaf announced to the cave village that an Evil Threat was looming across the Great River, and it was coming to destroy them all! Total annihilation!
“We must throw EVERY rock we have at the Evil Threat!”
And so all the cavepeople began hurling their rocks across the river. Most fell short and into the river, the others pummeled the fires and once the last rock was thrown, and all the fires were out, Yakhaf announced that they had defeated the Evil Threat.
But now, the village had NO rocks. So Yakhaf sent his army of cave babes to the river’s edge to create mud balls. Mud balls were better than rocks. They were easily slung and exploded on impact, which means they couldn’t be reused. (This is where the term “slinging mud” originated.) Also, they could be packed with tiny pebbles, making them more powerful, thus different “grades” of mud balls could be produced and traded for more.
This was Yakhaf’s crowning achievement.
It worked so well that he began branching out to other cave towns, mongering his mud balls so they may be slung everywhere, and eventually, he built an entire empire — The Yakhaf Empire — and became the richest caveman in the world. (What, you didn’t think there was a “richest caveman in the world” — of course there had to be!)
Yakhaf’s fortune was so great for the time that in today’s money it would be the equivalent of owning every business, everywhere. Why? Because all business, all industries, all religions, all arts, sciences and more, all of it, everything, everywhere all at once, owe something to Yakhaf.
But you won’t find the story of Yakhaf in the history books. And there’s good reason for it. The only remaining trace of his great empire is that Yakhaf is the Arabic word for FEAR — because Yakhaf created The Industry of Fear.
Since the days of Yakhaf, humans have been driven by FEAR. Fear is the biggest industry of all. It’s biggest subcontractors are religion, government and politics, but even medicine, the arts and humanities make their fortunes mongering fear. Today, every human lives in fear. We do our best to be happy, but fear, like the Evil Threat on the other side of the river, is always looming — fear of injury, fear of sickness, fear of loss, fear of death and fear of annihilation. Every day, industries cash in on our fears. The threat of World War III. The threat of pandemic. The threat of burning in Hell, for the religious believe they were born in SIN, but in reality, they were born into FEAR.
On the bright side, FEAR is what’s motivated human innovation for thousands of years. It created the wheel. It created the sciences. It created the arts. It created the lightbulb, medicine, the automobile, the Internet… we are a race driven by FEAR. What is convenience, but the fear of not having something when you need it or want it? What is protection, but the fear of not being safe? What is comfort but the fear of not being comfortable? What is entertainment, but the fear of being bored? What is MONEY but the fear of not having everything you want, or at the very least, ENOUGH?
What is life, but the fear of dying?
I’d like to tell you this story has a happy ending, but it doesn’t, you will live forever in fear of something — a lot of things — because without FEAR, we as humans would have gone extinct long ago. FEAR is a necessity. It keeps us all alive, vigilant, productive, innovating and constantly pushing humankind to new levels. So thank you Yakhaf for scaring the shit out of all of us.
—P
Publisher
As a child my mother said to me, ‘If you grow up to be a soldier, you will become a general. If you grow up to be a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I grew up to be a degenerate, and now I’m publisher of SCREW.
