Instructions:

1. Look carefully at the Cubee the Aggregate advertisement. This ad was found in the Aggregate Manager trade journal, Dec. 2000.

2. Please read the three paragraphs in the Cubee the Aggregate advertisement. Protect your loved ones at all cost.

Questions:

1. The second paragraph mentions “Cubee and his aggregate friends”. Assuming that Cubee is the largest aggregate wearing the boots and pants and hardhat, we can probably assume as well that the nearby aggregates are Cubee’s friends, and are probably not Cubee’s adversaries.

Upon study, Cubee is obviously larger than his friends and is wearing clothing. It appears that Cubee’s friends either cannot afford clothing, or that they are not accustomed to wearing clothing. If they cannot afford clothing, what does Cubee do that affords himself clothing? If they are not accustomed to wearing clothing, why is it that Cubee is accustomed to wearing clothing? The second paragraph specifically mentions “Cubee’s birthplace in the neighborhood quarry,” stating that Cubee was born in the quarry while implying that his friends were not. Do Cubee’s friends come from a place where clothing is not customary while Cubee himself was born in a place where clothing is the local custom? In any case, Cubee is standing on the grass near the flowers while Cubee’s “friends” are engaged in other commitments.

2. The second paragraph mentions Cubee’s “new home in the schools, roads and other structures.” Here we learn that aggregates make their homes in many places. While it is credible for a sentient physical aggregate to live in a school or other structure, it is more difficult to understand how a being of any kind could live in a road, which brings up many questions. Do aggregates have a sentient spiritual quality that remains unseen by humans? Is every physical mass we encounter seething with unseen “rollicking” entities? If so, are they smiling and waving at us? Or are they just watching? If this is not the correct interpretation of the “new home” of certain aggregates, then is the term “new home” perhaps a euphemism of some kind?

One of Cubee’s friends is pulling a wagon.  Why don’t the aggregates in the wagon have arms and legs? Were the aggregates in the wagon once Cubee’s adversaries? If so, where are they being taken? To their “new home” perhaps? Is their “new home” in the road? Is the road in the picture paved with the bodies of Cubee’s adversaries? But the second paragraph mentions that Cubee’s “new home” is in the schools and roads, etc. Here we stumble upon a frightening uncertainty. We have assumed this entire time that Cubee is the smiling aggregate featured in the picture. Is Cubee actually one of the decapitated aggregates being pulled in the wagon? If this is the case, then who are the aggregates waving at us, why are they smiling, and what have they done to Cubee?

3. As our hearts sadden for the fate of Cubee, our eyes move up the page, drawing hope from the warm sun shining down on this magical land.

Though there is an American flag flying patriotically near the structure in the background, the power of the sun obviously exerts more far-reaching presence. Curiously, the sun appears to be modeled from a design used by the Japanese who fought against the Americans in World War 2. The Japanese were allied with the Germans, who killed millions of Jews during that war. The Jews were rounded up and put on trains that took them to their new homes in the “death camps”.

In the picture there is a school bus. Who or what is in the bus? Are its passengers of the same race as the aggregate pulling the wagon? Or those being pulled in the wagon? Germany’s capital itself was divided into two parts, separated by “the Berlin Wall”. In the picture of the magical land in the advertisement we see there is also a wall. The territory on the far side of the wall appears to be under Japanese control where American nationals are allowed to keep some of their customs, such as flying their flag outside the workplace. It is less obvious who controls the territory in the foreground. Though there may be some form of electronic surveillance, the checkpoint in the wall appears to be unguarded, implying a formally recognized alliance between the powers of these two territories. If we attempt an historical interpretation of this scene, it would lead us to believe that the aggregates in the foreground represent the industrious Germans. Perhaps the scene is a depiction of an alternate historical path in which the Axis powers defeated the Allies and took control of the United States. Or is the scene depicting an alternate reality in which human life has been eradicated and inanimate objects have come to life in order to mindlessly reenact scenes from the remnants of our written history? If so, what drives the aggregates to do so? What do they hope to accomplish?

4. What do the aggregates want from us? How can we appease them? Can we do so before it’s too late?