Post by AnimaStone on Dec 12, 2004 11:28:52 GMT -5
This is a story I wrote this summer. I hope you enjoy it; I personally think it's :Dish, but then again I wrote.
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Vengeance is a very strange thing. It lies dormant in the hearts of men and humans throughout the good seasons of life, but at the first sign of a bad one it rears up its head and infests its owner completely, overturning all logical thought and moral processes. Once its course has been run out, it returns to dormancy, but, like a parasite, it feeds on the thoughts and the emotions of its host until it becomes strong enough to overthrow all defenses of the infected indefinitely. In this way, vengeance overruns all of organized society at some point in time.
In retrospect of my life, I do suppose that I deserve punishment for many of the things I have done. In fact, had I known what they had planned for me, I would have gladly given up my life, turned myself in, and let them subject me to any form of incarceration recognized by civilization as proper. I am reminded of a quote I once saw in a place I can no longer remember: “For my confession they burned me with fire, and found that I was for endurance made.” I would have been happy to let them burn me with fire and find out if I were for endurance made if I had known that the alternative would be the state I am now living in. But quite obviously I did not know, and so I now am in the most unenviable position imaginable.
My imprisonment has given me plenty of time to think and reflect; in fact, I believe that it may have given me a bit too much time. I can now recollect the entire series of events that led to my punishment. My first offences were minor and were, arguably, not even my own fault. I was an outcast of my puritan society, a rebel without a cause that they could see. I was an adolescent that had not planned out his entire life, something unheard of in the town. This fault of genetics and upbringing was always held in the minds of the adults of the town as a felony of the first degree, on par with murder; for they probably did view it as murder, a murder of the possibilities their children had. They did what they had deemed the just thing to do: eliminated one for the sake of many. I found myself scorned by all, even my own friends, and struck against while the officials looked the other way. Eventually, I struck back. And I continued striking back. At last, I was entirely deserted. They found me and administered what they considered divine justice. By then, I was too weak to fight back, and when I next awoke I found myself in the state I am now in.
That was all I was: a sacrificial lamb to their heathen gods of Sanctity, one who was tried and found lacking. They saw my case as a triumph, as a symbol, as a plaque to hang over the fireplace—but they never saw it as a true case. They entirely missed the inhumanity in what they were doing. They never truly realized that they had extinguished (if not in actuality, then in practicality) a human life that deserved to live just as much as anyone else. They did not think of what I had to say. I was as much a person as they were. I had opinions, hopes, dreams, interests, experiences, fears, angers, and love. Did they stop to think of that? No. They did not.
After the first day or so of imprisonment, once my rage against my captors and my temporary claustrophobia had subsided enough to allow room for logical thought, I was stunned by the ingenious work the adults I had always thought of as fools showed in my jail cell. They had sealed me in what I assumed was a coffin and interred me in the local cemetery. However, they had gone to great pains to assure my survival. A fist-sized hole was evident in the coffin, and a thin tube of about the same width stretched to the surface to provide me with enough air to survive. Infrequently, food and water would be lowered to the hole in the coffin.
I no longer hate them for what they have done to me. Instead, I reflect upon their methods. I have come to two conclusions about their work in the two weeks or so I have been in here. The first is that they expected me to think about their work and therefore they made it interesting to take my mind off of the eternity of wait, a bit like how a doctor puts magazines in his waiting room. They put me in a coffin to show that I was dead to them, a lost cause to be given no second thought. The six feet of earth above me represent the great distance they have placed between me and their hearts, minds, and newly purified lives. It is an insurmountable distance for me both physically and emotionally: either task would involve removing an overly large amount of something that does not wish to be removed. The air vent, along with providing the vital amount of oxygen to prevent asphyxiation, is a not-too-subtle form of psychological torture. It gives me glimpses of the outside world: the blue skies on a sunny day, the rain clouds on an overcast one, the very occasional sound of talking or laughing, the odors one would usually associate with a tree that I knew was there at the north end of the cemetery. It shows me what I want now the most but can clearly have the least. The entire situation is designed to show me that they are completely in control. They alone spared me, they alone control my life, and there is nothing I can do about it. Overall, it is a very effective torture. I respect them for that.
The second conclusion I have come to is that they do not want me to die. If they did, they could have done it outright quickly and not wasted time and money. However, they did not ensure that I could not die. I could easily collapse the airshaft, thereby cutting off the supply of the oxygen I need. I could easily refuse to eat the food or drink the water they gave me. There are many ways I could kill myself, and almost as many that they could kill me. But they do not want to kill me. Rather, they want me to kill me. They view what they have done as a mercy, but killing me would make it a murder. So instead, they have made it so that only I can be held accountable in the eyes of men for my death. Even in murder these people are sickeningly self-purifying.
I am reminded in my predicament of a story I once read, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” In it, the character was trapped in a dungeon. As the traps came, he realized and (although sometimes not intentionally) avoided them. All until the end, that is. In the final trick, he was pushed by burning walls to the edge of a pit, but a deus ex machina in the form of the conquering French general saved him at the last moment. I am too at the end, the final trick. The difference between me and the man in Poe’s story is that he was saved and I will never be. There is no deus ex machina in my story, for even the deus itself has become one of the machina. I suppose there is nothing to do now but survive and rob them of their victory as long as I can.
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Vengeance is a very strange thing. It lies dormant in the hearts of men and humans throughout the good seasons of life, but at the first sign of a bad one it rears up its head and infests its owner completely, overturning all logical thought and moral processes. Once its course has been run out, it returns to dormancy, but, like a parasite, it feeds on the thoughts and the emotions of its host until it becomes strong enough to overthrow all defenses of the infected indefinitely. In this way, vengeance overruns all of organized society at some point in time.
In retrospect of my life, I do suppose that I deserve punishment for many of the things I have done. In fact, had I known what they had planned for me, I would have gladly given up my life, turned myself in, and let them subject me to any form of incarceration recognized by civilization as proper. I am reminded of a quote I once saw in a place I can no longer remember: “For my confession they burned me with fire, and found that I was for endurance made.” I would have been happy to let them burn me with fire and find out if I were for endurance made if I had known that the alternative would be the state I am now living in. But quite obviously I did not know, and so I now am in the most unenviable position imaginable.
My imprisonment has given me plenty of time to think and reflect; in fact, I believe that it may have given me a bit too much time. I can now recollect the entire series of events that led to my punishment. My first offences were minor and were, arguably, not even my own fault. I was an outcast of my puritan society, a rebel without a cause that they could see. I was an adolescent that had not planned out his entire life, something unheard of in the town. This fault of genetics and upbringing was always held in the minds of the adults of the town as a felony of the first degree, on par with murder; for they probably did view it as murder, a murder of the possibilities their children had. They did what they had deemed the just thing to do: eliminated one for the sake of many. I found myself scorned by all, even my own friends, and struck against while the officials looked the other way. Eventually, I struck back. And I continued striking back. At last, I was entirely deserted. They found me and administered what they considered divine justice. By then, I was too weak to fight back, and when I next awoke I found myself in the state I am now in.
That was all I was: a sacrificial lamb to their heathen gods of Sanctity, one who was tried and found lacking. They saw my case as a triumph, as a symbol, as a plaque to hang over the fireplace—but they never saw it as a true case. They entirely missed the inhumanity in what they were doing. They never truly realized that they had extinguished (if not in actuality, then in practicality) a human life that deserved to live just as much as anyone else. They did not think of what I had to say. I was as much a person as they were. I had opinions, hopes, dreams, interests, experiences, fears, angers, and love. Did they stop to think of that? No. They did not.
After the first day or so of imprisonment, once my rage against my captors and my temporary claustrophobia had subsided enough to allow room for logical thought, I was stunned by the ingenious work the adults I had always thought of as fools showed in my jail cell. They had sealed me in what I assumed was a coffin and interred me in the local cemetery. However, they had gone to great pains to assure my survival. A fist-sized hole was evident in the coffin, and a thin tube of about the same width stretched to the surface to provide me with enough air to survive. Infrequently, food and water would be lowered to the hole in the coffin.
I no longer hate them for what they have done to me. Instead, I reflect upon their methods. I have come to two conclusions about their work in the two weeks or so I have been in here. The first is that they expected me to think about their work and therefore they made it interesting to take my mind off of the eternity of wait, a bit like how a doctor puts magazines in his waiting room. They put me in a coffin to show that I was dead to them, a lost cause to be given no second thought. The six feet of earth above me represent the great distance they have placed between me and their hearts, minds, and newly purified lives. It is an insurmountable distance for me both physically and emotionally: either task would involve removing an overly large amount of something that does not wish to be removed. The air vent, along with providing the vital amount of oxygen to prevent asphyxiation, is a not-too-subtle form of psychological torture. It gives me glimpses of the outside world: the blue skies on a sunny day, the rain clouds on an overcast one, the very occasional sound of talking or laughing, the odors one would usually associate with a tree that I knew was there at the north end of the cemetery. It shows me what I want now the most but can clearly have the least. The entire situation is designed to show me that they are completely in control. They alone spared me, they alone control my life, and there is nothing I can do about it. Overall, it is a very effective torture. I respect them for that.
The second conclusion I have come to is that they do not want me to die. If they did, they could have done it outright quickly and not wasted time and money. However, they did not ensure that I could not die. I could easily collapse the airshaft, thereby cutting off the supply of the oxygen I need. I could easily refuse to eat the food or drink the water they gave me. There are many ways I could kill myself, and almost as many that they could kill me. But they do not want to kill me. Rather, they want me to kill me. They view what they have done as a mercy, but killing me would make it a murder. So instead, they have made it so that only I can be held accountable in the eyes of men for my death. Even in murder these people are sickeningly self-purifying.
I am reminded in my predicament of a story I once read, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” In it, the character was trapped in a dungeon. As the traps came, he realized and (although sometimes not intentionally) avoided them. All until the end, that is. In the final trick, he was pushed by burning walls to the edge of a pit, but a deus ex machina in the form of the conquering French general saved him at the last moment. I am too at the end, the final trick. The difference between me and the man in Poe’s story is that he was saved and I will never be. There is no deus ex machina in my story, for even the deus itself has become one of the machina. I suppose there is nothing to do now but survive and rob them of their victory as long as I can.