Epitaphs for the Vengeful
‘Cooler heads will prevail,’ he said. ‘They must.’ A fine sentiment for an observer, I suppose, but hardly comforting to those of us with our necks on the line.
Figuratively speaking? I’m afraid not. They very real approach of our execution draws the absurdity of our situation into sharp relief as only imminent death can. It is meaningless to chronicle the events that led up to our rebellion, or even the tragic fall of our ideals and hopes- such a historical perspective would inevitably draw the audience to a biased, trite- even maudlin- autobiography that holds little more than the hubris of the fallen.
Consider this narrative an apology. Prayers for redemption, as it were, casting in the terrible role of omnipotent judge: you, my fine reader. I would not, in your place, be inclined to condone evasive pseudo-sacraments and half-hearted protestations, so I shall strive to avoid both. Let me, then, approach the quick of my situation with, as is so often the case, my confession.
I murdered 2,603 people.
Two thousand, six hundred and three.
I could say that I did not mean to, or that my actions were not the direct cause of their deaths, but I have grown to loathe such excuses. They are as insincere as they are worthless. Intent, I have grown to understand, is a construct of the guilty. And, as surely as I rise every morning to an iron cell and the oppressively barren walls that imprison me, I am guilty.
If I have resolved to lay aside the sordid history that has brought my fellow conspirators and I to this terrible condition of delayed judgment, let me say at least this: the conception of our manifest was entirely my own. In the way an architect measures out the angles and dimensions of a structure, I saw and calculated the deaths of thousands. Every stroke of my pen sent vibrations through time that snuffed out a life. Like a watchmaker, dividing fractions of seconds in a vain attempt to bond nature to artifice, so too, I negated and ignored the essential humanity of those who needed to perish in the conceptual gears of my ideological engine.
I would like to say it was for the greater good, but that is absurd. The human mind cannot truly comprehend the seething, formless mass that constitutes even a single society, much less the whole of our revenge-poxxed race. “Greater good” may as well be code for “my people,” as that is all it can ever truly mean.
My faith in our system is not in its fairness, justice, or mercy. These are as alien to my friends as they are inappropriate to our deeds. “Cooler heads” will see the truth that passionate fury exposes- the pressing, authoritative rule of punishment so complete that there can never again be the possibility of repetition. This is the world I have, of late, awoken to; though, I pray it is not the world we leave to the future.
Accept this, my silent executioners, as my apology and my epitaph: I failed. I failed and for my weakness, I deserve death. It is with the most pained regrets and the most devout sorrow that I reflect on the impossibly grand act of falling down that my life has culminated in. I stole the spark of life from 2,603 people and worse: I did so for a meaningless end. Like a graven colossus, so many sacrifices have been spilt on unloving stone that- in years to come- will moulder and erode, abandoned and forgotten.
Figuratively speaking? I’m afraid not. They very real approach of our execution draws the absurdity of our situation into sharp relief as only imminent death can. It is meaningless to chronicle the events that led up to our rebellion, or even the tragic fall of our ideals and hopes- such a historical perspective would inevitably draw the audience to a biased, trite- even maudlin- autobiography that holds little more than the hubris of the fallen.
Consider this narrative an apology. Prayers for redemption, as it were, casting in the terrible role of omnipotent judge: you, my fine reader. I would not, in your place, be inclined to condone evasive pseudo-sacraments and half-hearted protestations, so I shall strive to avoid both. Let me, then, approach the quick of my situation with, as is so often the case, my confession.
I murdered 2,603 people.
Two thousand, six hundred and three.
I could say that I did not mean to, or that my actions were not the direct cause of their deaths, but I have grown to loathe such excuses. They are as insincere as they are worthless. Intent, I have grown to understand, is a construct of the guilty. And, as surely as I rise every morning to an iron cell and the oppressively barren walls that imprison me, I am guilty.
If I have resolved to lay aside the sordid history that has brought my fellow conspirators and I to this terrible condition of delayed judgment, let me say at least this: the conception of our manifest was entirely my own. In the way an architect measures out the angles and dimensions of a structure, I saw and calculated the deaths of thousands. Every stroke of my pen sent vibrations through time that snuffed out a life. Like a watchmaker, dividing fractions of seconds in a vain attempt to bond nature to artifice, so too, I negated and ignored the essential humanity of those who needed to perish in the conceptual gears of my ideological engine.
I would like to say it was for the greater good, but that is absurd. The human mind cannot truly comprehend the seething, formless mass that constitutes even a single society, much less the whole of our revenge-poxxed race. “Greater good” may as well be code for “my people,” as that is all it can ever truly mean.
My faith in our system is not in its fairness, justice, or mercy. These are as alien to my friends as they are inappropriate to our deeds. “Cooler heads” will see the truth that passionate fury exposes- the pressing, authoritative rule of punishment so complete that there can never again be the possibility of repetition. This is the world I have, of late, awoken to; though, I pray it is not the world we leave to the future.
Accept this, my silent executioners, as my apology and my epitaph: I failed. I failed and for my weakness, I deserve death. It is with the most pained regrets and the most devout sorrow that I reflect on the impossibly grand act of falling down that my life has culminated in. I stole the spark of life from 2,603 people and worse: I did so for a meaningless end. Like a graven colossus, so many sacrifices have been spilt on unloving stone that- in years to come- will moulder and erode, abandoned and forgotten.
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