Albonium

Volume XVIII - Roman Virtue

Book XXXV - Departure

I - Upon the Destruction of a Painted Cage

"A fire! A fire! Senator, awake! The palace is burning!"

Sura was awoken by his secretary. But still, he refused to do so! Sleep was good: if he was asleep, he was dead, and hence he would have no responsibilities. He would be suspended from judgment!

But the shouts of his secretary did not cease, and there was the crackling of the wood of arches and chairs. Then the people were burning! He heard others scream.

All too surreal was idleness, all too surreal was sleeping! Thus he opened his eyes with reluctance.

His secretary said, "Senator! The palace is burning! It is time to leave."

He ran, and all of those who had gathered outside were safe, yet all their items were burning!

Such was the great palace, and it once was of marble whiteness and beauty, now it was burning!

It had been a home! Now his soul was full of fear, for the home-was gone!

It was burning! And his soul panicked.

Yet as the fire grew, so too did the home begin to melt, and soon it became less recognizable, and secondary to the blaze!

Now it was an inferno, a destroyer of chains! Gone were the pillars of his enslavement, gone was the refined form of Britannia! They were scorched, they were being scorched, and the fire would not rest!

The fire was subsiding. All that was once there was ashes! The ashes could be picked up, and they would look like ashes and only ashes. There was a void of the past! He was free of his past, free of his responsibility!

Thus was his liberation! He should be delighted! All that once commanded duty had perished!

Yet his heart was somber, and so he said to himself, "If I ever wanted the death of all my duty and an end to my confusion and my madness, it is not this. I look at the chaos, look at the void. It is absent of pain, that is what it solves. But what is in it? Nothing! I dread nothingness... I am alive, I wish to be alive. And yet, the fire has destroyed all that makes life worth living.

"I only have two options: I can resign. I have lost so much! Or I can still rebuild, still overcome...

"I say that I wish to rule, and if I rule under Rome, I cannot rule at all! I would be a slave to the Ideal virtue, I would follow it to the end, and at the end, it would be self-destructive: it would declare itself perfect and end like those who are dead, for they cannot act! I cannot rule under Rome.

"Look! The fire has subsided. My Roman documents have been destroyed! The pillars are bare, no longer do they have Latin marks on them. All is blank and make-able!

"Once were scrolls of Roman law, now they have burned away! All that is dust, the only thing that remains is nothing.

"I look to my island. I shall reinstate unto the blank pillars my virtue! No longer shall I claim legitimacy from Rome. I cannot anymore!

"Rome is gone! Rome is dead on this island. Rome has burned away!

"Once I worshiped Rome, but now I am no longer looking away at the ugly whores and only the pretty ones, now I see that Rome is of the Ideal, and now I see that the Ideal is false. He who chases the Ideal only dissatisfies himself, as once he slays all the shadows, there is only one left, and that is the Ideal itself!

Thus was the center of all his Roman texts, all parts of his Roman culture, and all instances of Rome! Now all that is gone. And indeed, smaller fires had destroyed other records everywhere!