Penitence

According to urban legend it was once written, probably in one of the forbidden texts, “It is a far better thing that I do now, than I have ever done”. I am unfortunately in the position that I am aware of that which the author tried to convey. As I await the inevitable I must reflect that although it is truly a far better thing that I do now — that which preceded it is sadly of such poor quality that this mere act of resolute acceptance is hardly even worthy of mention. Alas like the supposed character which uttered this line I too await the tender ministrations of the grave. Perhaps I shall be favoured by fortune and sweet oblivion will embrace this lost soul.

Far back in what now seems like another life I was somewhat happy and certainly more privileged than my current situation would lend the mind to presume. A mid-level clerk in the Office of Holy Justice, the future although not bright, was smiling lightly on my career. My contribution to the current reign of terror was little more than a light drizzle, I seek not to remove myself from the acts of the Empire but more to admit contrite complicity in its actions. While the Investigators went about their murderous business I filed the paperwork that allowed their villainy. No — in truth it was not mere subservience to the will of the Empire (and what have I left but the truth now?). I too cheered as the enemies of the Empire were dragged before the tribunals; I too condemned them both publicly and privately. I too believed, as many around you today do too, given the power of the Empire, that the presence of suspicion must by necessity demonstrate guilt. To believe otherwise would undermine our belief that the Empire can adequately protect us from that which we fear. Does it not always boil down to those tired old set of instincts we deem “fear”? This Evolved, apparently, as a way of keeping our ape-like ancestors from shuffling off this mortal coil prior to their rather dubious achievement of evolving into us. An effort, I have come to conclude, that may have been somewhat wasted. Could our simian predecessors have contemplated the horror which now surround me and countless others like me? Could they imagine the ash cloying in our throats, the stench of death by day and now, as the influx of prisoners increases exponentially, by night? Even the temporary reprieve of unconsciousness is robbed from us by hate and fear and the complicity of weak men like me. The fences rise into the distance, penning in the ungodly, the unclean and the enemies of the Empire. All crimes are equal under the law. Under the decadent liberal democracies of the past the crime was tailored to the circumstances of the criminal, early release oft prompted repeat offences. Rapists and murderers were released from little better than care centres after an insultingly short space of time away from society only to commit the same monstrous acts time and time again. Never a thought was given to the victims or the families of the victims and so the cycle continued. Thus it came to pass that the victim would finally have a say in the sentencing of the criminal, and who is the ultimate victim, the one that suffers the full burden of the crime itself? Why, the Empire of course! And thus armed with righteous anger, the Empire sought to smite hip and thigh those that caused it pain and sought to undermine its moral compass. I am too young to remember the transition when the Empire went somehow from peace and love to the Cleansings. I do remember that the records of the guilty and ungodly do not go back more than a hundred years for I have seen the start of the stacks. Those records stretch high into the vaults of the Palace of Justice and move back into the far reaches of vision. The numbers of lives those files must encompass escapes me; I do not wish to even imagine the numbers, for I could not face that despair, not even to save my soul or life.

What I do recall is being dragged bound and gagged into this place which, as far as I am aware, has no name. There were just endless temporary accommodations within the barbed wire fences and emplacements. The armaments and soldiers all faced inwards giving no illusion as to the purpose of this hellish landscape. The fires raged even then and I gagged as the dust clogged my throat, the exertions of protesting my innocence and attempting to resist this inexorable slide into torment causing the breath to come ragged and screaming from my throat. I was singularly unable to comprehend how this was happening to me. Was I not dedicated to the cause of the Empire? I had screamed Hell and Damnation at the Criminals, the Political and the Sodomists and now I was to be cast among them. Lost and without an anchor on my position in the world I was dragged to be “processed”.