Dispatches for the Disparate:
At last I summoned my meager courage and asked, “Wouldn't you die from an injury that took your arm?”
He smiled through this apparent
miscommunication.
“I would fall indeed asleep.”
And I would have collapsed into, it if
I wasn't already in, a chair. “A sleep, a sleep that you never
wake from, that lasts forever,” I said quietly, “But were do you
put the bodies, in the ground?”
“Sleepers,” he corrected, and for
the first time his grin fluctuated, as he contemplated the apparent
atrocity of placing them under the earth. He straightened his smile
and continued, “They are carried by our Guardians to a different
place, where they awake and continue their enjoyment.”
I was reeling, but I was able to utter,
“Don't you miss them. Aren't you sad?”
“We only miss them for a short time,
knowing we will join them. We are suffused with joyful for they
shall live without sorrow in a better place.”
I wanted to shake him, but I remembered
the Earth government's instructions of non-interference. I
considered the possibility that biology allowed for a second life, a
resurrection from death. I breathed deeply to calm myself. I
thanked my host for the hospitality and food. Then I ran screaming
into the street. I couldn't contain the absurd, obvious lie these
people has accepted.
That's where they found me. Like a
prophet of old, like a philosopher in the agora, I stood in the
street and transfixed my audience, hundreds of Apophasians, with the
truth. It's possibly I was screeching, spittle likely flying from my
mouth, and I probably looked deranged (though I didn't wear a ragged
beard). The local police wrestled me to the ground as I fought
desperately to impart one last particle of wisdom.
I was brought before the rulers of
Apophasis, and they pardoned me, but only if I agreed to not incite
the populace further.
“I don't understand what is happening
here,” I said, sitting on the floor of their council chambers.
“How could a whole planet not know of death!”
The Apophasian officials gazed at me
from where they stood around a table.
“We bear a heavy burden,” said one.
“We know their fate, but are unable to utter it.”
“How can they fairly elect you if
they don't know the truth?”
“We are not elected. We are
Guardians. We are chosen at the onset of adulthood by the current
Guardians. We are initiated into the knowledge and told never to
speak of it except among ourselves.”
They stood as I lay prostrate in
silence. At last Kurtis arrived and we were permitted to walk
outside.
“What were you thinking?” he asked
me. Without waiting for a reply he continued, “Their estimation of
you has dropped, but they've agreed to forgive your error of
judgment.”
“You don't know what they do here,”
I began, but he cut me off.
“Of course I do, and I regret not
telling you in advance. I thought learning through interaction with
the Apophasians would allow you to understand them as you understood
the Penthians. The fault lies with me.”
“Your not going to do anything?”
“You know the rule. They are their
own people, their own nation, their own cultures, government, and
law. We do not interfere.”
“Apparently we don't free oppressed
people from dictators.”
“The Guardians aren't villains. They
don't kill people.”
“It's enslavement of the mind.”
“Can I trust you to restrain your
hyperbolic speeches, or must I confine you to the ship for the
remainder of our time here?”
“You can trust me,” I said. He
must have, because he returned to the Guardian's complex for further
diplomatic discussions. I secluded myself in solitary thoughts.
This time I proceeded with caution. I didn't return to the crowd in
a rush, but composed my speech in advance.
The Guardian's weren't so kind to me
the second time, and readers may only imagine Kurtis' reaction. But
I consider my trials worth the suffering, because I might have
planted a seed of doubt in the minds of the Apophasians. A few of
their smiles wilted like grass deprived of dew at my exhortations.
Even the Guardians seemed uncertain at our second meeting. This time
I stood proudly, no longer cowering before their pomp and
circumstance. They dithered about, aware of the fragility of their
illusion, and anxious how their people might repay them for their
deception.
Kurtis asked if I was proud of this
diplomatic catastrophe. “How do you know your revelations won't
lead to suffering?” he asked of me in his most demanding diplomats
voice.
“If you'd read my dispatch on
Penthos, you'd know that neither distress nor doubt are the worst
outcomes.”
Those words were the last I spoke to
him, because he turned away in disgust, and I was manhandled back to
the spacecraft by two Earthlings.
Currently I'm writing this in my room
on the spaceship back to Earth. It's clean, they bring me my food,
and let me access my tools, but they've confined me to quarters.
They also locked my access to outgoing communications, in an attempt
to prevent me from writing my Dispatches for the Disparate. But
you're reading this aren't you? An ability to subvert unjust
authority is essential in my occupation.
The Earth Authority may believe this to
be the last of me, but I assure you, there will be more Dispatches
for the Disparate.
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