Friday 24th Nov, 2876
On board deep-space mining vessel 'Aluvium' : transporter of heretics to farthest reaches of the galaxy
'I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precedent, and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellows the likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man [is] myself.
Myself alone! I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read...This is what I have done, what I have thought, what I was'
('Confessions' - by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1776)
Confession! Confession! Confession! :-
It was many dawns ago during the reign of the Spanish Inquisition that heretics were condemned to death by the tasty method of burning alive. On the eve of execution, as a sort of appetiser, the poor condemned wretches were paraded along the square. Their heavy shackles picking their ankles to the bone as they shuffled along the rutted path. The boisterous crowds booing at the procession; spitting in their faces, flinging at them horse shit and gawking for pleasure. And besides the heretics always a priest scuttling along side them, with bible clutched in one hand, and with the other hand dodging the horse shit missiles. The priest whispering in their ears in quick-fire guttural, imploring them to renounce their heresies, to save their souls from eternal damnation. And who were these unfortunate heretics? Protestants, witches, Jews, Moslem's, non-believers, sodomites, homosexuals, mutants, freaks of nature, sufferers of Huntingdon's disease, they were all put to the flames. None were spared the wrath of the holy inquisitors. A bonfire hell on earth.
I can imagine their screams. They travel through the ages on the breath of time and whisper to me in my dreams. Death was slow and deliciously painful. I'll elaborate a little further for your delectation. First the skin around the legs would start peeling from the heat. Above a certain temperature the fat content in the legs reaches melting point and melts. As the flames swoop up and gather pace the bodies writhe in excruciating agony. But still very much alive and in full awareness of the horror befalling them. The hair catches fire, internal organs explode from the pressure, blood colludes, the crowd jeers. Can you imagine a more gruesome faith? The medieval crowds lapped it up. For it was entertainment and all the better for it being real and them being heretics. In their final death throes the burning wretches would renounce their sins, plead forgiveness, scream for help and only then would the jeering stop and the crowd be silenced. The flames now total. The souls now departed. Peace at last. Ahh! oblivion!
In those days you could be burnt for thinking. For thinking that man's destiny was in his hands, for thinking that god did not intervene in everyday matters, for thinking that people born with deformities were not (as it was believed) the payback of their parents sins, but rather the result of a physical phenomenon in the womb, for thinking that the earth went around the sun, for thinking that man can improve his lot by rising though the ranks and was not therefore confined to the social strata in which he was born, for thinking, for thinking, for thinking. For nothing is more vilified, nothing is more despised, nothing is more hated than the serf who thinks. If only they'd left those explosive heresies safely locked up in their heads - where no man may see them. The incendiary thoughts hidden in the skull. But what good is that? What good are thoughts if they cannot be flung across the globe like seeds; taking root in people's minds and lighting the sparks of a million glorious mutinies. A billion stars born.
I remember when as a child I'd walk pass 'The Commissars of the Holy' and bow in deference. But if only they could see what horrid (to them) little thoughts I beheld at those moments: You can take away my tongue but my thoughts are tongueless!
And what now? Well now they've invented the 'device'. Implanted at birth so now even our thoughts don't belong to us. Stolen! Private property! You can no longer hide and take comfort in those quiet places anymore. They'll find you even there. What is left? Tongueless, thoughtless humanity - the world now stupid and mute. But alas I am free of all that. A long ago memory. As I look through the window in my cabin I see space for what it is: The absence of everything and yet containing everything. How can something be so empty and yet be so full? Soon the distance will be so great that I fear it will drown out, smother my memories, in a nothingness. My memories a grain of sand in a blackness that has no edge. No edge and no end it seems. I must get off this ship.
