I would like to express my sympathies to the US citizens. It has been horrible. What can you do? Except maybe one year from Tuesday lay the foundation stone for a new, even bigger trade centre to show that you can murder people and break buildings, but not crush a people's will!
The following, is an extract from Sherri S. Tepper's book 'Raising the Stones.' The attrocities of Voorstod and the repercussions that resulted seem apt. I feel this may reflect what is going through the surviving terrorist's minds at the moment. I think they wish they were on the planes!
--------
[ The Gham are a minority race enslaved by Voorstod. A famous Gham harpist, descendent of escaped slaves, is playing in the capital of an adjacent free nation.]
A murmur went through the audience, a sigh of appreciation. Those who knew harp music knew what she had just done was impossible. Those who did not know harp music knew what she had one was beautiful. [...]
The Bass notes again, a horn announced a new theme. [...]
Then the theme built towards a climax. The drums began. The horns in chorus, carefully, not for one moment drowning out the harp. A red-clad man picked up the great brass cymbals and held them above his head. Light danced across them, shivering.
The music built, and built, the cymbals shivered, and at last the climax came as they struck together with a great, brazen sound...
People rising, screaming, crying out at what they saw upon the stage. Marie breathed a word and was over the railing, running toward the tiny woman, the tiny woman who held out her arms and watched the blood fountaining from her wrists, the tiny woman who suddenly had no hands.
The commander followed Marie. The queen had been pulled out of her seat and drawn back through the door by watchful guards. The hall was on its feet, beginning to scream, beginning to flee. Marie turned toward Saturday and shouted for her to come, and Saturday was running, listening, the conductor was there, nodding, shouting to his musicians and then Saturday was at the centre of the stage, singing, singing, while behind her Marie and the Commander fought to save the life of Stenta Thilion.
The orchestra played the battle hymn, one Saturday knew, for Marie had taught it to her. Saturday's voice soared above the confusion like a trumpet calling men to battle. The noise in the hall stopped. Men stood and began to sing. This was a song they knew, one they had marched to, one they had known since they were children. Women sang. High along the walls, the Gham sang. The huge hall howled with sound, as every voice joined until there was only one huge unison chorus of outrage and fury and determination over the body lying so quietly and the two working over it and the Gham gathering weeping around them.
In the castle of the Cause, above Cloudport, there was laughter when the cymbals crashed. Men had been waiting for that crash, tossing their heads to make their coup markers flutter, nudging one another as the time drew near. When it came, they pointed out the handless woman, the fountains of blood, roaring with laughter. When the audience screamed, started to run, the laughter grew in volume.
Then something happened they had not expected. Marie Manone was on the platform beside the fallen Gham woman, binding up Stenta Thilion's handless arms. The Commander was beside her. And there was a girl on the stage, turning to face them, as though she saw them, and she was singing the Ahabar battle hymn, with the horns and drums of the orchestra taking up the music behind her. And suddenly, as every voice in the the great hall came alive with the same hymn, rising in a torrent of song, the laughter in the castle of the Cause fell away to a titter and then to silence. It was as though every eye in the hall saw through the [ media console ] to those there in Voorstod, to those conspirators, to those that had done this thing, and pledged them everlasting hatred and death.
Jep, his face wet with nausea and horror, crouched at the foot of the pillar and heard Saturday singing. Even while he retched, he could not keep his eyes away from the Prophet, that one who had wanted to torture him earlier, that one with the deep-set eyes and the slit-lipped mouth. For a moment, only a moment, Jep saw terror slip across the aged man's face. Other faces were equally fearful, the kind of fear, Jep told himself, of a child in an tantrum who destroys something irreplaceable and suddenly realises he has gone too far. In the past what he has done has been indulged or perhaps only overlooked. But what he has done now cannot be explained away. What he has done has damned them all, and even the Prophet Awateh knew it.
--------
The burning of Pamra Don at the end of Tepper's book 'The Awakeners' conveys a similar idea of terrorists pushing to too far and ensuring the complete extinction of their vial, self-serving memes.
-------
PS. The 'Thou shal not kill' meme predates the splitting of the Judaoistic base into Islam and the Christian/Jewish varients (and is pretty consistent in unrelated religeons too). Rest assured that if there is a hell (of any flavor), the people responsible for this are already there along with the 'convert by the sword' crusaders, the witch burners, the suicide cult leaders and anyone else who has ever used religeon as an excuse to kill others. I sincerely hope they all get the eternal existence they crave. Eternity is hell by default.
Glenn Alexander - citizen of Australia, provisional citizen of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Humanity, temporary resident of China. |
