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Ceramic Dm (final judgement posted, New Champion announced!)
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<blockquote data-quote="Macbeth" data-source="post: 1658447" data-attributes="member: 11259"><p><em><span style="font-size: 9px">Round 2, Match 2: Macbeth vs. Berandor</span></em></p><p><span style="font-size: 22px"><strong>Guilt</strong></span></p><p><em>By Sage LaTorra, a.k.a. Macbeth</em></p><p></p><p></p><p>“To sleep, Perchance to dream.” He was talking about death, you know. Hamlet. When he said “sleep” he meant “die.” I never understood that, until recently. But now I see what he meant.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I had the dream again. She was there again. I suffered again. And I still wake up every morning, still unforgiven. 12th night in a row I’ve had that dream. I think it may be driving me insane. Not medically insane, not DSM-IV insane, just not in my right mind.</p><p></p><p>It’s not depression. I checked DSm-IV, and I don’t have the symptoms. Depression feels better then this. I don’t have the symptoms of depression. I just have my pain. No depressed appetite, no difficulty concentrating, no inability to get up and do things, and no sleep disorder (unless you count the dreams). I’m just going insane.</p><p></p><p>Dostoyevsky had some interesting ideas on suffering. I never understood that, until recently. He suggested that you “accept suffering, and be redeemed by it.” I tried that. And I try it again every night. But I haven’t been redeemed.</p><p></p><p>I don’t know how to deal with the pain. The guilt. I need to let it out. I need an outlet. I need to show my pain to others.</p><p></p><p>Last night. Last night. Last night I was there again. The same dream. </p><p></p><p>I was laying on my bed, eyes pointed to heaven, examining the cheap light fixture over head. The fake gold, the glass diamonds, the plastic crystals. All of it fake. The gilt hanging over me.</p><p></p><p>It was one of those dreams, the ones where you’re not sure you’re dreaming. I’m still not sure if I was, come to think of it.</p><p></p><p>My eyes had been closed for a while, my blinders to the world. I was safe inside my own head. Then she was there. Inside my eyelids, inside my head, a vision from what seemed like so long ago, I hoped I had forgotten it. The ephemeral shapes that danced across my closed eyes gathered, and she was there. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234" target="_blank">Her face turned at me, her daughter hiding in the long folds of her dress. The last image of a place I’ll never visit again. She said something, something I couldn’t hear. She said it from too far away, too long ago.</a>(1)</p><p></p><p>And she faded, and my dream began, if it was a dream. I was in the mountains again, on my way to Rapatna. But the trucks weren’t there, the meat wasn’t there, it was just me, carrying it all in my hands. Literally.</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15230" target="_blank">I held it all in my hands, a fragile egg, carrying the hope of it all. It was so small, not a thing with feathers, but a thin shell holding the yoke I had to carry, with names written on the shell. I had to look closely just to see the names, and with the logic of dreams, the words came into focus. A village by any other name. Every citizen, everything I was responsible for, all written on the shell that carried their salvation. The shell carried salvation, and I carried the shell.</a> (2)</p><p></p><p>And so I walked. I walked because I had gone this way before, a long time ago. I heard once that dreams are just your brain organizing information, and I guess that’s why I was walking the same way I had gone before. It was all symbolic.</p><p></p><p>And so I walked, and hoped that I could carry the hope of others, the fragile shell that carried my yoke. The mountain crags, the barely cleared road, every rock, every stone was in my way. It was hard, because it had been hard before.</p><p></p><p>But it wasn’t the rocks, the stones, the mountain crags, that made me drop the egg, the hope, the yoke. The gentle indifference of the world, the laws of my own mind, meant that I dropped it. It was my fault. Maybe I didn’t hold it tight enough, and it fell, or maybe I held it too tight, and it cracked. I didn’t know why, I was just struck by the simple realization that it was broken. The viscous center, the thing without feathers, the hope of so many people, ran down my fingers, like the blood of innocents. I fell to my knees on the cold mountain road, and let the shattered hope from the egg bearing the names that I was responsible for mingle with my tears.</p><p></p><p>I woke up crying again.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I had the dream again. Always the same. Same. Same. Same. Never the same actions, but always the same meaning. 8th night in a row I’ve had it. Maybe I’m going insane.</p><p></p><p>But it’s not schizophrenia. I checked DSM-IV, and I don’t have the symptoms. I know I’m not hearing the voices. I know they aren’t out to get me. My thoughts are orderly. I’m just going insane.</p><p></p><p>I fell asleep quickly last night. First time I can remember that I fell asleep quickly. It was like I wanted to hurt, I wanted to suffer. Maybe my suffering will help.</p><p></p><p>It seems like I had barely closed my eyes, like I could still see the after-image of the gilt light fixture hanging over me, and she was there. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234" target="_blank">She just appeared, her daughter behind her, looking across the river at me, leaving with the trucks. The long hem of her dress fell away, like a waterfall of tears, a memory of a place I can never be again. She said something to me, on the edge of hearing. If I could have been just a little closer, focused just a little more, I could have heard her.</a>(1)</p><p></p><p>And then I was in the town again. I had only seen it across a river when I had been there, but I knew I was there. I knew this was the village. And it was empty. I knew it was the village after I left.</p><p></p><p>I wandered the street. I wandered the streets, knowing I was alone, knowing I wouldn’t find anybody.</p><p></p><p>They were all gone. They only left their bones.</p><p></p><p>And the city fell down around me. Around me. Because of me. They didn’t live here any more, so the city died with them. </p><p></p><p>I ran. Not away from the buildings, but into them. I tried to die with them. I begged the collapsing buildings to take me with them; I wanted to die, like I should. </p><p></p><p>They seemed to fall in slow motion. I tried to dive under every brick, tried to be crushed by every plank of wood, and I failed. Failure seems to be the only constant in my dreams.</p><p></p><p>The city finally stopped dying, and, even more then before I was alone, alone in my defeat. I cried. I tried to wash my hands in the streams of absolution running from my eyes, the tears of regret, but I couldn’t be clean. My ever-bloody hands.</p><p></p><p>The bones of the village, the bones of the villagers, the bones of my life, they all started to fade. I couldn’t let them fade. I couldn’t let them be forgotten. I moved to the nearest pile, and I started to build. I destroyed this, and I would rebuild it.</p><p></p><p>And I built. From the bones of the town, I remade it in my own image. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15231" target="_blank">From the simple huts, the wood and bricks, the village held together by clay and community, I created a modern town. With the speed of thought, scaffolding assembled, buildings were born, and among it all I built. In the darkness of my heart, in the darkness of my dream I rebuilt it all. Rolling girders into place, turning the wreckage of a village into the skeleton of a town.</a>(3)</p><p></p><p>And I rebuilt the people. Bone by bone, and of my own flesh, I brought them back to life. I was healed. I gave them my flesh, my blood, and I was healed. It was the first good dream I’ve had since I left the women on the other side of the river. I dream of a task worse then Sisyphus’ boulder, and it’s a good dream.</p><p></p><p>And then it all went wrong. I hadn’t built it right. With the instant knowledge you only find in dreams, I knew it wasn’t right. I had brought them back to life, but now they were all me. I had remade the village, but it wasn’t Rapatna anymore, it was some bland amalgam of pseudo-American architecture. It wasn’t the rose of India, it was the dregs of America.</p><p></p><p>I was in hell. I couldn’t stand being myself anymore, much less meeting myself. And now I was in the village of the damned. I stood helpless as my own flesh and blood, the villagers I had restored, the villagers who had cured me, brought the same doom on themselves as I had brought them. I couldn’t watch. I hid my eyes and cried.</p><p></p><p>I woke up crying again.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It’s odd. I’ve never had the same dream more then once. And now I’ve had the same dream for 3 nights in a row. Not the exact same, but the same events, the same feeling, just different imagery. I think it may be driving me crazy.</p><p></p><p>But it’s not obsessive-compulsive disorder. I checked DSM-IV. I don’t have the symptoms. I’m not obsessed with germs, or symmetry. I don’t care about mirrors. I don’t focus on sexual behavior. I don’t feel like I need to check things, or arrange things, or clean, or horde. I’m just going insane.</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234" target="_blank">The woman has been there every time. She stands on the other side of the river, watching us leave, her daughter hiding in the folds of her dress, the armor of a parent. As we leave she class across the river, “You saved us. Thank You. We owe our lives to you.” Her voice is distant, but the irony is not lost on me. They owe their lives to me.</a>(1) </p><p></p><p>And then her image fades, and I’m standing in Rapatna. I’ve never been in the city, but I know that’s where I am. I know I’m in Rapatna. And Rapatna is alive. The dark skin of the Indians, walking about, doing business, living, is absolution for me. They aren’t dead, I was wrong, their still here. I didn’t kill them. I saved them. I saved them from starvation when China closed the trade road from Tibet. They’re all still here.</p><p></p><p>And then I see the thorns.</p><p></p><p>The people of Rapatna are still alive, but they’re not the same. They know that I shouldn’t be here. They know I’ll hurt them if I get too close. So they have thorns on their skin, to keep me away. The rose of India now has its thorns.</p><p></p><p>They have thorns to keep me away, but they still invite me in. Children run up to me in the street hugging my leg, praising me for bringing the gift of food. And with every hug, their thorns cut me, gouge me, pry off my skin. I walk through the streets of Rapatna, and I don’t care that, for some reason I’m naked. This isn’t a dream about going to school in your underwear. This is a nightmare, and being naked is the least of my worries.</p><p></p><p>It scares me, walking around the city I killed, seeing the dead walking. I know that I shouldn’t be here. I know they shouldn’t be here, anymore. But I’m happy they’re alive. I would let them cut me, slice me, wound me, as long as they’re alive.</p><p></p><p>And the girl from across the river, the one hiding in the safety of her mother’s robes, runs up to me. I know she’s saying thank you, and all I can do is cry. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15232" target="_blank">She jumps onto me hugging me, throwing her arms and one of her legs around me, embracing me in thanks for saving her.</a>(4) And the cuts grow deeper. My eyes bleed and my wounds weep. </p><p></p><p>I woke up crying again.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I slept well last night. I don’t remember my dreams.</p><p></p><p>The mountain air is sharp as the caravan winds its way through the mountains away from Rapatna. A few months ago the Chinese closed the main trade road running to this small Indian village. There are no major roads to Rapatna from the Indian side, and the village has been starving to death without supplies from China.</p><p></p><p>It took months just to get a simple road cleared. Even with modern technology, with explosives and computers and polymers and chemicals, it took months to turn a footpath into a road just wide enough to let the flatbed trucks through.</p><p></p><p>Up here, news from the outside world takes over a week to reach us. That turned out to be important.</p><p></p><p>We finally made it to Rapatna. <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15233" target="_blank">We didn’t have time to bridge the river, but the villagers ferried the bricks of meat over on makeshift rafts. It was inspiring. The villagers came out to help take the food in. They don’t get much meat up here, so we made sure to bring a lot. Poultry mostly, to avoid religious issues. All of it tightly packed into little bricks of protein. The building blocks of a new life.</a>(5)</p><p></p><p>The entire village waved at us from the banks, yelling thanks in languages I didn’t understand. It was like the choirs of heaven, singing my praises. They eventually left, one by one, until <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234" target="_blank">only a woman and her little girl were left, yelling at us from across the river. “You saved us. Thank You. We owe our lives to you.” Her voice meant more to me then she will ever know.</a>(1)</p><p></p><p>And now we’re heading back. It’s been 3 days since my little rescue mission left Rapatna. We’re just now getting in touch with civilization again. Cell phones buzz to life as we finally regain communication.</p><p></p><p>I got a call the moment my cell phone was in touch with the nearest tower.</p><p></p><p>It was the man who financed the humanitarian mission at Rapatna.</p><p></p><p>He said the meat was diseased.</p><p></p><p>Some kind of disease he said, make sure they don’t get the meat he said. I said nothing.</p><p></p><p>I couldn’t say anything.</p><p></p><p>Hello, he said.</p><p></p><p>Is there anybody there, he said.</p><p></p><p>It was shock. I know that now. My thoughts had just frozen, I couldn’t act.</p><p></p><p>Hello, he said.</p><p></p><p>I knew then. Rapatna was gone. Not physically gone, but gone, nonetheless. Everybody would be dead. </p><p></p><p>I sent a truck back to check, to find survivors, to save what they could. It came back empty handed.</p><p></p><p>They had all died painful, vomiting, convulsing, deaths. And it was my fault. I should have known. I should have checked the meat. Those bricks of meat had built a city of the dead.</p><p></p><p>With this on my mind, I think last night was my last good sleep for a while.</p><p></p><p>So now, on my way home, I try to avoid drifting off. I try to avoid falling asleep. Because I’m not sure what my mind holds for me.</p><p></p><p>I don’t know how I can cope with this grief, this guilt, this shattered responsibility. Maybe I’ll take up art. Something to provoke in others the same pain that I feel. Something to inflame. Something for the dead. Maybe something of the dead.</p><p></p><p>“To sleep, perchance to dream.” I’ve never really thought about that line before. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Anything to avoid thinking about the dead…</p><p></p><p>“To Sleep, Perchance to dream.”</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>(1) <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234" target="_blank">The memory of the women from Rapatna, seen across the river, as the narrator is leaving.</a></p><p>(2) <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15230" target="_blank">The egg from the dream, with the names of the villagers carved on it, holding their hope, being held in the narrator’s hands.</a></p><p>(3) <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15231" target="_blank">Rebuilding Rapatna in the narrator’s dream.</a></p><p>(4) <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15232" target="_blank">The girl from across the river, hugging the narrator, with her thorns digging into his flesh.</a></p><p>(5) <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15233" target="_blank">Villagers of Rapatna carrying the bricks of meat across the river.</a></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Macbeth, post: 1658447, member: 11259"] [i][size=1]Round 2, Match 2: Macbeth vs. Berandor[/size][/i] [size=6][b]Guilt[/b][/size] [i]By Sage LaTorra, a.k.a. Macbeth[/i] “To sleep, Perchance to dream.” He was talking about death, you know. Hamlet. When he said “sleep” he meant “die.” I never understood that, until recently. But now I see what he meant. I had the dream again. She was there again. I suffered again. And I still wake up every morning, still unforgiven. 12th night in a row I’ve had that dream. I think it may be driving me insane. Not medically insane, not DSM-IV insane, just not in my right mind. It’s not depression. I checked DSm-IV, and I don’t have the symptoms. Depression feels better then this. I don’t have the symptoms of depression. I just have my pain. No depressed appetite, no difficulty concentrating, no inability to get up and do things, and no sleep disorder (unless you count the dreams). I’m just going insane. Dostoyevsky had some interesting ideas on suffering. I never understood that, until recently. He suggested that you “accept suffering, and be redeemed by it.” I tried that. And I try it again every night. But I haven’t been redeemed. I don’t know how to deal with the pain. The guilt. I need to let it out. I need an outlet. I need to show my pain to others. Last night. Last night. Last night I was there again. The same dream. I was laying on my bed, eyes pointed to heaven, examining the cheap light fixture over head. The fake gold, the glass diamonds, the plastic crystals. All of it fake. The gilt hanging over me. It was one of those dreams, the ones where you’re not sure you’re dreaming. I’m still not sure if I was, come to think of it. My eyes had been closed for a while, my blinders to the world. I was safe inside my own head. Then she was there. Inside my eyelids, inside my head, a vision from what seemed like so long ago, I hoped I had forgotten it. The ephemeral shapes that danced across my closed eyes gathered, and she was there. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234]Her face turned at me, her daughter hiding in the long folds of her dress. The last image of a place I’ll never visit again. She said something, something I couldn’t hear. She said it from too far away, too long ago.[/url](1) And she faded, and my dream began, if it was a dream. I was in the mountains again, on my way to Rapatna. But the trucks weren’t there, the meat wasn’t there, it was just me, carrying it all in my hands. Literally. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15230]I held it all in my hands, a fragile egg, carrying the hope of it all. It was so small, not a thing with feathers, but a thin shell holding the yoke I had to carry, with names written on the shell. I had to look closely just to see the names, and with the logic of dreams, the words came into focus. A village by any other name. Every citizen, everything I was responsible for, all written on the shell that carried their salvation. The shell carried salvation, and I carried the shell.[/url] (2) And so I walked. I walked because I had gone this way before, a long time ago. I heard once that dreams are just your brain organizing information, and I guess that’s why I was walking the same way I had gone before. It was all symbolic. And so I walked, and hoped that I could carry the hope of others, the fragile shell that carried my yoke. The mountain crags, the barely cleared road, every rock, every stone was in my way. It was hard, because it had been hard before. But it wasn’t the rocks, the stones, the mountain crags, that made me drop the egg, the hope, the yoke. The gentle indifference of the world, the laws of my own mind, meant that I dropped it. It was my fault. Maybe I didn’t hold it tight enough, and it fell, or maybe I held it too tight, and it cracked. I didn’t know why, I was just struck by the simple realization that it was broken. The viscous center, the thing without feathers, the hope of so many people, ran down my fingers, like the blood of innocents. I fell to my knees on the cold mountain road, and let the shattered hope from the egg bearing the names that I was responsible for mingle with my tears. I woke up crying again. I had the dream again. Always the same. Same. Same. Same. Never the same actions, but always the same meaning. 8th night in a row I’ve had it. Maybe I’m going insane. But it’s not schizophrenia. I checked DSM-IV, and I don’t have the symptoms. I know I’m not hearing the voices. I know they aren’t out to get me. My thoughts are orderly. I’m just going insane. I fell asleep quickly last night. First time I can remember that I fell asleep quickly. It was like I wanted to hurt, I wanted to suffer. Maybe my suffering will help. It seems like I had barely closed my eyes, like I could still see the after-image of the gilt light fixture hanging over me, and she was there. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234]She just appeared, her daughter behind her, looking across the river at me, leaving with the trucks. The long hem of her dress fell away, like a waterfall of tears, a memory of a place I can never be again. She said something to me, on the edge of hearing. If I could have been just a little closer, focused just a little more, I could have heard her.[/url](1) And then I was in the town again. I had only seen it across a river when I had been there, but I knew I was there. I knew this was the village. And it was empty. I knew it was the village after I left. I wandered the street. I wandered the streets, knowing I was alone, knowing I wouldn’t find anybody. They were all gone. They only left their bones. And the city fell down around me. Around me. Because of me. They didn’t live here any more, so the city died with them. I ran. Not away from the buildings, but into them. I tried to die with them. I begged the collapsing buildings to take me with them; I wanted to die, like I should. They seemed to fall in slow motion. I tried to dive under every brick, tried to be crushed by every plank of wood, and I failed. Failure seems to be the only constant in my dreams. The city finally stopped dying, and, even more then before I was alone, alone in my defeat. I cried. I tried to wash my hands in the streams of absolution running from my eyes, the tears of regret, but I couldn’t be clean. My ever-bloody hands. The bones of the village, the bones of the villagers, the bones of my life, they all started to fade. I couldn’t let them fade. I couldn’t let them be forgotten. I moved to the nearest pile, and I started to build. I destroyed this, and I would rebuild it. And I built. From the bones of the town, I remade it in my own image. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15231]From the simple huts, the wood and bricks, the village held together by clay and community, I created a modern town. With the speed of thought, scaffolding assembled, buildings were born, and among it all I built. In the darkness of my heart, in the darkness of my dream I rebuilt it all. Rolling girders into place, turning the wreckage of a village into the skeleton of a town.[/url](3) And I rebuilt the people. Bone by bone, and of my own flesh, I brought them back to life. I was healed. I gave them my flesh, my blood, and I was healed. It was the first good dream I’ve had since I left the women on the other side of the river. I dream of a task worse then Sisyphus’ boulder, and it’s a good dream. And then it all went wrong. I hadn’t built it right. With the instant knowledge you only find in dreams, I knew it wasn’t right. I had brought them back to life, but now they were all me. I had remade the village, but it wasn’t Rapatna anymore, it was some bland amalgam of pseudo-American architecture. It wasn’t the rose of India, it was the dregs of America. I was in hell. I couldn’t stand being myself anymore, much less meeting myself. And now I was in the village of the damned. I stood helpless as my own flesh and blood, the villagers I had restored, the villagers who had cured me, brought the same doom on themselves as I had brought them. I couldn’t watch. I hid my eyes and cried. I woke up crying again. It’s odd. I’ve never had the same dream more then once. And now I’ve had the same dream for 3 nights in a row. Not the exact same, but the same events, the same feeling, just different imagery. I think it may be driving me crazy. But it’s not obsessive-compulsive disorder. I checked DSM-IV. I don’t have the symptoms. I’m not obsessed with germs, or symmetry. I don’t care about mirrors. I don’t focus on sexual behavior. I don’t feel like I need to check things, or arrange things, or clean, or horde. I’m just going insane. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234]The woman has been there every time. She stands on the other side of the river, watching us leave, her daughter hiding in the folds of her dress, the armor of a parent. As we leave she class across the river, “You saved us. Thank You. We owe our lives to you.” Her voice is distant, but the irony is not lost on me. They owe their lives to me.[/url](1) And then her image fades, and I’m standing in Rapatna. I’ve never been in the city, but I know that’s where I am. I know I’m in Rapatna. And Rapatna is alive. The dark skin of the Indians, walking about, doing business, living, is absolution for me. They aren’t dead, I was wrong, their still here. I didn’t kill them. I saved them. I saved them from starvation when China closed the trade road from Tibet. They’re all still here. And then I see the thorns. The people of Rapatna are still alive, but they’re not the same. They know that I shouldn’t be here. They know I’ll hurt them if I get too close. So they have thorns on their skin, to keep me away. The rose of India now has its thorns. They have thorns to keep me away, but they still invite me in. Children run up to me in the street hugging my leg, praising me for bringing the gift of food. And with every hug, their thorns cut me, gouge me, pry off my skin. I walk through the streets of Rapatna, and I don’t care that, for some reason I’m naked. This isn’t a dream about going to school in your underwear. This is a nightmare, and being naked is the least of my worries. It scares me, walking around the city I killed, seeing the dead walking. I know that I shouldn’t be here. I know they shouldn’t be here, anymore. But I’m happy they’re alive. I would let them cut me, slice me, wound me, as long as they’re alive. And the girl from across the river, the one hiding in the safety of her mother’s robes, runs up to me. I know she’s saying thank you, and all I can do is cry. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15232]She jumps onto me hugging me, throwing her arms and one of her legs around me, embracing me in thanks for saving her.[/url](4) And the cuts grow deeper. My eyes bleed and my wounds weep. I woke up crying again. I slept well last night. I don’t remember my dreams. The mountain air is sharp as the caravan winds its way through the mountains away from Rapatna. A few months ago the Chinese closed the main trade road running to this small Indian village. There are no major roads to Rapatna from the Indian side, and the village has been starving to death without supplies from China. It took months just to get a simple road cleared. Even with modern technology, with explosives and computers and polymers and chemicals, it took months to turn a footpath into a road just wide enough to let the flatbed trucks through. Up here, news from the outside world takes over a week to reach us. That turned out to be important. We finally made it to Rapatna. [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15233]We didn’t have time to bridge the river, but the villagers ferried the bricks of meat over on makeshift rafts. It was inspiring. The villagers came out to help take the food in. They don’t get much meat up here, so we made sure to bring a lot. Poultry mostly, to avoid religious issues. All of it tightly packed into little bricks of protein. The building blocks of a new life.[/url](5) The entire village waved at us from the banks, yelling thanks in languages I didn’t understand. It was like the choirs of heaven, singing my praises. They eventually left, one by one, until [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234]only a woman and her little girl were left, yelling at us from across the river. “You saved us. Thank You. We owe our lives to you.” Her voice meant more to me then she will ever know.[/url](1) And now we’re heading back. It’s been 3 days since my little rescue mission left Rapatna. We’re just now getting in touch with civilization again. Cell phones buzz to life as we finally regain communication. I got a call the moment my cell phone was in touch with the nearest tower. It was the man who financed the humanitarian mission at Rapatna. He said the meat was diseased. Some kind of disease he said, make sure they don’t get the meat he said. I said nothing. I couldn’t say anything. Hello, he said. Is there anybody there, he said. It was shock. I know that now. My thoughts had just frozen, I couldn’t act. Hello, he said. I knew then. Rapatna was gone. Not physically gone, but gone, nonetheless. Everybody would be dead. I sent a truck back to check, to find survivors, to save what they could. It came back empty handed. They had all died painful, vomiting, convulsing, deaths. And it was my fault. I should have known. I should have checked the meat. Those bricks of meat had built a city of the dead. With this on my mind, I think last night was my last good sleep for a while. So now, on my way home, I try to avoid drifting off. I try to avoid falling asleep. Because I’m not sure what my mind holds for me. I don’t know how I can cope with this grief, this guilt, this shattered responsibility. Maybe I’ll take up art. Something to provoke in others the same pain that I feel. Something to inflame. Something for the dead. Maybe something of the dead. “To sleep, perchance to dream.” I’ve never really thought about that line before. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Anything to avoid thinking about the dead… “To Sleep, Perchance to dream.” (1) [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15234]The memory of the women from Rapatna, seen across the river, as the narrator is leaving.[/url] (2) [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15230]The egg from the dream, with the names of the villagers carved on it, holding their hope, being held in the narrator’s hands.[/url] (3) [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15231]Rebuilding Rapatna in the narrator’s dream.[/url] (4) [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15232]The girl from across the river, hugging the narrator, with her thorns digging into his flesh.[/url] (5) [url=http://www.enworld.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=15233]Villagers of Rapatna carrying the bricks of meat across the river.[/url] [/QUOTE]
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