impure_tale: (the marquis disapproves of this shit)
impure_tale ([personal profile] impure_tale) wrote2012-11-11 02:28 pm

210

In light of our most recent port, I have given much thought to the idea of beheadings. I realize that for many, this is a subject far too close to the collar for them to comfortably discuss. For their benefit, I have hidden any offending commentary. Those who wish to carry on may, and I have given ample warning for anyone that might be too disturbed by the subject matter.


It is not really my style to report to my readers in stilted, conversational language. When I put pen to paper it is to weave a tapestry that at least looks attractive if you are good at not thinking, not comprehending the meanings of the words. This rather comforted me once, but today I wish to speak frankly:

Those of you that know my history or have read from the Barge Book still in progress understand that I survived a time in my nation known in later years as the Reign of Terror, so known because former aristocrats and suspected monarchists were executed by Madame Guillotine by the tens of thousands. Anyone could be accused and only the supremely lucky avoided sentencing. I was one of those lucky few, having avoided execution, the history books say, by clerical error alone. However, my cell had a dismal, nigh-unavoidable view of the guillotine beneath my window. I saw men, women and children, some familiar some not, of all bearings, weep, beg for their lives, resist the hooded men bearing them to the scaffold.

I also saw, uncomprehending at first, well enough to know that not every one of them immediately died upon severance.

Our port might have been rather unusual in that no one truly seemed to die, it put me in mind of that. It led me to think more of those who were rather permanently separated from their bodies, of the studies and accounts I have since read of heads responding to light, the sound of their names being spoken, and other stimuli, for as much as thirty seconds after the cut.

I still shudder to think.

I do not envy those that suffered in port, which is most everyone, many of whom suffered a great deal more than I. I certainly did not enjoy essentially reliving my time in that prison, and the walls of that cell in Wonderland are papered with ramblings and nonsense to prove it had taken hold of something in me I had once thought quite dead. The madness, the fear that comes of it.

The guilt. Guilt that you survived. Guilt that people you know and respect are suffering while you are powerless to act.

I am sorry, fellow denizens. So very sorry.
deadliestviper: (and considering the student....)

[personal profile] deadliestviper 2012-11-11 09:59 pm (UTC)(link)
The guillotine was used as much as a psychological torture device as an execution method, but usually beheading is one of the least painful and quickest ways of death. Consider some of the ways you could go and you'll realize thirty seconds of dying isn't a very long time.

Still, in a twisted nonsense Wonderland sort of way it makes some sense. Cut the head off a snake and it can still bite you.
Edited 2012-11-11 22:21 (UTC)
deadliestviper: (alone at the bar)

[personal profile] deadliestviper 2012-11-11 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
Point taken, sorry. You must have quite the history.

In some ways I think it did. "Just because" is a reason, after all, if not a very good one. So is "to drive you crazy."

What's wrong with morbid?
deadliestviper: (and what pray tell is that?)

[personal profile] deadliestviper 2012-11-11 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, you never know what kids these days are up to.

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love_slave: (zev - angsting)

[personal profile] love_slave 2012-11-11 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[This sounds painfully familiar to her.] It's disgusting.

I'm sorry my inmate put you through that again. I'd never want you to have to relive that experience.
love_slave: (zev - suspicious)

[personal profile] love_slave 2012-11-11 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I think you should- not to get away, but because old friends and lovers are still important. They're what make life worth living.
love_slave: (zev - brilliant)

[personal profile] love_slave 2012-11-12 05:37 am (UTC)(link)
I think that's a very enlightened way to think. [She already likes him.]
keepsthemsafe: (DAFUQ)

Rei, I am so sorry.

[personal profile] keepsthemsafe 2012-11-12 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
[Someone is in their cell in zero reading all of this and every single word hits home.

And it just makes him angry.]


The fuck you know about sorry.

[The bald man is furious] What about people who suffer but don't have the option' of bein' judged? Bein' judged is the good part. At least they had a chance to prove their innocence, t'get free. At least there was law. Any law. No matter how bad, that's needed.

[As opposed to Atlanta after the outbreak. As opposed to the military taking their own lies in hand. He remembers a soldier just as they were fleeing the city and the look on his face as the weapon was raised - relief.]

keepsthemsafe: (guns)

[personal profile] keepsthemsafe 2012-11-12 12:53 am (UTC)(link)
...You ever lived without law old man?

[Shane just glares at him. Prison he figured he should treat like prison, so he's stripped off his shirt to just glare angrily at him looking like something out of Oz or a similar show.] without order? No structure? just people watchin' everything crumble?

keepsthemsafe: (pic#5011519)

[personal profile] keepsthemsafe 2012-11-12 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
[suspicious squint] No you 'aven't. If you had you wouldn't be so quick to shit on law and order that's needed.

Who the hell are you anyway?

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kidblue: I SURVIVED BRUCE WILLIS (smug as all fuck)

[personal profile] kidblue 2012-11-12 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
[ Kid Blue's trying to figure out why Madame Guillotine is such a bitch before he realizes that it's an ancient torture device, and when he scrunches his nose up at the rest of the other's monologue it isn't out of disgust. It's because he's concentrating. Actually paying attention. ]

Well aren't you a mighty fine piece a' work. [ When he says it, there's a light--light--smirk playing at his lips. ] Didn't know about heads movin' and shit when they got hacked off. Kinda cool.
kidblue: who the fuck am i kidding ): (i got the swagger)

[personal profile] kidblue 2012-11-12 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
I been close to carnage, just not loppin' heads off, huh? Mostly arms and stuff. Ears. Shit like that, huh? [ If that's even what the Marquis is saying--Kid's squinting, but it's more to try to keep track of what the other's saying. He's not the most educated, not is he the most eloquent. Shit, he barely knows how to read, so keeping up conversation like this is kind of a challenge.

A good thing he likes challenges.
]

They ever talk to you when they're squirmin' in the basket or wherever?
kidblue: (hold the phone for a sec)

[personal profile] kidblue 2012-11-12 03:47 am (UTC)(link)
Huh. [ Oh. Right. That would make sense. Think before you speak next time, idiot. ]

Y'don't speak like most folks here, huh? And that whole Ms Giloteen And shit. When you from?
Edited 2012-11-12 03:47 (UTC)

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doctor_j_crane: Crane looking to the left, making a weird face. (Not awesome)

[personal profile] doctor_j_crane 2012-11-12 08:28 am (UTC)(link)
This isn't your fault. It's just a port.
doctor_j_crane: Crane walking. (Walking like a boss)

[personal profile] doctor_j_crane 2012-11-12 08:41 pm (UTC)(link)
That's true, but not everything that happens in said port is your responsibility. Some things are outside of your control.