They drove north. Subdued. Trying not to be depressed. But every town they visited, large and small, was a reminder of the horror. Women trying to look their best in long flowing garments made of pleasantly designed and colourful materials, despite being shrouded from head to toe and followed by irritable husbands or brothers who would rather be somewhere else.
When possible the five men struck up conversations with couples in parks and on the street, ostensibly asking for directions. Most were too frightened to respond but the women whose husbands permitted them to speak said they weren't too fussed about the robes as they were actually cooler than sun frocks. What they deeply resented was being forced to wear them. And although no one admitted it, it was clear fro their behaviour that no one of either sex could see anything good about all the other new laws.
At the entrance to a town famed for its tomatoes and mangoes, Protectors were stopping all vehicles. After having their identity papers checked and scanned they were directed to the showgrounds, told to park, then to take a seat on any grandstand. There would be a short service in praise of God’s forgiveness and mercy, followed by the public chastisement of wrongdoers.
As it would be not only pointless but also exceedingly dangerous to protest, they smiled, thanked the Protection Officer and arrived ten minutes later at a pair of impressive stone gateposts surmounted by weather-beaten concrete kangaroos. The magnificent wrought iron gates were guarded by two young men in black boots, black Lycra shorts, T-shirts and caps. Trainee Protectors, they announced proudly when Fidel asked. A driveway, overhung by ancient trees disgorged them into a substantial car park. Bart and Robert arrived ten minutes later. Affecting not to know each other, they joined the crowds heading towards the stands.
‘Where'll we sit?’
‘As far from the front as possible. Thanks to Jacob, we've learned they're keen on audience participation.’
Fortuitously, Bart and Robert ended up sitting directly behind the other three at the top of one of the grandstands that encircled the oval grassed area where, on show days, farmers would parade their best stock, and on weekends inter-club cricket was played. The entire town appeared to be there and the ambience was an odd mixture of excitement, nervous anticipation and revolt.
Numerous black-clad guards increased the feverish atmosphere while quelling incipient high spirits. Having no idea what crimes were to be punished, they asked the couple next to them. The woman hid her face in her scarf and sobbed. Her husband told them it was a public punishment to act as warning to everyone of the consequences of disobeying JECHIS. It was the first they’d had in the town and they were hoping it’d be simply a warning; that nothing really bad would happen. His wife was worried sick because her sister was being tried for adultery and the punishment for that was...’ He looked pleadingly at Fidel and friends. ‘They wouldn’t really do that, would they? Not in this day and age? Surely we’re beyond such medieval cruelty?’
His listeners shook their heads in sympathy, and said they also hoped it would be just a warning, certain in their hearts that it wouldn’t be.
A large truck drove into the centre of the oval, hauling a trailer of the sort used by travelling circuses to carry lions and other wild beasts from town to town. There was movement behind the bars, but they were too far away to see what creatures were imprisoned.
‘Please tell me this isn't what I think it is.’
‘Ok, I won’t, but I also think it is.’
‘We don’t have to look.’
Hylas was right, they didn’t have to, but like everyone else they couldn’t take their eyes off the poor wretches. A trumpeted fanfare announced a black-clad figure who mounted a type of pulpit draped in black cloth, and began to speak. There was no obvious microphone nor any visible speakers, yet his voice seemed to come from beside each listener. Soft and warm. Deep and intimate—as if they were hearing the voice of god inside their heads.
‘Children of almighty God. Servants of the Lord of Creation. You are gathered here to affirm your obedience to the laws of your Father in Heaven revealed to you through the benevolence of the priests of JECHIS and carried out by their devoted servants the Protectors. Most of you are bravely fighting the original sin with which you were born. But sadly, there are among you men and women who have chosen not to quell their arrogant and selfish notions of individual rights, and have angered God; in the process shaming everyone else. Today, praise the Lord, You will all witness, and some will have the honour of assisting in, the chastisement of those who have betrayed you, thus gaining honour in the eyes of the Lord.’ He stopped speaking and gazed around as if seeking out evildoers. In the silence everyone’s hearts thumped, certain the speaker knew of their traitorous thoughts and wrongdoing. When he continued speaking, a soft sigh of released breath and tension flowed from the assembled sinners.
‘From this day on there will be a monthly public chastisement, which every citizen must attend. Also, every citizen is henceforth required to confirm his or her allegiance to JECHIS and god by attending prayer meetings in one of the reconsecrated temples on Sundays. Your attendance, or lack of it will be noted, and those who fail to honour god with their attendance will be suitably chastised. Stand and pray.’
Everyone stood and bowed their heads.
‘Almighty father in heaven, maker and creator of all things, forgive us our sins by granting each of us burdens that, by bearing without complaint, we may prove our love of thee and our abject devotion. Amen.’
A rallying blast from the trumpet announced the dragging of the first sinners from the cage, weeping and crying their innocence, their regret, their contrition. They stood in trembling fear before the priest who gazed down with an expression of the utmost compassion.
‘You, my children, have been foolish. You have disputed the authority of God’s servants. You have disobeyed the will of those who serve him. You have questioned his right to dispose of you as he will. You have profaned our city. Your eternal souls are in peril unless your recalcitrant hearts are purged of insolence. In his infinite compassion god has arranged a penance which, if you accept in the spirit in which it is served, will redeem you in his eyes.’
The twelve sinners were then stripped and tied to stakes by Protectors, while other guardians of God’s justice and love selected healthy young men from the stands. Reluctantly they moved to the arena, were handed canes, and told to lash the sinners till the blood ran. The first man refused, so was himself tied to a post and lashed till he sagged, bleeding and insensible. The other amateur assistants then quickly took up their weapons and set to with a fury that astounded their fellows on the stands. On returning to their seats every one hung their heads, mortified.
The entire stadium was silent as if everyone was terrified to breathe in case that would be seen as disrespectful. The woman beside Fidel suddenly stopped sobbing and gasped. ‘There’s my sister. Oh please don’t let them hurt her…’ Her voice sank to a trembling wail. Her husband encased her shoulders in a protective arm.
Another trumpet call and the priest raised his arm. Frowning. A chill of fear ran through the assembled crowd. 'Daughter,' said he, addressing the naked, trembling, terrified woman, 'you have been guilty of a heinous crime. You have had sexual intercourse with a man other than your husband. You have disobeyed the will of God. You have shamed yourself, your husband, your father and your father’s father and performed your vile acts under your husband’s roof in his absence. You have profaned his sanctuary with your crime. Your husband will avenge the crime committed against him.’
The husband, who clearly regretted denouncing his spouse, was handed a baseball bat, then the pair were locked in a cage large enough for him to swing his weapon.
‘Avenge god and reclaim your honour as a man!’ the priest shouted. ‘The gate will not be opened until the harlot is dead.’
The wife sank to her knees and pleaded. Her husband stood above in anguish, lowered his club and turned to the priest and said he wished to pardon her. He was told it was too late. When he still hesitated a Protector shoved a cattle prod through the bars of the cage pressing it against the man repeatedly until, screaming in agony from the high voltage shocks he smashed his club onto the head of his supplicating wife, killing her instantly. A great sigh rose from the watching crowd as Protectors dragged the dead body out of the cage, followed by the stumbling, dazed, bewildered husband.
The final act of the afternoon’s macabre exhibition of God’s mercy and goodness was also the most horrible. Three men and two women, all naked, were led by ropes tied around their necks onto what looked like a large barbeque grill, raised a few centimetres above the ground on bricks. The ropes were tied securely to a central pole projecting from the grid, jamming their heads together, leaving the rest of their bodies unfettered but unable to do more than writhe. Nervous laughs erupted from several overwrought onlookers.
A trumpet sounded. The priest gazed down on his victims and shook his head in disgust. ‘My children,’ said he, ‘you are guilty of the abominable crime of worshipping false gods. You have been holding secret religious services of a banned cult, and have insidiously and meanly dared to do this beneath the sacred roof of a newly consecrated temple. You have profaned that sanctuary with your crime. You have insulted God, your father. Your punishment is to be purified in holy fire that will consume the sin from your souls so they may enter the kingdom of heaven.’
A Protector stepped forward and bent over the grill. With a whoosh that could be heard on the topmost rank of the stadium, flames erupted from under the sinners’ feet, fed by gas burners directly beneath. The victims screamed, swayed, couldn’t fall, writhed, and continued to scream as the stench of burning flesh reached to the heavens where apparently it would appease the righteous wrath of God. It was a truly horrible death as their flesh melted and burned slowly from their feet up. Death took a very long time to arrive because, unlike the traditional medieval Roman Catholic auto da fé which used a wooden pyre, the smoke of which asphyxiated the victims long before the flesh fell from the bones, with gas there was no smoke, no relatively easy death, only a long, excruciatingly agonising incineration.
When the last corpse stopped twitching the gas was turned off and in the silent arena it seemed no one dared move, let alone speak…in case.
None of the spectators looked at anything but their feet as they shuffled back to their cars and homes; escaping physically, but not mentally from something more terrifyingly vile than they could ever have imagined.
Ten minutes later and five kilometres distant the five renegades parked in a side road, then gathered in Bart’s vehicle.
‘I don’t want to stay in this town.’
‘Neither do I, Fidel. But do you think it’s different anywhere else?’
They agreed that probably nowhere was better, but they drove away all the same, spending the night in an abandoned farm shed. No one wanted to eat, or even talk about what they'd seen. Silently they prepared their beds, then lay awake, wondering what on earth they were going to do. How could they survive? And did they even want to in such a world?
The following day a sudden impulse drove them along a barely visible, dusty track that looked as if it might head across the bleak plain towards the western hills. There was no signpost to indicate where it went, or if it went anywhere, which made it all the more attractive. The urge to avoid other humans was overpowering. The drove silently between burned out cane fields, skirted the still-smouldering ruins of a farmhouse, then more fields of charred sugar cane. After crossing several cattle stops they arrived at a small stream, on the far side of which a mass of huge gray boulders protected the base of a steep, rocky hillside devoid of vegetation. They got out and smelled the air. Dusty, dry, but not unpleasant. Not smoky. No birds called. Utter silence. Oppressive. Hot and humid despite the cloudy sky.
‘I like this place. It reflects my state of mind. Lets stay a while.’
‘Ok, if the water’s drinkable.’
It was, and although not deep enough to swim, was refreshing to lie in. An exploratory hike along the streambed led them into a narrow gorge, then up a series of waterfalls that ran between and over giant boulders where loose stones had eroded circular pools. They spent the day as high as they could climb up the narrow valley. The sea was visible as a flat line of slightly darker blue-grey than the land.
There had been no rain since the bushfire so the trees and shrubs were still black and bare, and the sight of burned wallabies, kangaroos, bandicoots and lizards that had been trapped at the end of the canyon was a depressing a reminder of God’s retribution. Talking, thinking, cooling off in the water followed by more talk helped reduce the experience at the showgrounds to something they could process without wanting to scream. Hunger sent them back to their encampment feeling less angry but more helpless, a state of mind that persisted for five days until they ran out of food.
‘Now that JECHIS has turned the country into somewhere we don’t want to live,’ Robert said seriously, ‘how about we just stay here drinking only water until we die? I've read it isn't a terrible death. After a few days the desire for food vanishes and you just get more and more tired, and after a week or so fall asleep and die painlessly.’
‘Is it really that hopeless?’
‘It’s pointless to think we can change anything.’
‘That’s true, Robert, but life is pointless. We each have to invent our own raison d’être.’
‘I’m not unhappy. I'm shocked and horrified at the cruelty, even though I know it’s no different from the way most humans have always been controlled and regulated. I just fear we won’t be able to avoid notice and will end up on that grill. It might feel like a game, but it isn't.’
‘It sure isn't a game, Robert!’ Bart was finding it difficult to speak. ‘I’d certainly prefer to starve myself to death than be stoned or incinerated by those monsters.’
‘I still don’t understand how JECHIS managed to take control so easily.’
‘One of the humanity’s many weaknesses, Hylas, is to desire a strong leader—one who knows everything. But no one knows everything, so we follow the guy who says he does, especially when he says he has a hotline to the bloke who made the universe. It’s unadulterated superstition, unworthy of a species that considers itself rational. Another human weakness is that we’re basically honest, and therefore credulous, and therefore easily manipulated. We want to believe our leader, so we do. We’re also inconstant. What yesterday affected us strongly is today but a vague memory, and to-morrow will be disregarded. Humans have always ignored the lessons of history and we’re suffering the consequences. Add to this each individual’s certainty that it could never happen to him or her, and you can see how easy it is for mountebanks to take control.’
‘And where, oh sage, is happiness in all this?’
‘Arnold! You sweetheart. No one’s ever called me a sage before. As for happiness, I'm usually a miserable sod. Robert’s the happy one.’
Robert looked up as if startled. ‘Me? I just muddle along. In one of our Economics lectures we talked about the idea of happiness being an important aspect of advertising. Economists are a cynical lot. They reckoned we had to tell the masses the truth about the way the world works so they’ll realise that everything, both good and bad is pointless, and will sink into despair. That's when the clever salesman steps in offering objects guaranteed to give happiness.’
Fidel was shocked. ‘That is so sick. Filling your life with stuff is not happiness, it’s nothing but fleeting pleasure. Happiness is a gentle, lasting state, experienced when one’s life and actions are based on virtue, which is the offspring of reason, and therefore permanent.’ He looked around at four amused faces and blushed.
‘Them’s weighty words, Fidel. What do you mean by virtue?’
‘Those aren't my words. They're from a book by Anne Radcliffe.’ He blushed again. ‘A Sicilian Romance.’
‘Where’d you find it?’
‘It’s an eBook from Project Gutenberg. As for virtue, for me it’s what feels right or good. If I feel shame or embarrassed or doubtful then it isn't virtue. Of course it depends on people accepting the basic premise that we should at least do no harm. Otherwise the JECHIS priest’s actions would be virtuous, but they aren't because they do harm and, most importantly, they’re based on superstition, not reason.’
‘So… if I feel good when I'm sharing and not being greedy, that’s virtue, and when I'm in that situation I’ll be happy?’
‘You’ll be in a position to be happy, but you have to be emotionally ready to be happy.’
‘So the priest wasn’t happy?’
‘I think he is planning to be happy by having total power over everyone, and this was an important step towards that. So he was probably pleased but won’t allow himself to be happy until he has the entire world grovelling in terror.’
‘And will he be happy then?’
‘No, because he is doing harm, therefore he will live in fear that his power will be usurped and the same thing will happen to him.’
‘You're right,’ Robert said thoughtfully. ‘Suzie said something years ago that sticks in my head. If you want to be happy, then want what’s possible. All I've ever wanted is to have someone to love and be loved by and for us to be independent of the world. And I've actually got that, so I guess I'm happy.’
‘You don’t sound very sure.’ Bart said wryly.
‘Oh, I'm sure, it’s just that I've suddenly seen where I'm going wrong at the moment.’
‘And that is?’
‘I’m wanting what’s not possible.’ He shrugged. ‘JECHIS has won. There's nothing I can do to reverse that, so I’ll start from there and concentrate on taking care of us. That’s a virtuous enough plan to keep me from falling into dread despair.’
‘I agree with Robert, about loving and being loved,’ Arnold said thoughtfully. ‘That’s the most important thing, but we really aren't independent, are we? As far as I can see we’re going to be forever dependent on civilization—if we want to live.’
‘What we need is a nice little farm, totally private with permanent water and good soil so we can be self sufficient.’
‘Exactly, Hylas. Have you seen one like that?’
‘No. And now I think about it, I haven't seen even one for sale sign since we started driving north. That's very odd.’
‘Remember that notice we saw in a newspaper a couple of weeks ago? It didn’t mean much to me at the time, as we don’t own any property, but now I realise the implications. JECHIS has resumed all titles and now owns the entire state, in the same way kings have always have done. Actually, the state has always had the power to take any land they want. Everyone has always been a tenant in reality, paying land rates, taxes and so on. All that's changed is that JECHIS don’t have to waste time going through the courts to take whatever they want. That means they’ve also taken over all food-growing properties—so no farm for us.’
‘Yeah. I remember now. We’re too late. Too late for anything good it seems. I wish I was old and had had my life and would die before it get’s worse.’ Arnold looked down in the vain hope of preventing the others from seeing how depressed he really was.
‘We’ve all had good lives so far compared with most people, Arnold. Please don’t be depressed.’ Hylas wrapped an arm around Arnold’s shoulders, precipitating a few salty tears that dripped onto his knees.
‘Hylas is right, Arnold. We love you as much as we love ourselves and it really hurts to see you unhappy.’ Fidel stroked his lover’s hand. ‘You don’t have to put up with the horror. You can die now if you really want to. I promise we won’t stop you.’
Arnold looked into Fidel’s eyes searching for sarcasm, but found only deep compassion. ‘Would you miss me?’
‘Don’t be a fuckwit! It’d be like cutting out a piece of our hearts. But we aren't you. We can never know exactly how much you’re hurting. We not only love you but also respect your right to use, abuse and dispose of your life as you wish.’
Arnold sniffed and looked up in surprise. ‘Hey! You're right! I've never thought if it like that. It’s true. I can kark it whenever I want.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Look at me, I'm grinning like an idiot because now I know I can kill myself whenever I want to, I don’t mind living. I was thinking I had to go on and on until someone else decided. Fuck that's a liberating thought. Thanks Fidel.’
‘Any time. But I’m glad you'll be hanging around a bit longer. We’d both miss you, wouldn’t we Hylas?’
Hylas wiped tears from his cheeks, and managed a strangled, ‘Yes.’
Fidel ruffled his brother’s hair. ‘You're such a sentimental bloke, that's one of a thousand reasons I love you.’
‘And we too would be very sorry to see you depart prematurely,’ Bart added, unwilling to say more in case he too cried.