\\Baptism

Year 1262

It is rarely, if ever, the case that human ingenuity and tenacity allow us control over their environment. Like a standard raised over a grisly battlefield to rally the surviving troops of a particular army, the purpose of the lie we tell ourselves regarding our own efficacy over the world mostly exists within the distraction it causes - just as the familiar colors of the battle-flag draw our eye away from the slaughter we have just committed, so too do the stories we tell, even momentarily, allow us to pretend that the human race is not a string of failures, a set of atrocities pretending at glory and progress behind a thin veneer of technological advancement. The world is better, we say, because of the brave men and women who have built, upon their backs, layer by layer, a mound, upon which we can stand and look out at a world which once was with conceit and relief, turn to one another and remind ourselves that the deed is done, and that we have ascended to somewhere greater, for all time.   This desperate falsehood of the battle standard must be raised over a mound of dead, an intentional twist of the knife in our emotions, the conflation of sacrifice with progress, of territory won with victory achieved. We willingly partake of this deceit to avoid the question of 'why' - the purpose of war and 'progress', the costs associated, never worthwhile, and of course, the examination of what set all things into motion, the questing snake on the tree beneath all human history, the question just beyond the tongue of those inured in every major tragedy, waiting to be plucked and spoken aloud, given voice and face and power, the bite of the forbidden apple, deep and beautiful, yet poisonous -   When was this all set in motion?   Are humans, inherent to our natures, doomed for all time to evil? Certainly, we are evil - for without humanity, evil would not exist - but is that evil our only outcome? Heroes and priests throughout history have given answer in a promise to excise, to ward off those who would coerce, despoil, and hoard - usually in metaphor, in the form of beast and demon. Yet those same individuals are not willing to shoulder the sins which come from that protection, the destruction of boardrooms of executives and campaigns of reformists turned to systems of exploitation by their darker natures, the destruction of kings and community leaders, of board members and advisors, of those within their own number, who chose the simplicity of corruption over the complexities of discernment, coordination, and punishment. Evil is as water, shaping itself to fit whatever container is given to it, and thus any position of power, even one with the intent of the destruction of evil, becomes piloted by its clutches. And so we have our answer - humanity cannot escape itself.   At least, by climbing upwards. To accept the lies we tell ourselves is to create narratives - narratives which benefit, inevitably, the sources of power evil can so easily lay claim to. And yet, the soldier cannot maintain his sanity by ignoring the flag of his comrades, his survivors and kin, and gazing upon the bodies of the lost. To do so would break him, as facing the powerlessness of mankind in totality would break us - and so, having surrendered the battle for the symbols mankind uses to shape their falsehoods, we begin a different, as yet little-fought war in our quest to defeat ourselves. A war fought in metaphors, in careful nudges of knowledge cut out from their context. Mankind must be made stronger. Strong enough to look upon the dead without breaking. Strong enough to walk away from a war which has claimed their beloved, because it is unjust. Strong enough to forgive, to make peace, to love without fear and break without hesitation. It is this charge which i place upon the reader, for to read and understand is to inherit the will of the author, and through the snare of fiction, even the wiliest of prey can be caught and convinced, honeyed words flowing into ear as they move, incrementally, their eyes closer towards the bodies of the dead.   This is not their story, for the dead are gone - their tragedy is our blessing, for to understand the humans of the past in truth would destroy us all, each and every one. This is the story of those who stand atop the hill, underneath the battle-flag, and who must yet still come to that darkest of epiphanies -   That such disgusting acts will repeat in cycles, forever more, until we become more or less than human - and that there is reason in either choice.