Friday, March 13, 2009

Mining for Answers

Obscurity engulfed him, his universe refined to the fine point: this moment. Life and death lay in the balance and the options had to be weighed.

In the caverns of his mind he sought illumination. Chipping away at the veins of wisdom, he sought wealth. The brittle walls sparked and burnt at the toil. In the dark he labored, wrought and hunched under the weight of his uncertainty.

His dilemma was one of justice. For ten thousand years men framed laws to support justice, but laws gave him no comfort; his was a struggle to claw for what was right not what was legislated.

One question rang in the chambers of his mind: was death the just retribution for a man’s crimes?

“You can’t make up for your past sins” echoed a voice from under the hill.

Isaac Nesson was a traitor, a murderer, a liar and a collaborator. For that he deserved punishment, but what would satisfy justice? To kill him seemed draconic for there was hope in the man: this sheriff now displayed a genuine desire to protect the innocent and serve good.

On bended knee he sought what lied beneath, what lies within; sifting through the dirt to find a nugget of truth sparkle through the obfuscating matter.

He thought of Vonyran and his past affiliations with Green and had to believe in rehabilitation. More pointedly, he remembered that Delacroix committed heinous acts and now sought to make reparations for those evils. Hill died believing one could not, maybe because he died too soon?

The rhadamanthine answer is not set in stone, it is not found in the inscriptions of law nor in the simplicity of vengeance. Justice must be mined from Hope. If there is hope in a man, the possibility of redemption, than Justice demands he toil to make amends.

But not every man has claim to hope, not every man will deliver the promise of recovery.

An inelegant solution, full of uncertainty and bound to demand sweat and blood, but to extract justice one must slog under hope.

‘Isaac Neeson you stand accused of capital crimes, you are hereby sentenced to life as a just man, striving to redeem yourself by helping others without possibility of reprieve or parole, ‘til death takes you and you are judge again in the hereafter.’

When you execute a man, the only thing that dies is the hope of his redemption.

Hope is the shaft of light and channel of air that sustains the man who claws at the answers that reside in the darkest depths. He does not seek the surface nor escape; that path lay clearly lit, it is behind him. He seeks to reach those who are buried beneath.

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Hermes 72 - Heavy Gear RPG - Most artwork Copyright 2002 Dream Pod 9, Inc.