The Court of Will
Author: Alzo David-West
“Citizen. You are called before the Court of Will.”
“What’s my crime, Counsel?”
“Your crime, Citizen, is that of being born outside the Will of the State.”
“My birth was out of my control. I had no choice in it.”
“No, Citizen. Your parents, who were banned to reproduce, fertilized what would be you, and from there, you were responsible.”
“Responsible? My fertilization? It’s a law of nature, biology. I didn’t control any of it, not even how my cells divided.”
“That is wrong, Citizen. The innate will of your life is your own. Had it not been so, then you would not have been conceived and here today.”
“I wasn’t even a person. I was a zygote. I wasn’t yet me.”
“You were then, as now, a life, Citizen. A life with your own will and way.”
“I wasn’t conscious, Counsel.”
“You were still a life, a potential consciousness, which became a sensory consciousness and then a personal consciousness.”
“But how can this make me guilty? No one’s born out of their own free will. It’s an accident of life.”
“You are right, Citizen. Your birth was not the Will of the State.”
“I can’t understand this. It’s all a circle.”
“There is no circle in the Court of Will.”
“Then, explain it to me. I at least have the right to understand, shouldn’t I?”
“The people exist for the State, not the State for the people. The State plans life; the State conserves life; and the State ends life.”
“Why? Tell me why. Because my parents were unauthorized to have me? Because birth incriminated a child? It makes no sense. I’m a citizen with an ‘r’ number. It’s r902504. I’m a working person. My life is authorized.”
“Your individual life was conserved for the necessary duration in State life. Now, your conservation is surplus. Your life is unnecessary.”
“Unnecessary? I’ve lived forty-five years! I’ve done everything as a loyal citizen of the State! My parents’ personal decision wasn’t my crime!”
“Your emotions are unruly, Citizen. You are in contempt of the Court of Will.”
“Everyone … has emotions, Counsel.”
“They are an added penalty to your crime.”
“Let me say something. Please. Let me appeal my right to live as a citizen.”
“You are unauthorized to appeal. That is the Will of the State.”
“Then, if that’s the case, I’ll say it anyway since it doesn’t matter, because it’s all ‘unauthorized’ and has always been ‘unauthorized,’ from the day I was a decision in the minds of two people who the State didn’t approve.”
“That is correct, Citizen. And all further statements you make shall reconfirm your anti-State crime.”
“I’m a citizen of the State. I’m not unnecessary. I’m a sovereign social being regardless of anything the Court says.”
“Our sovereignty is the Universal Power to preserve our unified integrity of individual persons, with the citizens organized in the Great Organic State, whose mass right to rule is exercised under the Universal Will of State life and its mass bodies.”
“Nothing you say changes who I am, or that I’ve experienced, or that I’ve known what it is to be sad and to be happy, or that I’ve lost and worked, or that I’ve dreamed, or that I’ve … loved. Nothing, nothing changes the fact that I lived until today, because those are the facts that happened, and they’ll never change.”
“Upon the closing of this hearing, you, your ‘r’ number, your record, your domain, and your memory shall be permanently erased. There will be no unnecessary facts. Do you understand, Citizen?”
“And after I die, do you really believe no one will remember me?”
“No one will remember because the State wills it. Our integrity will forget you and that you ever were.”
“You too, Counsel? Will you forget what you saw and heard before your eyes today — this shameful mockery, this sham hearing, this outrageous show trial?”
“Yes, Citizen, I, too, will forget all.”
“It doesn’t matter. The facts don’t change. So I’ll die. We all die. Then, one day, you and all the Silent Witnesses before us here, and out there, and everyone else will die, too. We’ll all be equals in death. Then, the new world will replace you. That’s something none of you can ever change.”
“The Court of Will is now concluded, Citizen. The verdict stands and is reconfirmed. You are unnecessary.”
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
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