Authors: Mark Lavorato
And so it continued, endlessly, day after day after day. They drew on examples, cases, models, paradigms, and historical references that proved, beyond any shadow of doubt, the complete malevolence of the human condition. And if I thought I could see an inconsistency somewhere, they had seen it months before, and would point it out before I even had the chance to, brusquely explaining how it wasn't an inconsistency at all, and then backing that claim up at length. They had thought of every angle, every hole, every weakness, and were completely prepared to patch them over with better arguments, impenetrable reasoning, and - to be honest with myself - entirely superior intellect. They were organized, resourceful, deliberate, and systematic. I was outmatched in every way.
I started to feel deadened, torn down, worn out. I would sit for hours at a time, listening to their every dismal word, feeling fetid, ashamed of my race, ashamed of the history I'd never even known existed. And the worst part of it was that I couldn't shut them out, couldn't even retreat into my own mind, as the image of the people in my thoughts, even the core of my memories, weren't reliable anymore. The fibre of my past, present, and future had become too gauzy to hide behind; there were no folds to escape into, no familiar ground to run across; nothing was the same. And really, if I thought about it, nor was I - my role in life had completely changed. And this was a strange realization to come to: I could only exist as someone else after this was finished, couldn't live as the same person ever again. Because the purpose of my existence, the
sense
of my being had twisted into a completely new shape without my say, and it was obvious that I couldn't bend it back. What was I going to do? Who was I going to be? But mostly, did I really have a choice in the matter?
I spent a haunted and sleepless night thinking this over, tossing in bed, a handful of hair in my fist. In the end, as far as I could figure out, there were only two options: either contort myself to fit into their mould as far as my beliefs would allow, or dismiss them as lunatics and live the rest of my life with them, further constrained, and having to drift aimlessly through an empty reality. Not exactly a hard decision.
And like Dana said, was it really so horrible, were they really asking so much - wander around new places that were rejuvenating themselves, live from the landscapes that I'd only seen pictured in books, traverse hills, mountains, forests, rocky shorelines, all while deepening lifelong friendships? The Elders seemed pretty doubtful that any of these expeditions would ever come across people, so it wasn't as if we would have any blood on our hands. And even if we did find somebody there wouldn't be any blood, it was simply a matter of slipping them something in their food and moving on. It seemed clean, unassuming, easy.
Once, the thought crossed my mind that I wouldn't even
have
to
follow through with what the Elders instructed me to do. But that idea quickly faded away. I knew all too well that they would see the slightest inkling of doubt from miles away. In fact, it was the only thing they were looking for. If I promised one thing while intending another, I'd be caught - plain and simple. And I knew it. They would see a concealed plan as vividly as they'd seen what we'd done to a lizard in our childhood. Because it wasn't a matter of knowing specifics, it was only a matter of sensing a flicker of hesitation at the right moment; and they'd probably already planned that moment - a barrage of quick and exposing questions up their sleeve, being saved until I was so exhausted, my guard lowered into a drained apathy, that I would tell them anything. No. If I had a plan to circumvent them, they had a plan to see through it like water.
So the solution was easy: if the only way for me to get off the island was to be the leader of the expedition, and the only way to be selected as that leader was to believe in The Goal, then I would have to choose to believe in it, and trust that what the Elders were doing was right. And as crazy as that rationale sounds to me now, it really was that simple. And maybe it's always this simple - for all of us. We select our beliefs from the world around us, stitch them together into a tapestry of common threads, carefully ignore the contradictions, and then boldly stand behind them, ready to be led.
The next day, they commented that my attitude appeared to have changed overnight, that I was more attentive, eager, more interested in what was being discussed. They were ecstatic (or at least as ecstatic as the Elders ever got about anything), and I caught them exchanging a few encouraging grins throughout the day. Of course, I'd prepared myself for an internal battle before the day began, thinking that I would be straining to agree with them on every issue, that I would have to compromise my deepest philosophies at every turn, but I found that this wasn't the case. Their points were concrete, well founded, well thought out. In fact, the most challenging thing about them was their truth, or rather, how much that truth grated against my instincts.
Sometimes, as a matter of making a strong point even stronger, we would stop to pick apart some of humanity's ugliness; and to do this, we would use ourselves as an example, maybe recalling times that we'd abused what little leverage we had over our 'loved ones', and inflicted a bit of 'socially acceptable' damage, savouring the taste of our petty cruelty afterwards, smirking to ourselves with our backs turned. I would shake my head, amazed at the reality of it. They were right. We all
really
did these things - which sparked an obvious question: if we did this to each other everyday, motiveless, and living under ideal conditions, what kinds of things would we (the very people around us, the very people we thought of as mild and benign) do to each other if the vice of our culture were tightened a bit? And of course, if I happened to wonder these things aloud, the Elders would have an explicit answer ready for me. Well, they would say, reaching across for another book of graphic pictures - pictures of emaciated corpses piled so high they needed giant shovelling machines just to move them - let us show you what happens.
Slowly, gradually, over the course of the days that passed, I started to understand, in a very odd way, what they were trying to do. In the biggest possible picture, this wasn't really a horrific act; true, it was extreme and controversial, but it was also the most logical way to counter our wrongs, our conduct, our very nature. It was about accepting a responsibility that reached out so far beyond what was seen as realistic or attainable, that it dipped into a region that appeared fanatical. Yet anyone could admit that the incentive behind it all, the drive that fuelled these people to take action, was something to be admired. They were only doing what they thought was right. And really, once I figured this out, the rest was easy.
I suddenly wanted to learn from them. I wanted to learn about our fumbling mistakes, our cyclic tragedies, our foibles, blunders, the enterprises that always ended in catastrophe. And after that, I wanted to learn about the third phase, about the area our island's expedition would be searching through, about who had lived there, what kind of damage they'd caused, who their traditional scapegoat was. I wanted to become an involved pupil again, to absorb their knowledge like a sponge, to finger their wisdom like a greedy child. I wanted them to teach me about the world.
The Elders saw these changes taking place in me, and accordingly, their questions became more tame, their answers less sharp. They were slowly reverting into their gentle selves again, letting their kindness resurface. And for the first time in my life, I noticed their mannerisms becoming less formal; they seemed at ease, calmed, as if they were happy to have another person they could speak openly in front of. Every day that passed found us talking to each other more like friends: for my part, feeling comfortable asking things that were really on my mind, and for their part, answering my questions with a kind of relaxed candidness, a complete and serene honesty. It was wonderful. Finally, I felt like I was almost part of their circle. Almost.
I discovered that there
were
still issues that made them stiffen a bit, made them clear their throat and think very carefully about their wording before they spoke. And, understandably, these were usually the issues that had details or implications that were hard for me to accept as well.
"Harek," I began one day, putting down my fork during our midday meal at the shelter, "I was wondering about something." Harek, who had already finished eating and was peeling some fruit for dessert, looked up and gestured for me to continue. "It's just that, we're always speaking about men when we talk about the phases of The Goal. What about women? What role do they play? I mean - why is it they're never even mentioned as an option for going on the expedition?"
He sat up a bit, put the fruit and knife onto his plate for later, and then proceeded to lick his fingers for a long, thoughtful while before speaking. "Women aren't as well-suited to deal with... different aspects of The Goal on the 'front lines', so to speak. Their role will be to help in the training here on the island instead."
I cocked my head. As far as I could remember, the Elders had always taught us that the sexes were completely equal. What did he mean exactly by 'well-suited'? I needed a little clarification on that. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite understand. Do you mean that women
couldn't
do something that might be needed, or
shouldn't
, or
wouldn't
, or...?"
"Okay. I can see you're not going to leave me alone with this," he said, sounding a little terse. He moved his chair back enough so he could lean forward and talk with his hands, "It has to do with the very organization of our brains. See, as you well know, we have two hemispheres in our brain. Very,
very
simplistically speaking, one is responsible for logical thought, strategy, and spatial tasks, and the other for language, emotion, and the expression thereof. As any one task could involve things from both sides of the brain, there is an organ devoted solely to the communication between the two hemispheres. That organ is called the
corpus callosum
, and if one were to compare it between the sexes, they would find that it's much more developed in women than it is in men. What this means is that women make decisions that are more holistic, automatically taking into consideration things like the value of life and the potential of suffering, blended with technical stratagems, which may or may not be compromised by the input of the emotional hemisphere. Whereas a male, who has the limitation of thinking patterns that are more localized in the brain, would find it easier to separate his emotions from a possible outcome to his actions. For example, if you asked both a male and a female soldier to go and kill everyone in a house, in order to gain a tactical position for an army, the woman soldier, seeing the action in both a logical and emotional way, would, most probably, be more reluctant to do it. Whereas a man on the other hand, would be more inclined to plod into the house and act on his orders, separating the cause from the effect.
"Now, there was, and there may still be, situations that arise which might need... that sort of definitive action inside of... questionable circumstances." Harek's eyes, which had been focused on the fruit in his plate for this last sentence, drifted up to meet mine, his hands frozen in the air between us, his expression tentative. I could see he was hoping with all of his might that I wouldn't ask him to expand any more than I had. "Does that make any sense?"
"Yeah... I think so," I answered. His body relaxed, relieved.
What he meant by 'questionable circumstances' was that, were the situation to arise, I would be expected to do 'whatever it took' to ensure that The Goal succeeded, including all of the things that women would have a harder time doing than men. Like killing people. Or maybe inflicting pain on someone in order to find out where others were hidden. Who knew?
I watched Harek eat the rest of his fruit, and thought this over. Things were getting a bit trickier to agree with. But even more intimidating than that, it was becoming increasingly clear that, if I were going to be the leader of this expedition, I wouldn't only need to
agree
with these things, I would have to be as fanatical as the Elders about them. I would have to train my eyes to see the track of a person as a direct link to the long, drawn out destruction of the planet, and then I would have to hunt that person down, barely able to sleep, until I was sure they were sterile. The Goal would necessitate my feeling this strongly about it, that much was clear. Yet, the fact remained that I doubted I had it in me to be fanatical about
anything
, to be entirely consumed by a belief, to have it eat away at me, night after seething night. How does
anyone
feel that strongly about something? I wasn't sure. But I
was
sure that, whatever those people had, I did not.
And this was the strangest part of it all: I saw it coming from the beginning. I understood perfectly well that I wasn't the right person to lead one of these expeditions, that I didn't have what it might take. Yet I still tried as hard as I could to be the one that was chosen, to be the 'winner'; still churned over everything that they said in my mind until it settled obediently into place, until it stopped squirming inside of my conscience. And it's funny to think that I did this all without ever considering any problems that might come up in the future, were I to become this 'unfit leader'. I convinced myself somehow that getting off the island would be the hardest part, and that the rest would all fall smoothly into place.
The discussions in the shelter continued, and over the days I saw their reactions - as restrained as they were - become more and more satisfied with my responses. They could see the seed of conviction germinating under my skin, the delicate tendrils of its budding root system fanning out into my blood, taking hold, until finally, they started talking about letting me back into the community again, where I would begin my training.