Wretched, Offer Reish [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗
- Author: Offer Reish
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Yes, Leonardo agreed. If nobody could see or touch justice than no one could change it either. And now more than ever he felt he was understanding what justice actually was. And how happy he was that it was on this magical night that he would meet justice for the first time!
There was another burst of excitement, which abated slightly when Jessica's invisible voice began to specify the major points of agreement between The Existents (as humble representatives of the people), and the Industry. It was natural that the crowd was less in a craze during this phase of the speech, since men and women are always more attracted to and excited by romantic slogans than by dry facts. It was as though Jessica's heartfelt creeds and mottos had a force of gravity that was much stronger than that of any individual achievement The Existents had achieved on behalf of the people. She briefly recounted the achievements regarding the main demands of The Extremists on behalf of the people- in principle, all Four Pillars had been conceded in full. The victory was a reverberating one.
The crowd was starting to grow weary, not out of disinterest or disappointment but rather out of sheer emotional fatigue. The silence was still complete and the fixation on Jessica's voice undistracted, but the energy and the will to surrender oneself to the words that were leaving her mouth no longer seemed inexhaustible. Leonardo was the same as before, his support and the vividness of the image in his mind still trenchant to the point where it seemed they couldn't be any more so. But even he started to realize that some of the electricity in the air was beginning to dispel. This all changed, however, when the listing of the achievements was complete and for the first time since her first public appearance Jessica made a comment on stage that wasn't directly related to the fight.
"Can someone please turn on the stage lights?" She requested, and not a few seconds went by before, amid the surrounding darkness, a delicate stream of light illuminated the small and undecorated stage. It came as no surprise to anyone in the crowd that The Existents' presence on stage was just as it'd always been: the black masks standing like robots at the back, as though the maintenance of justice itself relied on their ability to remain motionless, and at the front the beautiful, confident, unpresumptuous Jessica. A wave of vocal support tried to rise from the heart of the audience, but quickly vanished back into silence when rejected by the silent astonishment of the majority. They were astonished because they felt that something important was coming.
"My friends", said the woman at whom all the eyes in the city were now directed. "By fighting against the injustice directed against us and finally defeating it, we have assumed upon ourselves the responsibility of fighting injustice wherever we may find it, even when we are not its victims."
Leonardo was thrilled. From the eyeholes in his black masks he stared into Jessica's eyes as though he were studying some never before seen natural phenomenon. And through the black fabric he listened to her words as someone straining to make out the final breaths drawn by a dying old man. There was something different about the words she way saying and the way she said them. Perhaps Leonardo alone in the whole crowd of thousands recognized the crack in her shell of confidence, her hesitation and even apprehension from something that only the Black masks and she knew at the moment, but which was about to be revealed to the entire crowd. But it was only a momentary lapse and soon her resolve in the rightness of her message recomposed her and redoubled her strength.
"Tonight justice is on our side and we may celebrate our union with it", she said so naturally that it's as though she had never rehearsed this discourse before. It was like there was some inexhaustible source of inspiration that she drew her every word from.
"But tomorrow- tomorrow a new fight must begin, for there is injustice- an injustice tenfold darker than the one we have suffered until tonight- taking place every day in front of our eyes. It is like a huge black hole, swallowing justice and making it disappear if it even dare go near. And the fact that we aren't the targets of this injustice doesn't mitigate our responsibility in bringing it to an end- if anything it increases our responsibility, since we can't replace its victims in assessing its gravity or accepting it."
The murmur that spread through the audience almost at once was one of confusion. Could this be true? Could there be any injustice directed against anyone else but the audience itself? Or more precisely, could there be any kind of justice except for justice done to and in the benefit of the people themselves? Leonardo had an especially difficult time comprehending this concept. He had been under the impression that all the justice in the world belonged to him and to those around him, and that there was only injustice when they were robbed of their right for justice. And now Jessica herself was saying differently. He felt almost offended by the suggestion that he wasn't special- that others were also entitled to the same tenacious fight for justice as he was. Perhaps he still wasn't ready to understand it.
She had to be wrong, but on the other hand she had to be right. What she said next was even more outrageous.
"This terrible injustice I present to you in this sacred night is the one caused to the Wretches. The nonexistents on which we so desperately depend in almost every aspect of our everyday lives. They- and not we- are the victims of the real injustice that takes place in every moment of every minute of every day in our city."
The murmur grew, now a volatile mix of shock, panic and outrage. These emotions and reactions were completely novel in any of the The Existents' public events scene, and they were felt even in Leonardo's immediate surroundings: his mother and brother whispered to each other in disbelief. His father remained silent, as did Leonardo himself, except for a barely audible snort that escaped his masked nose when he pictured a Wretch standing on stage next to Jessica.
"For many years we- the people of this city- have acted as though nonexistents (she used this epithet with noticeable disgust) aren't entitled to justice. We have ignored the fact that, if we gave them the chance, they would seek justice just as strongly as we have. They would opt for happiness over suffering, freedom over slavery and life over death. This is all that's needed for anyone to deserve justice."
Several cries of anger could be heard from various areas in the audience. It sounded as though she were entertaining the outrageous, preposterous claim that the people were unjust. Leonardo, on the other hand, was searching with his eyes for the offenders, but in the relative darkness it was impossible to clearly make out any individual outside of a very narrow radius. They were angry at Jessica- it was preposterous! Then he heard his brother say:
"She's losing it. We are the ones suffering injustice- how could she say we are unjust?" Though Fred was a success story and the one with the brighter future, greater potential, more friends and more respect from the relatives between the brothers, this was the first time Leonardo could remember being angry with him. But this anger dissipated when Jessica continued:
"We have allowed ourselves to be blinded into indifference, but tonight we can end our blindness. For us to bring blindness to them we must look inside ourselves and find the most basic building block of justice, without which real and complete justice can never exist."
Some random suggestions were hollered from the audience, a few of them provoking laughs and sneers and others being met with a short admonishment, but none of them stopped the flow of Jessica's words.
"Never under any circumstances, in no time or place, for no span of time and to no extent, and by no man or woman in the history of the world- never has true justice existed without the presence of compassion. Without compassion, justice is merely an individual's fight to uphold one's own interests and rights. A man or woman in pursuit of such justice is actually saying: 'I should not get less than you; give me what is mine!'
"Do you know what is happening behind this wall? How is it that in all the years we all came together in this beautiful place we have never heard a single sound from the other side of the wall? How is it that when we spend entire Saturday afternoons at any spot in front of this great wall we can rest assured that not one disconcerting noise will disturb our peace?"
It began to dawn on some of the audience why The Existents had chosen this location of all others for the victory event. Of the family it was only Steve that fathomed the significance of the venue at this point: this, perhaps above anywhere else, was where the contrast between justice and injustice was the most conspicuous, and Jessica was about to lay it bare. The rest were listening intently, either with concern or at what they were about to hear or with the usual admiration. In any case, the level of curiosity in the audience retrieved the silence that had vanished for a while.
"Here, right behind me, is the largest Production Camp in the city. Here is where new Wretches are produced."
The silence now was so perfect that even the breeze that had been blowing before retreated, as if reluctant to disturb the rarity of the moment. It was hard to believe that Jessica was relating to something as dull and insignificant as Production Camps. It was so insignificant, in fact, that almost nobody in the audience had ever given it much attention before, which was the reason for the current fascination.
"Production Camps are normally the noisiest, saddest places of all Camps, and you couldn't find the havoc that takes place inside them anywhere else. It is the place where mother Wretches cry the cry of hopelessness of being torn away from their newborns, cries of such misery that no brick wall could ever block out. And still, we hear nothing", Jessica continued, delving into a bleaker realm than anything The Existents had ever touched upon in any public event. With this came another change that couldn't go unnoticed, and which sent chills running down Leonardo's short spine. Jessica's voice, her entire manner, was affected by a graveness that had never been there before. She was still poised and pretty, her now iconic face maintained its usual determined but unemotional expression, but the levity and resilience from before were gone. She seemed to no longer really want to speak- or maybe she didn't want to hear herself saying what came out of her mouth- but rather to feel compelled to do so.
To Leonardo, hearing her instantly turned from utter joy to a frightening experience that had to be bore and tolerated rather than relished. He suddenly ceased to enjoy it, but somehow his fixation grew even stronger. She was like some bearer of important bad news.
"This quiet that we all enjoy is the result of a meticulous and crafty solution that the Industry came up with to silence the mothers- or silence entire Production Camps, really", Jessica's heavy voice continued. Suddenly a movement too obscure to make out in the darkness was noticed in the proximity of
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