Understand, because there will always be change, please, there will always be cease, that’s important, and that the only ones who ever survive then survive their survival are those — schmucks, mamzers, up to no good — who are always, perpetually, reinterpreting themselves, reinventing themselves, remaking themselves along with the antipodal identities (theirs always, too) of victim and victor. Protean. Praying the mutable. If you don’t like my morals I’ll get new ones. If you don’t like those, I’ll just have what you’re having. If you’re not willing to share then I’ll take. Of course, future propositions aside, prophecies, predictions, plans however inspired tabled upon the deeprooted, belled as innumerably rung surfaces of cedartree stumps, postponed to bygones, exiled to the dark of the clock — of course, they’re put to death, here and now, we’ll spare you the details; that’ll all be prorated into the newest Tour leaving shortly: whatever screaming shouting praying promises and negotiations, whatever resistance there was, it’s merely a gesture, a measure of the mercy required; neither party would’ve wanted it any other way; quiet acceptance would’ve satisfied neither, docile fate (even if interpreted as token, as such gestural nonsense) would’ve gratified none. Though most are killed, the vast majority being accorded the privilege of massmurder, are put out of massmisery, many others, we’re sad to report, die just prior to the opportunity for such rarefied martyrdom: dying too early of fear, too soon how they just drop in their socks; though it’s less fear, some think, than it is inchoate anticipation, uncontrollable, they say, undue excitement at the possibility of being so chosen…some soil themselves, others feal, fall into a giggle, hyperventilating on their happiness at this prospect, this privilege, this right — at being condemned to suffer such an eternal condition, what should we call it, maybe by every name we’ve ever been called; a prospect so elementally sad, and a privilege so maddening, a fate so existentially gorgeous, and yet so bewildering, so gorgeously crazymaking, too…O to be ingathered into that most glorious State that is the eternalized promise of suffering, which is bordered by seas of jealousy, its shores zealously guarded by the most vocal, if gentle, of wolves. And yet again, for those still alive: history’s known, always has been, on record, and in every format your nostalgia might fetishize; once again, nothing’s ever denied an initial existence, never is or was, never will be. Surely, it’s terrible — it’s terrifying even to think, to test as Abraham once was tested, and once tested himself, if only metaphorically, or lamely angelically, your darkest convictions, your most vile capacities if ever reborn to an opposite side, remade into an oppressor, reinterpreted as victor, lord of the manner, king of the dunghill if only for now; a horror for one, then a horror for all, a horror once then a horror still and always forever. Never never again. Surely, once it’s known such tragedy can be forever forgotten — unless, that is, any of us might wish to avert its return.
They’d known if from the getgo and keep going, don’t run, that just calls attention — just walk, head down and fast, don’t look back…but the very fact that they’ve stayed on all this time, keepingup their participation through to the end, never once flagging or even thinking of flight — despite all how they’ve kept dumb on the safetyword, I forget, the very fact (less false than fiction, fictive) that they’ve in the end gone and turned in their vouchers, readying themselves for what they knew, what they have to know, was necessary and yet also knowing, they have to know, was never required (surely, probably, maybe — we each make our own Laws, carve into our eyes our own sets of commandments), that means history’s borne into the balance, hunks of dateflesh being judged in the scales of our eyes, yearmeat hung from the hand that tells the weight of our time. Means that this’d been Bereishit from the very beginning, preordained. Understand that lastminute, last moment Affiliation’s always an option — whether if you knew someone, possibly, or had a few friends somewhere or other, that’s the gossip, that such redepemtion’s on offer as unofficially as anything else: a rumor though who knows how wellpublicized. Perhaps such recourse’s kept whispersoft, it’s been suggested, never even mentioned at all, it’s been said, except, that is, in the loudest and most regular of announcements over the Polandland PA: offers to convert, openly voiced, if stridently exhorting, coming at all hours of the night, incentives offered then doubled to trip…join up now the gargle promises and you’ll receive what — your choice of home and a wife.
Still, despite any fanaticism for accuracy, for accountability, no one really knows how many of them opt to enlist; futz, the Record sure schrifts the wit out of me: numbers have been censused, then censured upon the request of the convert, expunged, slated for wipe, at least any documentation still extant’s been made inaccessible to better than us, classified best to forget it, topsecret of the bottomless drawer — offlimits to all even a rough estimate tamed gentle then leashed to an iron disclaimer as to how many of them are taking their keepers, their executioners, their saviors and trainers up on such a scandalous opportunity (with excellent benefits, good dental & health, twoweeks’ paid vacation’s the hope), such a horrendous occasion on which to become one of them, one with them. Most won’t talk about it, won’t darken their mouths. Unknown, then, not only what sum but also what kind — what why they go and shirk from death, to avail themselves of a falsified salvation; unknown who exactly birthwise, bloodwise, Judas themselves to exult in such debasement (yes, many have suggested, perhaps for their most secret souls it’s a matter of the Gnostic: sanctity as merited through sin, that old spiel), then up and leave their lines linedup to execution, two-by-two to gas and fire, there just outside the fray to untie the knot that was their rope, drop their pants, strip the rest, immediately exchange uniforms — new garb pressed and kept at the ready, personalized since before any of them ever were born — to reveal to all the makeshift of a new demeanor, to take on yet another development, on the wing, on the fly: shifts of wind, crossroadchoices, personalitychange. Then, to become as guards to their own, to their kin, colleagues of the armed menschs who now welcome the converted with gun, open arms — to become the executioners of their own families, whom they’d kill to survive, they have to, responsible for the others they’ve had to remove themselves from, to belong, the communities they’ve had to excommunicate from the lonely midst of their congregation of one, if only to become, mutatis mutandis, ultimately worthy of an incontrovertible shame: the humiliation of averting their own martyrdom, and so betraying belief for the infamy of a deeper, holier doubt. Of course, it’s been said, this is probably only a few of them, an embarrassed handful or so — or so we’re assured by a source no one’s entitled to extirpate or name. Most don’t need to be their own Jeremiah or Ezekiel, don’t need to dream the dreams of an Isaiah, or require the interpretations of a Joseph son of Israel to get the idea: how this is once-in-a-life, and yet though it means death, it’s a wonderful one, this martyrdom, and how you just can’t pass that up — how infrequently an opportunity like this would come around, goes the campsite, campfireside argument between husband and wife, how often they’re asking each other, themselves, did an opportunity like this really arise back when we had the numbers, the majoritycount? As for the kinder, they have their own say in the matter, are mandated their own, personalized, final solutions — having been assigned to an attachment of guidance counselors, a phalanx of baccalaureate advisors — irrespective of parental decision. Would all fundamentalists please report to the fundament? Thank you. Agnostics in agon, atheists placing faith in only themselves — putting egg after orphaned egg into one blackened basket, Miriam’s, reedwreathed, to be sent down that river that flows to a land called Posterity, located far in the west. In the end, it’s better to decry everything under the sun as older even than the foreskin of the unbelievable, born just the day before untenable, up all night crying colic without viability, than to harm even one single hair upon the Godhead; to pluck it as bald as the death of a chicken, and then to argue what came first — the Word become flesh, first scaly, then feathered, then molting in names — whether the yolk or the egg.