by S J Amit
“Are you alright?” I rushed over to her, sat down and hugged her. She cried with a choked voice and tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked really frightened.
Four other men appeared and ran along the path, chasing the escaping man. A moment later another man appeared and ran after them. Kelemance helped Choopster get up, wiped her legs, arms and hands, and took a close look at her. “Did you get hit? Show me where you got hit.”
She wiped her eyes, nodded and showed us a red mark on her elbow, with a bit of grass stuck to it. “Here too,” she mumbled and showed us her little palm, which was slightly red. She sniffled with short and fast intakes of breath, and stopped crying. We sat there for a few moments longer until she had finally calmed down.
We heard dim voices and footsteps from further along the path, and the group who chased the man reappeared. They were walking back in our direction, dragging the man along with them. Two men held him from both sides, his arms resting over their shoulders. His hands seemed loose, and his head was hanging to the front, shaking with each step they took. His legs were tied together, and they dragged on the ground behind him. Two other men walked ahead of them on both sides, turning around to look at him every few steps. The last man walked behind them all carrying a thick stick with both his hands.
They passed us and arrived at the junction where the paths split, a few feet away from us. The man at the back placed the stick on the ground, lifted the unconscious man’s tied legs on one of his shoulders and steadied them. He lifted the stick again with his other hand, the group turned to the path leading up the hill, and climbed up the winding lane until they had disappeared from sight.
“Where are they taking him?” Choopster looked at Kelemance.
“I think he escaped from them.”
“Where from?” Choopster and I asked at the same time.
“From there,” Kelemance pointed at the top of the hill. “Let’s keep going.”
“What’s up there?” I got up and shook out my hands.
“I know,” Choopster looked at me and then back at Kelemance, “I heard the older children who play in the yard saying that they studied about the Anteballegarian Hill of Justice.”
“The Hill of Justice?”
“In the Colony of the Lost, they occasionally hold a ceremony in order to highlight justice. They perform it there, on that hill.” Kelemance took a sip of water, and after we did too he returned the jug to his bag.
“I want to see what’s up there,” Choopster walked closer to the crossroads which led to the hill.
“That’s going to delay our getting to your parents,” Kelemance sounded authoritative.
“But I’ve never seen it.” She reached her hands out to us. “Come on, are you coming?”
Kelemance didn’t answer her and looked at me.
“What, I need to decide?”
Choopster turned and started walking up the hill.
“Choop-Choop, you can’t go there by yourself,” Kelemance called to her, “and we have more--“
“Why did he escape from there?” I interrupted him.
“People who don’t have decorations get sentenced on that hill. Maybe he wanted to get to some breach in the brick wall and hide outside the walls,” he pointed at the brick wall on the horizon to our right.
Except for the long wall in the horizon and the swaying treetops above it, I couldn’t make out any details, definitely not any breaches or passages in the wall. Kelemance raised and dropped his shoulders, indicating he couldn’t see anything either. I looked back at the long road that we had already walked, and a cool breeze chilled the sweat that had absorbed in my shirt.
“Come on, are you coming?” Choopster stopped and called out again. She tucked her hair behind her ears and seemed calmer, and mainly intrigued.
“We’ll go with her.” A moment later we caught up with Choopster. She grabbed my hand on one side and Kelemance’s hand on the other, and we walked up the winding path. I panted heavily, but felt freshened by the wind, which came from different directions every so often. The path spiralled upwards around the hill, and after two encircles we reached the top.
Choopster stepped back with fright until she bumped into me. I instinctually wanted to cover her eyes, but Kelemance pulled us to the right, towards a few people who sat on the ground on the right side of the sandstone ridge’s plateau and watched what was happening. Two of the five chasers held the man that had escaped upside down by his legs, with his head nearly touching the ground at the center of the plateau. The remaining three stood around him.
“This is your last chance, otherwise they’ll continue to hold you like that until I finish speaking,” an elderly man with white hair approached him from the left side of the plateau, while we quietly sat down with the other people who were sitting on the ground. “Do you like seeing the Hill of Justice upside down?” he continued.
“Even if you flip me back up, I’ll still see the Hill of Justice ceremony upside down.”
The elderly man turned back and sat on a tall wooden chair. “Fasten him tighter this time,” he called to the three men who stood around the upside down man, and pointed at a rope that was near a smaller chair, demonstrating a strong tying action with his hands.
“He can’t escape anymore, he’s finished,” one of them called back.
They lowered the man down and sat him on a little wooden chair that stood on the right side of the plateau, a few feet away from the tall chair. They tied and fastened his hands to the back of the chair, then stretched his legs back and tied them to his hands and to the chair legs. He tried to bend forward, but one of the guards went up to him, tightened the rope some more, and the man’s torso arched backwards even more. His heavy breathing was clearly heard through the silence on the hill.
“Is your chair tall or is mine low?” he sighed and barely lifted his head. “Even if you tie me to a smaller chair, I still won’t stay silent.”
“Don’t play clever!” The man on the tall chair pointed towards the horizon to his left. “The Anteballegarian cages of human redemption are full of people like you! And you’ll get there, same as every criminal who underestimated the value of justice and debased the ethical rules and the Anteballegarian laws.”
“I wasn’t born a criminal. Since the day I arrived, you have left me outside the walls,” the tied man mumbled. “You arrived at the Land of the Mosaic just like I did,” he coughed until he almost choked, then spat on the rocky ground. “Who is sustaining who? Who is realizing who? Me you or you me?” He dribbled onto his chin as he panted heavily, and cleared his throat until he could speak again. “You banished me and others like me to the forests, and it’s hard to live there, from there it’s not possible to see and to understand the order of things within the walls.” He coughed until he puked on the ground, wetting his torn shirt.
“You were destined not to understand, that is your fate now, and that is your job in Anteballegaria, to remain in the cages of human redemption without any decorations.”
“My job,” he mumbled with difficulty.
“In order to allow the residents of Anteballegaria to live in peace, to protect them and Anteballegaria’s existence, and maintain the Hill of Justice’s validity and authority. Your punishment will keep us all clean, ethical, strong and righteous. My role is to safeguard justice and ethics, your role is to continue disobeying them so that I can have something to safeguard. That is your sentence! And with that you’ll serve as an example to all of the people here.”
“You’re better off having your guards hold me upside down until I die,” the man let out a strange laugh, “at least that way the Hill of Justice will make sense to me and I’ll be able to accept my sentence.”
“You’re shamelessly provoking justice again! I told you that this was your last chance to speak your words to the audience of those who demand emphasis on justice.”
> The tied man didn’t react. He sighed with pain and kept quiet. The silence wasn’t disturbed. Even the onlookers’ whispers could hardly be heard. The white-haired man on the tall chair gestured to the guards to release him, and two of them held him by his hands, lifted him off the chair and steadied him. The guard with the stick stood ready behind him, and the other two washed his face, made him drink and forced him to eat yellow dough out of a small bowl. He chewed slowly and barely swallowed, until he seemed more alert.
“Speak now or forever hold your peace!” the man on the tall chair shouted to him, and the guards pushed him to the center of the plateau and turned him to face us.
He tried to straighten up and stand on his own, but the two men on both his sides grabbed him even harder, and he remained bent down with his bruised face. “During my first days here, back when I was more naive, I tried to make my way through the walls, but you only allowed me to reach the edges of the Anteballegarian sewage canals. You channelled all of the filth towards me.” He burst into tears and could hardly hold his head up. “You all said that for now I don’t have a role. But the stench and the desperation from the sewage made me try to live outside the walls again, which was impossible. So, I tried to be a part of Anteballegaria again, but I never got the chance to learn how life happens here. Instead of giving me a little bit of time and space to succeed, you left me in the swamps again, and now you’re caging me?”
As his battered eyes passed over his onlookers, no one in the crowd reacted. One of the guards stopped his crying by making him drink again and washing his face with water.
The elderly man on the tall chair turned to the crowd. “Indeed, we’ve prepared you well for this moment, when you transform into a criminal. We left you outside the walls and in the swamps only to train you for what was coming. Through your punishment, you’ll not only serve as an example for us. From this moment on, we’ll use you as a display in the cages of human redemption. During your long stay, we’ll make sure you absorb all of the evil and menacing thoughts of those who will look at you, like a cloth absorbing water. Just like the trees we had planted near the swamps from which you came, you will be used to dry out all unethical thoughts from our minds. Through you, we shall extract the pus from our souls and channel it out of ourselves, just like the canals that transport all the filth and grime outside the walls, to where you were dumped. This way, we’ll keep Anteballegaria clean and pure! This will be your profession here. And we--“
“Then who creates whose profession?” he interrupted him. “Do I create yours or do you create mine? Who comes first? Me or you?”
“How arrogant! Who do you think you are, asking me questions after I gave you the right to speak! Tie him back up immediately! You could have chosen a different way! But you didn’t!”
“If I’m a criminal, and the Hill of Justice’s ceremonies happen all of the time, then why is there still crime in Anteballegaria, why are the cages always full of human beings?” He went wild and tried to break away again. “I don’t care what you do anymore, just tell me - why is there still crime in Anteballegaria?!” he screamed as they tied him back to the chair.
“That’s none of your business! If you continue trying to play clever we’ll leave you hanging upside down!”
The guards beat him until he stopped moving.
I grabbed Choopster and got up to leave.
“Sit down, sir! The ceremony isn’t over yet!” one of the guards called to me while they tied his hands and legs behind the chair again, his torso arching backwards like before.
The elderly man stood up and spoke to the crowd. “My dear justice-loving and peaceful people, shed all responsibility from your hearts. In Anteballegaria we do not end a crime, we manage it, and we do so justifiably. If the cages of human redemption were to be empty of humans, more and more people could get confused and transform their unethical and horrible thoughts into actions.”
“So fr-om the mo-ment I arri-ved you’ve prep-ared me f-or the ca-ges? Th-en wh-at could I ha-ve cho--“ the guard with the stick hit the back of his neck and he fainted. I didn’t understand how he still had the ability to speak at all.
“Dear lovers of justice, don’t allow his existence to interrupt our beautiful and just lives. Don’t let his words desecrate the face of Anteballegaria. He could have chosen to stay outside the walls, in the forests, but he wasn’t able to. That may have been known in advance, making his role merely a temporary assignment. He may have not arrived here a criminal, or not have been born a criminal, and there may be more dangerous criminals than him, but there aren’t enough criminals in order to properly fill the cages of human redemption in an exemplifying way. We, who sentence people on the Hill of Justice, carry the responsibility of keeping the cages of human redemption in full capacity in a just and lawful way, in order to allow you to live peacefully with yourselves, with clean spirits, calm minds and enlightenment, and thereby enable you to separate good from bad, right from wrong, ethical from unethical.”
One of the onlookers raised his hand in the air and indicated he wants to speak.
“Please, sir,” the elderly man approved.
“Will he get another chance to become integrated here in Anteballegaria?”
“Perhaps, if someone else will be found in order to take his place in the cage, but I can’t know that. It isn’t my job to deal with that, and it isn’t my business or yours. The cages aren’t meant to answer to that, and there’s no connection between the Hill of Justice’s ceremonies and the future of those who reside in the cages. This man is being thrown into the redemption cages for the sake of everyone’s justice. For the sake of ethics. For your sake. There is nothing more fundamental on the Hill of Justice than that. Not even life. The ceremony is over. We will discuss his fate again when the time comes. We may require him for another mission. Take him away.”
We remained last on the hill, after the tied and battered man got dragged down its other side. Most of the people followed the guards down and disappeared, some walked down the path from which we had arrived. Choopster remained sitting cross-legged, frantically tapping with her fingers on her knees and staring at the empty plateau. That was a shocking experience for an adult to witness, let alone for a child. We quietly waited for her to recover and get up when she was ready to continue.
The comfortable incline eased our walk. We got to the plain at the bottom of the hill pretty quickly, and advanced towards where the paths split. The sun was already leaning towards the horizon, but there was still light. With every few steps we took, little mounds that looked like tunnel openings were raised on both sides of the path. “Look,” Choopster stopped and pointed at two brown rabbits that hopped and hid between a few lone rocks which stood out in the open field. The rabbits arrived right on time, making her smile again. I was glad she was relieved and I flung her onto my shoulders. She laughed, and Kelemance seemed pleased too. Birds landed on the ground in front of us, collected seeds and flew back to the distant treetops. The path looked clean and well-maintained. A gray lizard crossed it quickly and disappeared into the green weeds. A lone tree, not very tall, stood near to where the path curved to the right. Behind it, a straight lane appeared, and at the end of it there was a big crowd gathering.
“We’re really close now,” Choopster leaned forward, pressed her chin to my forehead and pointed down the path. I could see through her curls that we were getting close to a huge square full of people.
“Her parents’ house isn’t too far down the road from the other side of the square.” Kelemance slowed down and stopped, “Put the mask on.”
“Now?” I lowered Choopster to the ground.
“Yes, we’ll have to cross through the crowd, we’ve arrived just in time for the gathering, they’re preparing to perform the rites.” Kelemance wore the mask, pulled and tied the string behind his head and tightened it to his face. “I told you,” he knocked on the wood that covered his
face, “there are places where they prefer to be faceless.”
The voice that arose from behind his mask made me laugh. I took a few more steps and stood on my tip-toes to try and see what was happening in front of us. Countless masked men and women filled the square, and a few children too. Some of them stood on the lanes that came out of the square to the left and the right, because there wasn’t any more space in the square itself.
“Anyone who arrives at the Square of Consumption for the gathering isn’t allowed to physically see any human gazes. It’s forbidden for any of the people to have even a sliver of life on their faces while they walk in circles round themselves.”
“Why?”
He pulled the mask off his face for a moment and left it on his head. “The people who came from afar believe that gathering in the square and persuading each other to consume as many objects as possible is the way to banish their fears. They do it as a worship to their God, and they open with a prayer that hypnotizes them. Seeing as they don’t all become hypnotized at the same time and at the same level of devotion, they’ve found a solution for themselves. When they gather in the Square of Consumption, they must all wear masks with a facial expression of a dead person. This prevents them from becoming distracted from the prayers, and helps them focus solely on the objects and on remaining hypnotized. That way they don’t interrupt each other while they perform the rites.”
“And what about Choopster? Does she have a mask too?”
“She doesn’t need one. In the Colony of the Lost, the children can partake in the rites without masks because they’re easily hypnotized. The adults only help them become accustomed to the local practices, consume on their behalf and allow them to look at what’s happening, until they grow up and ask to wear the masks too.”
“Then what should I do?” I took the mask out of the bag.
“Not much. Just make sure that the mask constantly hides your entire face, and try to prevent your body language from showing excitement about anything that isn’t to do with the objects.”
