Prompt
Thousands are gathered before me, awaiting my instructions, and this is what
I will tell them.
Botner
Thousands of potential suicides are presented to me, and I will tell them
that it doesn’t matter what I feel about it, that they have to kill
themselves, that there is no other way. I tell them I have no intention of
feeling differently. I am moving around the crowd, feeling each one of their
burdens. Many of them are traumatized, tortured by memories of events from
their lives—of others they’ve hurt, of tragedies they’ve experienced. They
know I have no empathy, and I can feel their anger rising. I can feel their
anger for me, as I do with everyone else. I don’t feel any more anger than I
have ever felt. I make a circle around the crowd, seeing every face, judging
every manner of aggression and hatred I can see. The faces move, turning,
shifting into one another. They turn like a revolving door. I make a new
circle, and they move into it. I count the changes as they go around. There
are 598, and they move around 8 times. I make another circle and they have
moved 17.
Conclusion
They continue to turn and shift into each other, until more than 81,000
people have become only one person. This is the one. He is the embodiment of
all of their pain, and depression, and self-doubt, and fear of the future.
Thousands were ready to die, but I have removed that sentiment from them
with my circles, and channeled it into this one amalgamated person. Only he
will die, and all others will live, free from the burden of their pasts,
from the torture of their mistakes, from the hatred they’ve been feeling for
themselves. I have freed them from this, as I have done many times before,
and will continue to do for all who need it. I only wish I could save them
all, but I can only do this a few times a year, and those who do not truly
wish to die must come to me. I force this gift on no one, and judge not
those who deny it. The amalgam stands there in a stupor. He is feeling all
the pain of everyone in the crowd, and it’s made him numb to the world. I
open the palm of my hand, and leave it waiting at my side. My assistant
carefully and slowly removes the case from the bag. He knows I am patient,
and this is a ceremonial gesture. He sets the case on the table, and admires
it for a moment, my hand still waiting. He opens the case, and removes the
syringe, which he finally hands to me. I cannot use this myself. The amalgam
must do it, and he must choose it, and only he can choose it. This is the
burden of being the amalgam, and no one can take his place.
He begs me to kill him, for he is afraid. He wants to die, but he does not
want to do it himself. There is no other way. To free these people’s souls,
he must sacrifice himself. He sobs, and continues to beg me to put him out
of his misery, but I cannot. Once he’s sure I won’t help him, he accepts the
syringe, and I see a spark of light in his eyes that I’ve never seen before.
No amalgam has had this. It’s almost...it almost looks like hope. There is
something different about this crowd...something interfering with the
process. I look deeper into his eyes as he contemplates ending it all, and
realize what’s happened. The people who come to me to be freed of their
suicidal thoughts have all left satisfied, but they came into it with such
skepticism. My reputation has long since been acknowledged, though. This
latest crowd knows that it works, and they arrived with something few of
them have ever had. They arrived...with hope. And that hope was channeled
into the amalgam man, along with all the pain. Now this hope grows inside
him, and every second that passes, the chances he’ll ever use the needle
decrease. He looks at me, and he shakes his head. “These people are already
free. They had within them the power to change their minds...their hearts.
They do not need you anymore. They never did. Most importantly, they do not
need someone like me, accepting the burden of their suicidal thoughts. All
they need is hope, and we can’t give that to them anymore.” He grins, and
looks down at the syringe again, like it’s nothing more profound than a
pathetic broken pencil. Then he reaches up, and stabs me in the chest,
driving the poison into my body. I die.
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