BooksBarbecue
Back Excession
Chapters (108)
  1. About the Author
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. 1 - Outside Context Problem
  6. I
  7. II
  8. III
  9. IV
  10. V
  11. VI
  12. 2 - Not Invented Here
  13. I
  14. II
  15. III
  16. 3 - Uninvited Guests
  17. I
  18. II
  19. III
  20. IV
  21. 4 - Dependency Principle
  22. I
  23. II
  24. III
  25. IV
  26. V
  27. 5 - Kiss The Blade
  28. I
  29. II
  30. III
  31. IV
  32. V
  33. VI
  34. 6 - Pittance
  35. I
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. 7 - Tier
  42. I
  43. II
  44. III
  45. IV
  46. 8 - Killing Time
  47. I
  48. II
  49. III
  50. IV
  51. V
  52. VI
  53. VII
  54. VIII
  55. 9 - Unacceptable Behaviour
  56. I
  57. II
  58. III
  59. IV
  60. V
  61. VI
  62. VII
  63. VIII
  64. IX
  65. X
  66. XI
  67. XII
  68. XIII
  69. XIV
  70. 10 - Heavy Messing
  71. I
  72. II
  73. III
  74. IV
  75. V
  76. VI
  77. VII
  78. VIII
  79. IX
  80. X
  81. XI
  82. XII
  83. XIII
  84. XIV
  85. XV
  86. 11 - Regarding Gravious
  87. I
  88. II
  89. III
  90. IV
  91. V
  92. VI
  93. VII
  94. VIII
  95. IX
  96. X
  97. XI
  98. XII
  99. XIII
  100. XIV
  101. 12 - Faring Well
  102. I
  103. II
  104. III
  105. IV
  106. V
  107. VI
  108. Epilogue

Then the pain and the cold went away, seemed to be taken away, and another kind of coldness came upon him, and he found himself

... thinking. Thinking about all that had happened. Reviewing, judging.

... In the desert we burned them immediately. None of this sloppiness. Was it some attempt at poetry, to bury them in the glacier? Interred where they were so far up the ice sheet, their bodies would stay in the ice for centuries. Buried too deep for anyone to find without the killing effort we had to put into it. Did our leaders begin to believe their own propaganda, that their rule would last a hundred lifetimes, and so started to think that far ahead? Could they see the melt-lakes below the glacier’s ragged, dirty skirt, all those centuries from now, covered with the floating bodies released from the ice’s grip? Did it start to worry them what people would think of them then? Having conquered all the present with such ruthlessness, did they embark on a campaign to defeat the future too, make it love them as we all pretend to?

... In the desert we burned them immediately. They came out in the long trains through the burning heat and the choking dust and the ones that hadn’t died in the black trucks we offered copious water; no will could resist the thirst those baking days spent amongst death had built up in them.

They drank the poisoned water and died within hours. We incinerated the plundered bodies in solar furnaces, our offering to the insatiable sky gods of Race and Purity. And there seemed to be something pure about the way they were disposed of, as though their deaths gave them a nobility they could never have achieved in their mean, degraded lives. Their ashes fell like a lighter dust on the powderous emptiness of the desert, to be blown away together in the first storm.

The last furnace loads were the camp workers - gassed in their dormitories, mostly - and all the paperwork: every letter, every order, every requisition pad, stores sheet, file, note and memo. We were all searched, even I. Those the special police found hiding diaries were shot on the spot. Most of our effects went up in smoke, too. What we were allowed to keep had been searched so thoroughly we joked they had managed to remove each grain of sand from our uniforms, something the laundry had never been able to do.

We were split up and moved to different posts throughout the conquered territories. Reunions were not encouraged.

I thought of writing down what had happened - not to confess but to explain.