The Quiet One - A Dishonored Tale

Since before he could remember, there was the tales of The Outsider. So long ago, living on the streets, he came upon an old woman. In her madness, she thought him her darling grandson, and in her he found not just an unlikely caretaker but a way to a new life. She taught him of The Outsider and helped him carve a rune on an old whale bone he found by the river. She gave him charms and trinkets for protection, fed him, kept him safe, but never once looked upon his face, as her eyes were long ago blinded. He never asked how, but learned from her everything he would ever know.

Every day was a new lesson, a new gruesome way to learn the truth or right a wrong. “The pain rings true.” she would often remind him. And though he always offered what he could to The Outsider, always brought runes and eventually made his own altar to him, He did not come. The Outsider would not see him. Did he listen to him in the dark when he whispered? She always assured him that He did. If she said so, it must be true. She spoke to Him often, and she must know, he told himself. But that was so long ago now.

So many years ago, she had opened doors for him, though he would never understand how or which ones. In all the years he spent with her, he never saw her speak to anyone else. Not really. Somehow though, in teaching him the art of inflicting pain and gruesome death, she had provided him with a rather unique skill set, and a career for life. He still remembered as if it were yesterday, the sudden rise to his current position.

As he stoked the fire in the brazier, he thought of his next victim. The Royal Defender, having murdered the Queen and kidnapped the young Princess, was his next charge.

“He'll break like the others”, he told himself. “All who are guilty always break under my influence.“

So many years, and never once had he not gotten the truth, gotten the confession of crimes committed. Never once had he failed in his job, as torturer for Granny or as the Royal Interrogator.

As they brought Corvo in and shackled his wrists and ankles to the chair, he noted something very strange about him. He did not have the look of the others. He sat quietly, as if in another place. One would think he was sitting by the river lost in thought, for all the emotion he showed as he started. Hours passed, and while the screams of pain rang, they seemed hollow somehow. They were something more of the animal in us than the man. And still Corvo sat, lost in thought after a full day of the torture he so prided himself in providing.

“What would Granny say if she saw this failure?” he suddenly wondered.

Hours upon hours later, the torturer now as tired as the tortured, he gave up for the day. He ordered Corvo back to his cell, resolving to do worse tomorrow. As he made his way down to the farthest deeps of the castle, his home now, he sat before his altar. He never stopped believing in The Outsider, nor did he ever stop visiting Granny whenever he had the opportunity. Never once had he seen The Outsider. So when a young man of short dark hair started speaking to him, he simply thought it a new guard or someone from the kitchens who had actually dared to come down.

“Do not fret.”the young man said. “Corvo is different from those before. He is innocent.”

As he turned towards the young man, the room seemed to break apart, the world seemed somehow shattered, and the young man was suddenly standing before him. For the first time, he didn't just believe. He knew.

“And soon he will have my favor. Now you have nothing to fear but his wrath...” he said.

Suddenly the shattered world was to rights again, and he knew Corvo had escaped, or was escaping at this very moment. He realized now why Corvo had been so quiet, why his screams rang hollow, why all his gruesome torture had been for naught but empty screams ringing throughout the prison cells.

And more than anything else, for the first time since he met Granny and she taught him all those years ago, he felt he knew fear.

When he went to visit Granny the next day, she was gone. Even the path to her old broken apartments were gone, as if she had never been. As if they had never been together at all.

He guarded his thoughts, and prayed to The Outsider, new offerings every day, all for the chance that Corvo might forget him, that he never give him a second thought.

And as he stoked the fire once more, he thought he saw a shadow upon the wall. “Tricks of light from the brazier”, he told himself even as the blade sliced his throat. As he fell, he gazed upon his attacker, a shadow with a silver skull for a face. And so very quiet.  

4 More Years

First of all, I'd like to say that I am beyond ecstatic about President Obama winning the election. I believe he has been doing a pretty good job, and he's the right man for the job. I also believe Mitt Romney was just wrong for the job for many reasons, but I won't get into that. This post, a bit of a rant I warn you, isn't about them. It isn't about who is President of the United States. This is about what I want, and what I think we all deserve in our government, no matter what we feel our needs are, no matter which side of the isle we sit or stand in. This is about what kind of country I want America to be, to become and to remain.

I want America to be the shining beacon of democracy it has always been, I want us to be the model not only of how to vote, but of how to be. I want us to instill a sense of pride in being Americans not because we were born into it, but because of what we, both united and as individuals, do to make our country and the world better for those around us. And in that spirit, I have thoughts as to how it can be done. You might say my ideas are wrong, idealistic, unrealistic, or you might agree wholeheartedly. The important part is to start the conversation and keep the conversation going.

I want politicians from both sides of the aisle talking to each other about compromises. I want Republicans to come more to the left on several different key issues, with the understanding that Democrats may be willing to come a bit to the right on others. I want both sides to agree to stay out of the issues of abortion, of when its okay and when it isn't. I want them to agree to disagree, and let go of any legislation that would prohibit anyone from taking care of their health in any way. I want them to realize that Health Care should pay for everything we need to survive and thrive, not just what some people approve of. I want both sides to remember that this country was built on the principles of keeping religion away from our political and moral choices. The separation of church and state is in the very constitution that people conveniently quote when spouting how their christian values are being trampled because someone else's life doesn't follow your personal morality.

I believe that politicians should make minimum wage for their position in office, so that they above all know what the lowest paid Americans are going through. In this way, we can ensure that politicians are never out of touch with the lowest of us, the most vulnerable of us, and those of us who sometimes need the most help because they will be there with us. In this way, we can try to ensure they understand our plight. This isn't to say that only those who have made minimum wage all their lives can be politicians. I'm only talking about their wages In Office. Being a politician shouldn't be a choice having to do with money, it should come from a place of wanting to give, of wanting to serve, a sense of duty to others and to ourselves and to our country.
There are plenty of places in the private sector who will continue to make people rich, famous or both. Politics should not be a way to gain riches; it should be a way to inspire people, to continue to make this country great for years and centuries to come.

In this same spirit and train of thought, I believe that there should be a constitutional amendment prohibiting donations to political campaigns over a certain small dollar amount. 500 dollars, 1000 dollars per person. This is still plenty of money. And to make it fair, give both candidates free air time (a certain fixed amount) for their commercials and political ads. In this way, we take away the need to collect all these hundreds of thousands of dollars just to be heard. If they don't need to worry about competing over who has more air time, they'll have less of a motive to cajole our contributions out of us, and instead focus on what they should be: giving us a feel for their values, their ability to do the job, their stance on the issues of the time.

This goes almost without saying, but I needed to include this as well. All of the above gives a harder job to the American people as well. Without the fancy ads, knowing more about the candidates and what they're willing to speak about, their issues and their plans, we would need to work ever harder to listen to their words, to their intent, and hopefully follow our instincts to choose not the lesser of two evils, but hopefully with these changes, the person who is right for the job, who agrees with the majority of our values, and hopefully also who challenges those values with facts and figures when we are wrong. And we must have the courage to acknowledge when we are wrong, when we don't know the right answer, and when we simply were told differently and find it hard to change.

Lastly, I want to rid us of the people who think Orwell's 1984 was an instruction manual, and have people who want to respect all of our freedoms and rights, because they realize that trampling over the bill of rights and the constitution affects all of us and that those freedoms that our forefathers bled, killed and died for are too precious to let them go out of fear, fear of the known and the unknown.

Frank Herbert's Dune includes something called the Litany of Fear. He describes fear as the mind-killer, the little death. Its about feeling your fear, accepting it, and then letting it go. We, as a country, have not had an easy childhood. We are a young country, compared to those around the world, and we need to learn not only from our own mistakes, but the mistakes of others as well. Our biggest problem today is the lack of cooperation, and we need to let the fear that keeps us from uniting together go.

I have learned over the last few years that I am one of the most tolerant people many of my friends know, and a few have commented on it or asked me about it. My answer was simple: "Its their life, its their choice. Why would I have anything but good thoughts for them?" If two women, if two men, if a man and a woman, if a man wants to marry a videogame, there are two questions to ask: "Does it affect me?" and "Will it make them happy?"

"United we stand, divided we fall. " These words define us as a country, and some of us have forgotten or chosen to ignore. E Pluribus Unum means "of many, one". We come from numerous countries, numerous religions, numerous backgrounds, numerous moralities and faiths. We must remember to stand together, side by side, or we will be doomed to repeat the past.


And one last quote, because it encompasses so many of our troubles and our solutions:

"All You Need Is Love" - John Lennon / The Beatles