Once, Upon a Time...
"The Reproachable Judge" - Session #2
All rise, the Reproach is now in session. The dubious Judge presides.
"I have been hearing signs of some unfavourable conduct on your behalf. What can you tell of where you've been?"
Your Honour, let me tell you where I have been. And I hope you will be satisfied with as brief a telling as I can muster, for although there are many hats to this single life, there are many others that I have willfully or otherwise forgotten.
Once, I discovered that I was a Paleontologist. The prehistoric monsters in my closet were eager by night to sit next to me, to teach me what I had already known so many times over. And wouldn't you know it, I still recall the expressions they gave and the dreams they foretold.
Once, I leveraged my knowledge to became a storyteller. I manifested battles on city streets, shown in pencil gray, enough to bleed from edge to edge. A picture of a hundred deaths came forth; out of simple shapes, untold destruction, imaginable chaos, supposedly, for the one whose monstrous obsession was so great so as to turn the whiteness of paper into bloody terror. The bedside beasts were becoming more than distant curiosities.
Once, I became an athlete of many tries. From the ice, to the field, to the cement-baked floor, I found many footings. The kicks, the shots, the throws, the agility to move about within the sounds of horns, whistles, and screams. I learned structure and teamwork, alongside possession and ambition. I learned the natural tendencies of men of competitive origin. Imposing, dominant, willfully arrogant, but subtly eager to step back from glory when it isn't yours to take. These lessons meant to expose the weakest, and the meanest, and the greatest, and the least worthy among them all.
Once, I learned to write under supervision. I issued speeches to my classes and was reinforced with opportunities to deliver more to more ears. I liked that they liked it, but I didn't like that they could see, so I learned the power of invisibility instead.
Once, I found myself a fiend for digital violence. Games of the television screen were so far in a way more satiating than everything I had come to know. It was inefficient to spent time any other way. I did not think to understand why or how happiness and joy were so easily discoverable. These mechanisms for easy satisfaction, I had and I used, and I thought not twice, but once, and then stayed, and played, and flayed my attention until its vector found a permanent companion among those curvy glass elements.
Once, I found an online community of like-minded adventurers. And all the same applied...
Once, I found that I could emulate athleticism with athletic avatars. And all the same applied...
Once, I found that interactive stories were more immersive than written ones. And all the same applied...
Once, I had joined the ranks of a class of mechanized workers at a place where automobiles came and went, and parts were required for replacement. I thought, here I could be useful, here I could earn my stay, here I could apply teamwork, and so it was that I became a representative, and thus having been trained in reproach of customers, became the brunt of many frustrations.
Once, I came to be a porter. I don't recall the details of my arrival, but can with clarity recall those of my escape, for it was so welcomed. I'm sorry your Honour, please rescind this portion. It isn't important.
Once, I was the animator of reality in a computer. The technical art of humanoid manipulation was the clear preference of my studious career. I could not have foreseen it, for I have never been possessed of the skill of foresight, but it became clear to me that I was of some kind of knowledge that made movement patterns of limbs and torsos easily discernible and fluid to my memory and interpretation; in slowing down time and rendering individual frames of reality, I was able to create life for the very first time. But suddenly, when it came time to be seen again, I remembered that I had the power of invisibility.
Once, I learned and mastered the power of the printing press. There, among the machines, I relied on my colleagues not for knowledge, or direction, or leadership, or support, but for stimulation back into the world of the living. What people do not often admit to are the times when the mind and the body have so little to do with each other. Here, I learned the repercussions of that disconnection, but in searching for any kind of reprieve from that graveyard of the soul, I also chanced upon the one other spirit that brought me new life.
Once, after searching... for anything, I came to gain the label of something like an architect. As I have no foresight, nor any vision, I was once again surprised to find that I could do this thing as well. I held that surprise for many years, understanding little about how I came to be a line-clicks away from wanting to end it all. However, in enduring it, I also forcefully discovered a silent solitude, where I stumbled upon the realization that I really did have a mind, with dreams, with goals, with desires that never seemed to have grown out of their infancy, delicate little things that could hardly be handled, let alone enacted upon. But in my confinement, I was not ennobled with action, rather only with low-grade motivation to want to be become someone who could act. Ha! I actually wanted to become something! I thought, what were these feelings that I was feeling? I needed to understand, so I decided to become a poor writer.
So now I write, because I don't know what else can keep me alive at this point. I now believe so strongly in my power to be invisible, that I doubt any case in which I may find the strength to lift the veil. This I have understood, but something else has also become clear, that is that I do not write for myself, nor for anyone here today, but for another version, the next iteration perhaps. I wanted to write, and that has revealed to me the future that I want as well. I have had no control over the life gone passed, and I have still none today, but for some intangible reason, I have deluded myself enough to the point where I believe I can bend momentum far ahead into the future, a lagging principle of change, and control the ultimate destiny of generations. I have chosen this belief, your Honour, and now you know where I have been, and where I intend to go. I do not care if you listen halfheartedly, or if you do not understand my words precisely, because in some future period, I too hope to lack the ability to comprehend even myself. And if that were to happen, I will know that something I have done will have worked, because the only way to not understand this story is to not have lived it, or to be so far removed from it that it makes sounds of gibberish to the ear.
Your Honour, I hope that you will accept this description, knowing that I have saved you from hearing the rest. I will be fine for as long as I am left to be with my pen and paper.
"Your description is satisfactory. The court will decide when next to have you take the stand."