Going through old papers I find this gem from my Randian past: a very short sf story that I wrote in (but not for) college, titled “Under the Violet Sun.”
Some of my stories actually had plots (hopefully I’ll dig them up eventually). This one, not so much.
Like a Randian Kafka story. This was a bit on the depressing side. This cheered me up though 🙂
http://world-of-woody.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/Decider%20copy.jpg
I suppose there is a certain “Before the Law” vibe to it.
That’s really not how I pictured the Decider.
And I thought you were a fan of life extension technology?
My favourite Rand/Kafka mashup is The Prisoner.
Oh I am, but life without liberty is just hell.
So they’re trapped on a planet. So are we. 🙂
True, but we can at least get out of line for a while. If we do what needs to be done we can get out of the line permanently. Of course we could also just stop thinking about the line, and that method has its benefits.
Nothing in my story says that the people are required to stand in line.
It sure seemed like they were. Why are they standing in line rather than trying to escape? They certainly don’t seem like they’re sanguine about their fates of having to become some definition of innocent decided by something calling itself the representation of the principle of justice.
If they’re not forced to stand in line waiting for some universal doom, and they have endless life, youth, enervation, and no need to eat, what would keep them bound there? Space travel obviously exists, and the idea of going from one habitable planet to the other does as well, what keeps them from taking the time to learn how to build an effective escape vehicle? Heck, why not take the Decider’s vehicle?
What’s the worst that can happen to them? They get killed? Seems like it’d be easy enough to convince a bunch of self serving people to try and help themselves out of that situation.
Your imagery reminds me of Dante’s description Circle 7 in the Inferno. See Canto 14.
“Of naked souls beheld I many herds,
Who all were weeping very miserably,
And over them seemed set a law diverse.
Supine upon the ground some folk were lying;
And some were sitting all drawn up together,
And others went about continually.
Those who were going round were far the more,
And those were less who lay down to their torment,
But had their tongues more loosed to lamentation.
O’er all the sand-waste, with a gradual fall,
Were raining down dilated flakes of fire,
As of the snow on Alp without a wind.”