Victim of Democracy

Disclaimer: I don't own it, never did and never will.

The heat of the many bodies packed into the ferry pressed in on me, making my throat tighten and my lungs exert themselves. My stomach churned uncomfortably, not from the heat or my nonexistent personal space, but from the emotions running rapid through my body. My brain was filled with 'what ifs' and my blood rushed in my ears, unsuccessful, however, at blocking out the murmurs of the passengers around me. I heard their whispers echoing in my head, only adding to my personal distress.

"What have they done to deserve to live?"

"I don't wanna die, mommy."

"We don't have the right to decide who lives and who dies."

"Who cares about a bunch of criminals? I have a life to live!"

"This is wrong. I can't live with hundreds of lives on my hands."

"Madness. Chaos. That's what this is."

Chaos. That's exactly what this was. No word could have fit this man's, this Joker's, plan better. Ever since he had shown his smeared, scarred face this city hadn't had a moment of rest. And now he had reached a new level. Testing the human conscience, the suppressed yet ever present survival instinct. This was a chaos untouched by any other mad man this city has ever seen. And Gotham has seen far more than its share.

Madness. That's exactly what my mind has succumbed to, what the minds of the other passengers have succumbed to. It's our nature to survive, to protect ourselves and preserve our own safety. But this goes beyond personal survival. The choice of saving hundreds of lives by sacrificing hundreds of lives, all with the simple movement of the hand, is a choice to drive anyone to madness.

I can't think. My feet are numb, nailed to the floor. A piece of paper is shoved into my hands. We, as true citizens of a democracy, have decided to put such a matter to a vote. The blank face of the ripped corner of paper glares blindingly up at me. My eyelids feel heavy as lead, blinking slowly. My mind has come to a halt, as blank as the paper in my hand. A pen is pressed to my chest and I raise a hand to curl my fingers around it. I move the tip close to the paper.

My mind awakes with a jolt, thousands of thoughts blurring through it, each indistinguishable from the next. What an impact the word I write on this paper will have on the rest of my life, whether that be only a few short minutes or many long years. I think of my wife, her blonde hair falling down her back in gentle waves, her brown eyes soft as her face lights up in a smile. Beside her is my daughter, her tiny thumb firmly in her mouth and one arm wrapped tightly around a blue fluffy bunny with lopsided ears. I have a family to think of. I can't leave them alone if I have a say in if I survive this ferry ride.

I came into town on business. She hadn't wanted me to go. She thought it was too dangerous with what had been happening. At the time I had told her everything was going to be all right. I was providing for my family and that was one of the most important things. Now here I stood because I ignored her gut feeling, because I thought I was doing what was best for my family. It hurts more than I ever thought it could hurt, the mere idea that I might leave them to fend for themselves, to have my darling little girl grow up without her daddy and my wife to work hard to support them, taking up the mantle of a single working mother. I don't think I could every willingly hurt my family by leaving them alone.

Two faced. That's what this choice was. At first, the right choice appears obvious, but allow a few seconds to pass and the true gravity of the situation becomes all too apparent. Yes, every person on this boat has a life, loved ones they have to think of first before themselves, and the selfish need of personal survival. But many of us have a conscience, too. How can we justify the equal trade of life, in numbers at least? What will the surviving group really win out of this game, this experiment? We will win our survival, but we will have lost our life, or our life as it had been. You cannot live the same once you have the blood of hundreds on your hands, staining them invisibly red, a constant reminder of the choice you made. Even if you didn't pull the trigger, if you do nothing to stop a man with a gun as he kills a person, you are no better than the murderer.

If I vote yes, I will add my voice to the group of murderers. How easily we are willing to kill our own species. If I vote yes with the majority, as I am sure that they will win out, the blood of those on the other ferry will run over my hands just as much as the man who initiates the detonator. If I vote yes, I will live to see my wife and daughter, live to see the sun again, live to grow old, live to only die.

Death. It seems a terrible concept now, here in this situation. But is it not inevitable? We will all die, the man breathing fast next to me will die and the woman stepping on my foot will die just as I will die. But will I die a man twisted by the scars of murder? Or will I die a man who made the honorable, the morally right, choice?

My mind is made up. I scribble down my answer quickly and toss it into the hat passing around. I wait patiently while the seconds tick by and the ballots are counted. I cherish what could be my last minutes on this earth.

"140 against. 396 for." A man says to the silence of the boat. A sigh of relief passes over the crowd yet no one makes a move to carry out the decision of our established democracy of this, this collection of people thrown together in a situation beyond imagination. One man tries, he actually holds it in his hands, but he can't do it.

I smile to myself as the seconds tick down. I am not going to die a haunted man. My conscience is clear. Even if someone follows through on the majority vote, I will be content in the fact that I was not one of the voices that called for the death of hundreds of human lives for the sake of saving my own and sparing my family and friends from the pain of loss. I defied the Joker in the best way I could. And as long as there are people out their willing to do the same as me, even if the number is small, I know there is hope for a better tomorrow. There is hope that my daughter may grow up in a world without the utter madness and chaos brought on by humans such as this man who calls himself Joker.

Storm Music

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