Errol, 2116
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
There are no vivid faces; his world is all grey. Errol Partridge sits in the ruins of a once-noble cathedral, and reads the verse with a feeling he has come to know as melancholy. In Libria, to do both these things---reading, feeling---is to court death. The book on his lap could earn him execution; he keeps his own sidearm close to hand as his gaze drifts down the page.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words--
There is no other kind of social exchange in Libria. At least, not in public. A few daring souls rebel, failing to inject their interval of Prozium. It is his duty to mete out punishment to such sense offenders, yet he is one of them. More and more often, he finds himself lagging in the performance of this duty. His partner is willing---eager---to handle such disagreeable chores. Preston is on the way up; today when they returned from the Nether, he was asked to meet with Dupont. The interview conspicuously did not include Errol.
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Errol fears he has slipped today; such a little thing, a misplaced inflection, but Preston seized upon it. Sometimes Errol is certain that his partner knows what he is, and other times he mocks himself. Preston has demonstrated a great faculty for sensing forbidden feelings among the public, but somehow managed to miss his wife's transgressions at close range. Since he and his partner spend a great deal of time together, Errol hopes that Preston will also be oblivious to his faults.
That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
In the inside pocket of his jacket is a slim box guarding a handful of photographs. The one he holds dearest is of himself with Mary. She is beautiful, with a sweet voice and melodious laugh. This, surely is what love is, to want her, to want to be with her, to be able to share his thoughts and feelings with her daily. What a shame that he can't introduce her to his daughter as the mother she's never had---but his offspring seems a proper Cleric's daughter and would in all likelihood, turn them both in.
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
He thinks of Jurgen, the closest thing a leader that the Underground has. From the day of their first meeting, he's admired the young man. Although professing that he hasn't ingested Prozium in years, Jurgen maintains a calm demeanor that Errol envies. At the same time, he's caring, honest and sincere---he doesn't display any of the messy emotions that Errol's always been taught would destroy an unmedicated individual. Jurgen has asked him to kill Father, to help bring down the leader that represses the citizens of Libria. To dethrone a tyrant would be a cause worth dying for.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
Items containing decoration that do not assist their utiliarian function are condemned as having Emotional Content. Items labeled EC-10 are destroyed promptly, as is anyone found possessing them. It is rumored by sources who work in the highest citadels of Council that those offices are lavishly appointed; this humble volume Errol holds is intellectual treasure to be sure, but gossip has it that there is real gold to be found as ornament in the hallowed halls. He's heard this from enough sources that he believes there's a core of truth to it. If his society's leaders don't share the privations they ask of their citizens, they have forfeited their right to rule.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
Errol recognized two of the men who died this afternoon's raid and had a moment of impending doom, but either they hadn't known him in uniform or were determined not to betray him, for which he feels gratitude. Life can be so tenuous; The War is among his earliest and most terrible memories. His childhood was a whole world in ruins like this structure. The collective that founded Libria took in a ragged toddler and raised him in as one of their model citizens. A clean and well-ordered society, Libria has risen from the ashes of civilizations past.
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
For many years Errol has played his part; taken up the career he was trained in, begat a child when it was suitable to do so, followed the dictates of his leaders without question---the carefully conditioned apathy was normal...until one morning when he'd shot a young woman who'd fled at the sight of Clerics. Scanning her identification was a blow to his center; she was the same age as his daughter. Exactly. To the day.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
Hearts enchanted to a stone---there is no more perfect description of Libria. Prozium quells human passions, but doesn't curb them completely. One can still take pride in a job well done, still express approval or disappoval, provided one does it in an appropriate monotone. The trouble is, that isn't living. The pain that had dawned on him when his final interval wore off stopped him in his tracks. He'd been convinced he was dying. A quiet voice asking if he was ill roused him from the firestorm of guilt and fear and heartache. That was Jurgen. Through him, Errol met Mary, and he'd evolved from a brisk killing machine to something quieter and more thoughtful.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change--
Libria deems change dangerous. It seeks to stamp out individuality, to instill uniformity. For so long, he didn't recognize that for the evil it was; there was no other point of view to compare it to. Faint memories of being a small boy wandering among nothingness after the terror of fire raining down on the world was his only experience with emotion. Errol is a grown man now, with an adult daughter, and it's only in these last two years that he's come to appreciate what a wonderful thing his life is. Why should identical lives be a goal to strive for? Each person has something about them that is uniquely theirs, but they fight it with thrice-daily injections of Prozium.
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.
They are grey stones, his fellow citizens, and he longs to be able to share the delights of the world with them. There is so much more than they allow themselves! Even amid the greyness of Libria they haven't been able to quell the random clouds that glide across the sky, the winged birds that perch on granite buildings and swoop from time to time earthward to pursue an errant bug. Beauty can be found in the curve of a lover's cheek or even the mobile grace of a Cleric's kata.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
The stone of Errol's heart shattered on that day when the girl who was not his daughter lay on a slab in the Hall of Justice. She was someone's child. Even now, somewhere in the city, some parent was hearing terrible news. Errol heard the reminder chime as he stood looking down at her, not ignoring it---not hearing it. Not aware of anything but the poor, broken shape that an hour ago had run from him, she who had awakened this morning from whatever dreams might creep into her night-time with no thought, no clue that she would sleep the sleep from which there is no waking...
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
Errol no longer has faith in Libria's leaders. Why should he? They have no faith in him. In the two years since he's ceased taking the dose, he hasn't committed any crimes---granted, they would call him an offender for regularly destroying his ampules of Prozium, but their predictions of passions run wild haven't materialized. He's maintained the proper decorum; it isn't difficult to be a civilized human being, he thinks, but he feels increasing discomfort about doing what is required of him. Billions have already died, if the stories about The War are true. What's the point in slaughtering survivors? Eventually, there will be no one left.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
There is no change from Death. There is no reprieve. The stifling future Libria offers is not the answer, either. Even if human emotion led to The War, whatever atrocities mankind might have perpetrated in the past, surely they have learned? They need only look at the bleakness that is the Nether to see what they are capable of. There must be a peaceful medium somewhere between hearts of stone and a rain of fire.
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
He tries to imagine himself wearing green, a fanciful notion. No more grey, he resolves. Let there be color and life in Libria, let change come to the stone hearts that surround him. Together, he and Mary and the Underground will bring down Father, will bring change. Errol Partridge smiles, and turns the page.
Characters from Equilibrium belong to Kurt Wimmer. The poem "Easter, 1916" is by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). I own only the neurons and electrons this is composed with.
I was reading a news article earlier that alluded to this poem, and as every writer knows, the oddest things can trigger ideas. In this case, the juxtaposition of Yeats, the Irish rebellion and the circumstances present in the fandom. Unlike my usual habit of obsessive tweaking, I'm posting it as written for Easter, 2006. I regret any errors of haste.