Land and Liberty

[Padishah Mehmet II]

I lie awake in the middle of the night and listen to the rain, waiting for dawn.

 

It's not coming, of course. Belligerently so, daylight refuses to rise from beyond the city skyline dominating the distant, foreign horizon. Like a pagan goddess, she rejects all of her worshippers' pleas without so much as hearing a single word escape their lips, rejects those pleas elegantly, with the world's greatest pretense of kindness.

 

There will be no dawn for me. What I feel right now is a precise, factory-made, carbon copy of the feelings of a man stuck beyond life and beyond death, imprisoned in purgatory with neither heaven nor inferno willing to claim him. There is simply no future left for me.

 

God himself has forsaken me.

 

What should I expect? I did not serve him, no more than I served any prince or peer, no more than I served the Tsar – that would mean I did not serve him at all. Fealty I swore to none save the people and the land, and to no heaven but the one we would make for our children. And yet, I have no regrets. Even if God has forsaken me, I do not regret what I have fought for. I do not regret that I have forsaken Him. I regret nothing but my failure to bring the people a future where no one dares wrong them.

 

I will see no dawn, and I know it. The enemy is coming; I feel their footsteps shake the ground from miles away. I feel their breath pollute the damp air of the night. I feel their hate, I remember their treason, and I fear for the fates of a million children under their reign. I do not fear for myself. I have no reason to worry about something as meaningless as my life.

 

Falling to the cold, hard ground, I attempt the meaningless action of a grasp at the floorboards of my apartment room.

 

They are probably racing down this calm avenue right now, I know as much. Some, who have never been in our situation, might say we were foolish, might say we fought the wrong wars and fought tyrants only for new ones to arise, in no small part due to our own errors. Might say we didn't stop what was imminent even when we knew it was.

 

But our struggle I would never sell for any price on this earth. We failed, ultimately, yes. So what? Were we wrong? All we wanted was that the children of our children would live better lives than we had. We fought for a better world, a world we thought and still think worth dying for.

 

My hands, absentmindedly scratching at the wooden floor of my apartment, inadvertely chance upon the loose floorboard under which I used to keep my subversive literature and "revolutionary equipment," back when I still had to hide it. Hastily, as if urged on by some spirit, I remove the boards. There lies a copy of Marx's Das Kapital¹, and one of Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done?²Two revolvers, one still loaded. And a flag, red and bright as blood, defaced with the words, "In struggle you claim your rights."³

 

All is silent. My executioners refuse to arrive, refuse to claim their victory, refuse to be merciful. They refuse to let me have my death.

 

This is Butyrka Prison⁴ all over again.

 

The most horrifying thing about that old prison was never the treatment they gave us, no. It was the knowledge that you would, a week later, be executed. Even if that execution never came, the prison guards and leadership created a fantastically vivid image of its inevitability. Every Monday morning, my cellmate, Alexei, himself an SR⁵ imprisoned for trying to assassinate Tsarist officials, just like me, would sit up in his bed and say, more to God than to anyone else, “Are they killing us yet?”

 

Death never came. No matter how many days we waited for them to come and kill us, death never came. That, more than anything, drove Alexei crazy. Every waking moment he spent in that cell, every moment that he knew he could die, drove him insane. A month after we came to Butyrka, he had already started talking delusions.

 

“I hear demons, Yaakov. Every night, they call to me.”

 

It was horrific to see Alexei that way back then, yes… but now, more than ever, I see just how horrific it was to him. For I, too, hear demons, now. I wish they would just come and deliver me from this horror; end my miserable life, and free me to an afterlife I do not believe in. No God can help me anymore, for all gods I have forsaken. No revolution will free me from this prison of my mind, like it freed me from Butyrka. No revolution will free me from a blade of unfair judgment today. All I was… was a dreamer. And now, the only thing that still clasps me to my sanity is the same thing I repeated before sleep every night in prison.

 

“’Tis in struggle that you claim your rights.”

 

I mutter it a hundred times under my nose, my breaths growing weaker as my head spins, my hands desperately clutching at the floor, simultaneously defying the increased sense of gravity that is dragging me ever closer to the ground. I do, it turns out, in fact, fear death. I fear the cold world outside which has betrayed my people and defied my revolution. I fear the cold world outside that, without any regret present in its mind, is driving itself toward destruction, where the masses are coldly guided into killing fields as humanity sells peace and love for blood and iron.

 

“In struggle you claim your rights.”

 

I repeat the words, as if they would help me, as tears well up in my eyes. I have no regrets on the type of life I chose to lead, yes. But what of those I loved?

 

“In struggle… you claim…”

 

I thought of all of those people, my head spinning so fast I literally thought I was falling. The world seemed to twist and meld, the colors mixing in the strangest fashions as a single lone teardrop of mine landed on the copy of Das Kapital I kept under my floorboard.

 

All those people. My brother. My sister. My father, my cousin, my mother. All of them have suffered way too much for it to be reasonable. Why? What world could do this?

 

“You are meant for great things, Kapel⁶.”

 

The sudden memory of my father hit me so suddenly, so radically that I couldn't help but simply gasp. Within moments, I was overwhelmed by this unexpected image and found myself living through that moment of my childhood, some time long, long, long ago, lost in the vividness of the picture.

 

“Here’s a thing the rabbi doesn’t tell you, except when he’s drunk and upset about his daughter marrying that Ukrainian kid. God could’ve done much better at making this world. Another thing he will never tell you: people like you, like your brother, like your sister and like millions of others that are there are the ones who will correct his mistakes. Ordinary people. People who try to do what’s right by everyone.”

 

“You will change this world, Kapel. You and millions like you.”

 

“In struggle…”

 

“… You claim your rights,” I whisper to myself, my tears swept away as if by a hurricane. My eyes pass over the room, and I feel as if I see it for the first time. I was not just a dreamer. I was one of millions of people who try to do what’s right by everyone. I fought against oppression and was victorious! For a moment, I was victorious. That moment the people, the people, that ultimate article of civilization that I truly believe in, rose up and freed me from Butyrka, I was victorious, because like millions of other ordinary people, I had shown the world what I always have believed: that no matter how much power over the people you accumulate, the people always have more! And no one will take that from me! I am not a hero. I am merely one of millions. I may die tonight, but others will always take my place, because while power runs out, the people are legion! And I must not flee, not ever; because it is this cause - justice and freedom for the people - that I have fought for all my life and my loved ones have died for. Their sacrifice, my sacrifices, all Russia’s sacrifices will not be in vain.

 

I hear them knock on my door. I know it’s them. My first-floor neighbor already phoned me to tell me they’re coming. It doesn’t matter; they will not take me alive. I will only fall of my own volition.

 

They will start breaking down the door in approximately two minutes of continued knocking. I haven’t much time. Seizing this opportunity, I reach for the red flag under my floorboard and cloak myself with it, clasping it round my neck with a set of good-enough knots.

 

It is then that the CHEKA smash down the door with a crash, and it is then that I scream three words, just three words. Three words that I think worth dying for.

 

“Land and Liberty!"⁷

 

I scream. I scream as they jump towards me. I scream as I pull the trigger of that one loaded revolver I have, now placed at my temple.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, BZPower, what can I tell you? I'm back. It's been awhile since I actually posted anything even vaguely artistic here. It's been a long while indeed. Now, this is, as you may understand (or not) by now, a historical fiction work. It is set somewhere in the time period between 1918 and 1920 in Russia, and as a historical fiction work, I think it deserves a few footnotes to explain the more historical, often subtle, references of this work.

 

1) One of two of Karl Marx’s most famous works, ‘The Capital’ – his economic analysis of capitalism

2) 1863 novel by Nikolai Chernyshevsky. Significantly radicalized Russia‘s democratic and liberal forces of the time, turned many of the middle class against the Tsar's rule.

3) The Socialist-Revolutionary Party of Russia’s slogan (Russian: "В борьбе обретешь ты право свое!")

4) Tsarist Russia‘s prime prison, used to keep political prisoners.

5) The Socialist-Revolutionary Party was Russia‘s primary democratic socialist force at the time of the February Revolution of 1917, alongside the Mensheviks. Unlike the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, it did not consider itself Marxist (although some of its leaders did) and had huge support in the nation, mainly due to its policy of land socialization (land was to be redistributed from the wealthy landowners to the landless peasants). After the October Revolution, despite the Bolsheviks now being in power, the SRs managed to secure an absolute majority of seats in Russia‘s Constituent Assembly (53%). The Constituent Assembly, however, was disbanded a day later by force and the SRs were continuously marginalized and/or persecuted.

6) Common Yiddish diminutive for ‘Yaakov’

7) Also a popular SR slogan (Russian: земля и воля)

 

Legal disclaimer: this story was not intended, and I wholeheartedly request, for fear of someone locking the topic, that people would refrain from using it as a reason to start political discussion (as the Bolshevik revolution remains a touchy subject in many places, Russia in particular) - I would prefer if we did not discuss the historical aspect of the story at all (or perhaps discuss it over PM, if someone so wishes?), and instead viewed it as any other short story. And yes, the posting of this story has been approved by the staff, even. This time period was intended as an interesting setting for a story, nothing more.

 

So yeah, BZPower. Any thoughts?

-Dovydas

Edited June 10, 2013 by Lithuanian Lightning

[Nuile the Paracosmic Tulpa]

There will be no dawn for you. The enemy is coming; you feel their footsteps shake the ground. You feel their words pollute the forum systems in the night. You feel their hate.

 

You lie awake, quivering in your fear. You do not fear for yourself. You have no reason to worry about something as meaningless as my life. But you fear for the fate of the stories you leave behind to fend for themselves. Long after your words have melted into the dissolution of countless eons' worth of immemorial literary detritus, even after these few precious pages have moldered into dust on the breeze, the others will remain, the others will fight.

 

You are merely one of millions. Your story may die tonight, but others will take your place. They will fight. And they will keep fighting. While power runs out, words are legion! Their sacrifices, your sacrifices, all literature's sacrifices will not be in vain.

 

You hear them knock on your door. You know it's them. The Short Story Critic Club Charity Reviews want your head. There's no escape. They smash down the door with a crash and fill the room.

 

They have come.

 

 

I was listening to "The Impossible Dream" as I reached the end of this piece, which was eminently fitting. That one man, scorned and covered with scars, still strove, with his last ounce of courage . . . It heightened the emotion and drama of this scene for me; a scene that was, at that, done well enough without the music. It was just the right song at the right place to enhance and personalize my enjoyment. Don't think it biased me, though; it only fell into step with your own words. And believe me, that I am comparing your story to this song, is a compliment of the highest order.

 

Land and Liberty has great emotional power. It is imbued with a strange form of fear. It's not a personal fear, there is no fear for the protagonist's own well-being; though he admits himself that he is afraid to die, he says at the beginning that he is only afraid "for the fates of a million children under their reign," as you put it. I think they're one and the same. The latter augments the former. It's a selfless egotism: a feeling of responsibility to his quest, to his people; a pride taken in his duty to them, in his ability to help and to serve his cause; the persistent concern that he has not done enough, that he should live to do more; a fear of what will become of it all if he dies and leaves them alone to fend for themselves. Finally he realizes that he is just a soldier, and that there is only honor in accepting inevitable death. In the end he grasps this. Emotionally it's a fascinating study of the selflessness that can be found in egocentricity, and the way fear--which is like any other emotion inherently selfish--can reflect that. And it's powerful.

 

Lightly, prudently, you explore the man's religion, his beliefs but lack of dedication to any purpose but his cause, the cause that through a lifetime of fear and oppression has become all-devouring to him. It has absorbed his soul and every "last ounce of courage" of his being. He has no time to spare for a God that "could have done a lot better making this world." Instead he seeks to correct these mistakes. But this is a religious topic, so I'll go no further on the point.

 

And the undercurrent flowing beneath it all is the historical detail. It's an era I've spent a lot of time researching myself, but America is more in my line. I see the Red Terror as through the eyes of one who watches from across the sea, knowing only what I've read in the news. I'm more interested in the socialist revolution that's rising in my own country, as it is in many corners of the globe. But seeing this story, then, through the eyes of a man who is living through the revolution in Russia, intrigues me. It's a story that I, in my 20th century rôle of the American patriot, appalls me. Incredible that it hasn't been censored! And yet, so interesting. There are two sides to every story, often even more, and this gives me a new perspective on the ongoing revolution.

 

I do question: Are telephones common in Russia? Here, yes, they're spreading quickly to every home in that nation, but I haven't realized Russia is so abreast of the times.

 

Resuming the body of a 21st century writer, my next comment is one I've made a hundred times before to a hundred writers. I don't like present tense. But there are those who do. Moreover, in a case like this, when there's far more narration than narrative, it's all right. I don't mind as much. But there's still one problem: it's as difficult for a writer, as for the reader, to adjust their mind to the abnormality that is present tense prose. Several times you slipped into the natural, easy familiarity of the past tense.

 

My only other objection is the lack of period style. On the one hand, I think I do sense a slight archaism, so I think you tried a little. But when I write for a certain time period, I prefer to embrace it as fully as I can--while, of course, balancing the era in which I and my readers live--and that's what I like to see when I read. The piece seemed so well-researched, otherwise, that that disappointed me a little. But it's a delicate thing to do, and especially for one short story, I don't blame you.

 

Besides, I do like your style. There is a poetic beauty and a splendor in your descriptions, which more than anything else is what gave me a slight flavor of period style. Elegant descriptions are fast becoming a lost art; more and more they are being relinquished for concise, powerful, poignant descriptions. I'm always glad to see a more aesthetic style embraced.

 

 

You're probably surprised I haven't shut up yet. And I'm not about to! I have a few more comments, purely grammatical:

 

My hands, absentmindedly scratching at the wooden floor of my apartment, inadvertely chance upon the loose floorboard under which I used to keep my subversive literature and "revolutionary equipment", back when I still had to hide it. Hastily, as if urged on by some spirit, I removed the boards. There was a copy of Marx's Das Kapital¹, and one of Chernyshevsky's What Is To Be Done?²Two revolvers, one still loaded. And a flag, red and bright as blood, defaced with the words, "In struggle you claim your rights."³

 

Present tense. Present. Past tense. Past.

 

. . . literature and "revolutionary equipment", back when I still had to hide it.

 

The comma belongs inside the quotation mark.

 

I scream as I pull the trigger of that one loaded revolver I had, now placed at my temple.

 

When a present tense story accidentally slips into past tense on the final line, it's very disappointing. It wasn't that, however, so much as the comma, that ruined the moment for me. It's funny, the change in meaning that comma makes. The meaning I expected would be conveyed without the comma. Then, reading for a third time, I realized that the verb was in the wrong tense. Repair the tense and remove the comma and it will, I think, be perfect.

 

Sincerely, Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith

[Padishah Mehmet II]

Aye, thanks for the review, I very much appreciate it. I have corrected the grammar errors you pointed out. Thanks for your kind words, they mean a lot to me considering I haven't exactly received a lot of comments about this short story before.

-Dovydas