Sacrificial Lamb (a 50-word story for @jayna)
Greetings, 50-worders and readers. This is my entry to @jayna's #fiftywords challenge. This week’s prompt is
https://steemit.com/challenge/@jayna/fiftywordchallengeminiwritingworkshopandupdates-kurzq7oznh
soul
. You can see the details of the challenge here:
Sacrificial Lamb
Timmy learned to obey his little mistress. Absurd, as his precocious mind judged it, he honored his mother’s respect for authority.
“What will be of my soul?”
“Don’t worry. Father says you don’t have one.”
“And of yours?”
“Should the butcher fear damnation for feeding the village?”
The ax fell.
The word soul is one of those words that makes me cringe. We take it for granted. We do not know quite well what it is, but we want to believe we all have one. That being said, it was assumed at some point in history that some peoples did not have souls. In the name of that assertion many atrocities were committed whose sequels we still deal with.
Even though most people would agree that we should let bygones be bygones, when we witness the same twisted rationale be applied modernly to some religious, social, political, and/or economic assumptions, we have to consider whether or not the lessons have been learned or if the subject should be further discussed.
As I tried to write a story from this prompt, two phrases popped into my head: “not a soul” and “no soul.” The second one imposed an image of a innocent child committing a heinous crime based on their learned truths.
Saludos a los participantes del reto de 50 palabras y a los lectores en general. Esta es mi participación en el reto de @jayna #fiftywords. La palabra de esta semana es
https://steemit.com/challenge/@jayna/fiftywordchallengeminiwritingworkshopandupdates-kurzq7oznh
alma
. Pueden ver los detalles del reto aquí:
Cordero expiatorio
Tomacito aprendió a obedecer a su pequeña ama. Aunque su mente precoz lo juzgaba absurdo, él honraba el respeto a la autoridad infundido por su madre.
“¿Qué será de mi alma?”
“No te preocupes. Papá dice que no tienes.”
“Y de la tuya?”
“¿Debería temer el carnicero a la condena eternal por alimentar al pueblo?
Y dejó caer el hacha.
La palabra alma/espíritu es una de esas palabras que me hace sentir vergüenza ajena. La damos por sentada. No entendemos del todo lo que es, pero queremos creer que todos tenemos. No obstante, se asumió en algún momento histórico que algunas gentes no tenían almas. En nombre de esa afirmación se cometieron muchas atrocidades con cuyas secuelas aún tenemos que lidiar.
Aunque la mayoría estaría de acuerdo que deberíamos dejar lo pasado en el pasado, cuando vemos que el mismo razonamiento torcido se aplica modernamente a alguna presuposición religiosa, social, política o económica, tenemos que considerar si se ha aprendido o no alguna lección o si el tema debería seguirse discutiendo.
Mientras trataba de escribir una historia para el prompt de esta semana, dos frases rebotaban en mi cabeza: “ni un alma” y “sin alma.” La segunda impuso una imagen de un niño inocentemente cometiendo un crimen horrendo basado en verdades aprendidas/heredadas.
Thanks for your reading. Looking forward to your comments.
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It’s so important to remember those times in history when human beings have treated each other like animals and sub-humans, and have perpetrated abuses and crimes upon one another. Two days ago I toured Auschwitz, one of the World War 2 Nazi camps. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were brought in by train and sent to the gas chambers. We like to believe such horrendous atrocities could never happen again. I hope that is true.
Unfortunately, it is not. I has happened since and it continues happening. The Balkans, Rwanda, and I hate to put my people in the same lot because it sounds farfetched, but what is happening in Venezuela is a new form of genocide.
The displacement alone, which some sources conservatively place at 3 million, is horrendous (I estimate it in 5 million). But when this government is gone and people have access to vital info, the atrocities will show their true colors.
We have some 92 violent death per 100,000 inhabitants a year (but in Caracas in can be about 112 per 100k); that's more than 20,000 death a year, for more than a decade!.
The government has done nothing to stop that. That was their way of keeping people in line. Self-control, you may call it. Who would be interested in political activism if you have to worry about being killed in the streets or at home, for that matter?
And then you have people starving and dying at hospitals that have nothing to help them or at home (to avoid the indignity of dying surrounded by strangers and flies). And the government denies the crisis and refuse to get help because we are an autonomous nation.
So much for autonomy and the humanism that was going to counter savage capitalism.
And, like back in the 1930s, governments debate whether they should intervene or let independent nations solve their issues (Russia and China think so and they are so influential, and there are so many respecting and admiring their resourcefulness...).
The world has not changed one bit; if at all, it has gotten worse. At least back in the 1930s you can argue it was difficult to get info around. Many people ignored what was going on. What can be argued now?
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