A History of Torture

Imagine a world, imagined. A world where a president proclaims that these books are illegal. And now you can only get them from a qualified and licensed practitioner (permitted by the president).  If you spent all your time looking for books, waiting around for book dealers, getting ripped off but knowing these books are all you can get. The ones the booker chooses to offer you. When he doubles the price, you pay it. Because you feel best when you have these words, evil words, idiotic words that hurt people. These things—true—make you want them more. Anything bad for you is bad for you, and hence becomes illegal, by order of the president. One day soon we may be bad for you. There may need to be a war against us: the writers and printers and publishers and sellers of books. They will burn us to ashes and burn the ashes; that will be the motto. And eventually even you, the watcher, will be taken, and seated in a dark room where no explanations are necessary. And you will long to look through the eyes of the dead. You will deny it; you’ll be forced to. But you will give your dignity to feed once more on the specters in books. Give your dignity to look once more through my eyes, to look at the images and take them from me. Hold on hope, once more, that they will become seamless.