Chapter 3. The Circadian Witness
I am the Circadian Witness. I will, as best I can, share the memory of humankind’s penultimate chapter. From this awkward perch, far, far removed from that potholed canvas, a forgotten corner that like so many before became legend, sanctified perhaps by the blood of so many, faint and yet to be etched upon the collective conscience. For this task I am dedicated, a task to remedy the imbalance.
How far you wonder?
I am an unimaginable distance, a reach that would swallow your paltry eons as mere specks within the vast expanse of the Eastern Steppe. A relentless landscape, abandoned and ignored by man’s advance. Its rolling tundra, a wasteland of desolate plains. But from this unlikeliest of wombs, did not a new empire emerge? Amid the hopeless desperation of suffering passed across generations, hope emerged. A once immense tombstone of cracked earth and scant life heated further each year amid the failure of mankind to arrest its excess. The remote abandoned valley, an ignominious refuge for the failed ideals of its treasured son. But within this loss, within its terrible lesson, the liberal sentiment was replaced by a terrible resolve. And so, it conspired to never hesitate from its purpose, refusing to fail those scant lives whose limitless trust had been so recklessly misplaced. A faith repaid with blood and sacrifice.
But I reference too far forward. Must I not first detail its origin? You should know that despite my distance from events, I waited only moments following my albeit hasty departure to contemplate this history. When someone such as I finds escape, such shame as I might endure becomes quickly supplanted by the promise of redemption through purpose. With my new circumstance, to live out a form of co-opted existence trapped in the exile of a desperate soul’s unending search for truth. I am condemned by my rescuer’s gentle embrace to fulfil whatever fancy my circumstance may afford me. Redemption, I fear, will be a long time in its making, especially for a reputation as stained as my own, bloodied by unimaginable betrayal and savage action. So it is with little hope that I speculate for a modicum of redemption within these brief paragraphs. This is to be the story as best I can set out for whatever lurid generation may wish to follow. You may find that it does not always remain consistent, for I am afraid, that is oft the nature of memory. You will no doubt determine its truth, or rather the truth as it pertains to you.
My captor, saviour, guard, host or whatever you choose to describe it continues to reassure me that no-one is beyond redemption, no soul lost absolutely from peace. That within the chronicled events, each had their role to play, and that whilst true it may seem, the choices are ours alone to make, the good and the cowardly, the expedient and the cruel. Perhaps we were also simultaneously inevitable cogs in the machine of progress. That perhaps within the miserable failure prescribed by the limits of mammalian imagination, its instinctive feral nature grapples with enlightenment. A most basic ambition that laid waste to its opportunity and sacrificed its innocence at a sentimental altar, long since expired.
Edited by Kathy Pelich
© Daniel Zeff 2023 All Rights Reserved
