Andrei Yanuaryevich (one longs to blurt out, “Jaguaryevich”) Vyshinsky, availing himself of the most flexible dialectics (of a sort nowadays not permitted either Soviet citizens or electronic calculators, since to them yes is yes and no is no), pointed out in a report which became famous in certain circles that it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person. Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence-for evidence is always relative-or unchallengeable witnesses-for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character” (i.e., his willingness to apply cruelty!)… In only one respect did Vyshinsky fail to be consistent and retreat from dialectical logic: for some reason, the executioner’s bullet which he allowed was not relative but absolute…
She was an echo masquerading as a shadow and she followed me just the same. The night and its moon were her favor while the sunrise and sunlight the daggers that sliced her to ribbons. She looked through half closed eyes at a blind world filled with wide eyes staring at walls. She felt pity with no care while around here steamed a burden too dense to bear. In the hours before dawn her tears slide to her jaw as a soft song escapes from between her cracked lips. A barbed song of glory and woe that hugs her tight and steals her breath, each line a quiver, every word a bind. A cage in her image meant to be broken. Destroy and recreate, scar after scar shallow and deep, her dreams were her life and the nightmares her sleep. Dark circles under eyes that truly see, time while awake moves more slowly. It trickles past her, eroding her being and pulling on her delicate seams. She unravels a little each day, tucking the threads back in every which way. In the night she is flawless and clear, the moonlight dancing in swirls, throwing half formed monograms against her wall. She traces these curves and whispers her story, an imprint in an ocean of churning shadows. Her imagination plays a scene of a teary-eyed embrace on the shores of a former dream, where droplets of her soul fell wildly below, where they and her became a part of a much larger whole. A smile rips her taunt and clenched face, the memory of the feeling of an unreal embrace. She holds herself tightly in a corner with no light and shudders with every pinprick of the downpour of night. Though muffled by the glass of her self imposed flask, she hears the birds singing their song, the natural alarm of impending light. She waits patiently for the sun, counting the half seconds and making time slow, her grey eyes less than aimless and staring at the clouds. With half closed eyes now shining a golden haloed blue, she watches the sky change colors from soft to brilliant hue. The flood of life and color takes her by surprise every day and which way. The rip cuts a little more, her restless thoughts take note and pause. She just wants to scream. To swallow the vibrant light and flood her veins with all the color ever seen, a strange desire to fix what is broken and yet wanting to break. She loses count of the seconds in the wrinkles of her palms, mere dust to wind, ashes to gale. She recites the deadly seven and stops at lust, how different from love while still the same in a twisted way. Her knees press against the worn, wooden floor with no intent to pray, she just wants the numbness and the pain. There are some things right and a few that are wrong, feeling the breath of freedom tapered against the need to belong, The sun now vomits its light across the cragged horizon, illuminating manmade lines and verdurous fuzz, her rip widens in distaste and her mind frowns in disgust. Her heart hangs limp as a shattered mirror reflecting its own cracks, each inaudible beat a glimmer of a glimpse of something more than her created deceit. This is hope. In a fragile and faceted way, the reflects are abyss and ascension portrayed intertwined with no ties holding them together. She is the half second of the transition of the beat, the moment her heart begins to flex and show more than bones and maneuverable meat. She wonders about the subtle difference between spirit and soul and whether she needs only one or both to be whole. Shaking her head as if to dislodge her thoughts, they steer from the tracks and tumble and crash, destruction and turmoil birthing creation and a new path. She thinks about the way she thinks and comes full triangle, it feels right to be so jagged rather than unburdened as a circle. With a sigh and a breath, she stands against the weight of her shoulders and the unbalance of her feet. Her half closed eyes slowly fade to grey as the light and color in the sky changes and decays. She is the moments before the sun rises and sets-1-2-3
Although I am still far from this kind of interior understanding of myself, with profound respect for its significance I have sought to preserve my individuality―worshipped the unknown God. With a premature anxiety I have tried to avoid coming in close contact with those things whose force of attraction might be too powerful for me. I have sought to appropriate much from them, studied their distinctive characteristics and meaning in human life, but at the same time guarded against coming, like the moth, too close to the flame. I have had little to win or to lose in association with the ordinary run of men, partly because what they do―so-called practical life―does not interest me much, partly because their coldness and indifference to the spiritual and deeper currents in man alienate me even more from them. With few exceptions my companions have had no special influence upon me. A life that has not arrived at clarity about itself must necessarily exhibit an uneven side-surface; confronted by certain facts [*Facta*] and their apparent disharmony, they simply halted there, for, as I see it, they did not have sufficient interest to seek a resolution in a higher harmony or to recognize the necessity of it. Their opinion of me was always one-sided, and I have vacillated between putting too much or too little weight on what they said. I have now withdrawn from their influence and the potential variations of my life's compass resulting from it. Thus I am again standing at the point where I must begin again in another way. I shall now calmly attempt to look at myself and begin to initiate inner action; for only thus will I be able, like a child calling itself "I" in its first consciously undertaken act, be able to call myself "I" in a profounder sense.But that takes stamina, and it is not possible to harvest immediately what one has sown. I will remember that philosopher's method of having his disciples keep silent for three years; then I dare say it will come. Just as one does not begin a feast at sunrise but at sundown, just so in the spiritual world one must first work forward for some time before the sun really shines for us and rises in all its glory; for although it is true as it says that God lets his sun shine upon the good and the evil and lets the rain fall on the just and the unjust, it is not so in the spiritual world. So let the die be cast―I am crossing the Rubicon! No doubt this road takes me into battle, but I will not renounce it. I will not lament the past―why lament? I will work energetically and not waste time in regrets, like the person stuck in a bog and first calculating how far he has sunk without recognizing that during the time he spends on that he is sinking still deeper. I will hurry along the path I have found and shout to everyone I meet: Do not look back as Lot's wife did, but remember that we are struggling up a hill."―from_Journals_, (The Search for Personal Meaning)