At least for me, the worst part was the drive done to get the body. Although I couldn't claim to know Jhasen as well as the rest of genetic freaks we surround ourselves with, it was still an arduous task. In a community, whether electronic, flesh, neural-anything, the death of one of its members is a disheartening happening. Having solved the problem of absolutism versus human perception, I felt fully confident. That is why I keep this log. Like the Lithograph says "Which has died?"

His body looks somehow larger and smaller. Probably the combination of stamping and the post-mortem three day bloat. Looking at this corpse with Ryan and Scott, I can't help but wonder if this body might be of use to us in the long-term. Something to think about later.

After signing the body out, and promising to be good to it, the large white Cadillac is driven to the door, where the body is trundled down on a gurney, and with a toss put him on the roof for the journey back to Michigan. This task cannot be carried by a weakling triad.






-hemos-
--Letters from a Savior; Offer for a few--


back--forward

A term that multiples sometimes use to refer to, well, their body. Because there are many people sharing one body in a multiple system, they might dissasociate themselves from their body, and not feel as much of a sense of belonging as non-multiples. Thus, the less personal descriptor, "the body".

Rating: PG-13 (profanity, violence)
Year of U.S.A. Release: 2001

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Olivia Williams, John Shrapnel, Derek Jacobi, Jason Flemyng, John Wood, Ian McNeice, Mohammed Bakri
Directed by: Jonas McCord
Written by: Jonas McCord, based upon the novel by Richard Ben Sapir

At the dawn of the new millennium, in the cradle of faith that is Jerusalem, two seemingly mismatched people from different worlds and cultures -- Vatican-appointed Jesuit priest Matt Gutierrez (ANTONIO BANDERAS) and Israeli archaeologist Sharon Golban (OLIVIA WILLIAMS) -- make a tenuous alliance to investigate a find that not only threatens the very foundations of western religion, but also blow apart the region's fragile peace.

The above was taken from www.rottentomatoes.com

The last paragraph of this writeup contains a spoiler of sorts, but since there are no characters in the scene and none of them ever finds out about it, it's kind of pointless as a spoiler.

A few times, Fr. Gutierrez recalls people who told him things that he believed without any doubt, and then found out that these things were wrong. I guess believing something without any doubt makes people feel good, though I don't think I ever do it myself. This movie strengthened my own tendency towards skepticism.

One of Fr. Gutierrez' fellow Jesuits was an archaeologist. This man thought he had found a solution to the conflict between his religious faith and scientific faith, but Fr. Gutierrez presented evidence that made him reject this solution. I believe many people avoid this problem, either subconsciously, or through skepticism or ignorance. This movie introduces the problem without presenting much help in the way of solving it. I wanted to tell that scientist-priest: "It doesn't have to change your life." We like to think that we live by the one true religion, but this hubris presents the problem that if some tenet of the faith turns out to be wrong, our lives would be meaningless. But really, the details of any particular religion are more like the different colors and styles of a jacket, whereas what keeps us warm are the beliefs in peace and kindness that are common to all religions.

Here's the spoiler: One particular scene showed a tablet with an ancient inscription that translated in the subtitle to "Please God, take my son David as you have taken your own son Jesus." I suspect that this brief scene was added in order to allow people to leave the movie without feeling that it went against everything they believe. One of the major points of the movie is that we'd be better off if it didn't matter so much whether or not Christ actually rose from the dead. This scene was a slightly annoying tip of the hat to those who don't want their faith tested. At least one character if not two or three mentioned that most believers would not be swayed against their faith by the scientific evidence that Christ had not risen, but someone with editorial influence believed that the thoughts of movie writers are more disturbing to people than the findings of scientists, so they added this scene to ease the disturbance.

My body began above my breasts, which had first appeared when I was eight. It continued below my knees. The center of my body was numb and ambiguous.

In the bath, I perched paperbacks above my cleavage, grew tired of the lukewarm water, then rinsed off blindly without touching the skin. Feeling a growing warmth one evening, I looked down and found blood eking from my ambiguous center, eddying a surprisingly blue-veined body. I rinsed myself as the pink water drained from the tub. As I dried off, I searched the towel and my body for evidence of blood, rubbing my skin red.

My grip on human anatomy was still loose. When I was eight, my mother had called me ominously into her bedroom to explain ovaries and fallopian tubes and to warn me of the apparition of blood. She remained curiously silent about the purpose of menstruation, and by the time I had begun to bleed, she was already gone again.

Now, with this blood, my body was betraying me. Though I tried, I could no longer deny my body’s existence. The dead center of me wasn’t only bloody; it was suddenly flooded with varied sensations, none of which I could bear. Worse than the pain was the unnamable sense of desire. Against my will, the body wanted to be touched. And I would rather be dead than touched.

I resisted the idea of killing my body. I commanded myself not to think it, but ways to kill and be killed flickered, unbeckoned, through my mind. Hit by a car. Slit throat. Gun to head. Hanged. Electrocuted. I witnessed them, disconnected from my own desires. The knife was never in my hand; I only saw a hand, a knife.

Instead of the instigator, I became the prophet of my own death. I didn’t want to kill myself; I wanted to solve the mystery of my impending, inevitable murder.

from The Book of Revelation

previous chapter - next chapter

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.