Sine Qua Non

Sine Qua Non
Status: Beta :: 4th Draft of the 1st Rewrite

Preface: “Sine Qua Non” is Latin for “without which not,” and is defined as “an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary.”

The rituals begin when the moon glows red at twilight. Foreign science demonstrates the red coloration as a combination of dust, sea air, sunlight, spatial alignments and other fanciful, complicated terms, but the masses can only bow their heads and pray.

* * *

The camera shakes slightly – it’s obviously handheld, and in the background whispers of heresy, blasphemy – the illegality of filming the ritual – are heard only briefly as the image clears. All sound is drowned out by the roar of the processional crowd around the Great Temple, a four-sided pyramid from ancient times.

Today is the captain’s day. A fond favorite of the people from the wars only a few years past, the crowd roars as he climbs the pyramid stairs. The image flickers briefly, zooming to the top of the Temple.

The High Priest stands alone next to the Great Temple’s altar, an ancient, glorified stone slab stained red from the years; guards stand at the top of each of the four staircases, wary, entrusted with keeping the masses from climbing the stairs. As the captain crosses the threshold from stairs to altar, they cock their rifles, a hair’s breadth away from cutting him down. The captain recognizes the High Priest instantly, an indecipherable look passing only briefly across his face.

The captain swallows once, seeming to steady himself, and moves to stand before the High Priest. He salutes the High Priest with one hand, the other moving to his side-arm. The priest doesn’t notice – he smiles, nods, waving an arm to beckon the captain to stand before the altar.

The footage blurs for a moment. Now the captain stands upon the altar, eyes looking into the distance, towards the festival procession and the horizon stretching beyond the capital, white marble and glass buildings cast in bloody hues from the setting sun. As the footage shakes slightly, a glimpse of the crimson moon reveals itself.

The captain admires the view, hand still on his weapon. The priest’s eyes widen only a fraction as the captain fluidly draws the sidearm, unlocks the final safety, cocks the live round, and aims it for the priest’s heart.

The guards lock their weapons on the captain’s head. The priest waves them off, a small smile touching his lips.

The captain’s mouth moves, at first slowly, then angrily, the sound lost due to the unseeing crowds and the filming distance. The priest, calm, listens, responds. The captain pauses – continues – listens – continues – and then the priest smiles.

The captain pauses, gun shaking, hand shaking. When he glances past the priest at the city beyond, his decision fills his face, taut muscles sagging suddenly. He stands tall, straight, and hands the weapon to the smiling priest. The priest nods, still smiling – the captain closes his eyes, looks to the sky.

The guards relax visibly, turning their attention back to the city.

The priest spreads his arms wide, mouth open in ritual song.

The captain smiles for a moment, a long moment, a sad moment, as the priest points the weapon. The captain seems blissfully unaware of the gun to his head as the priest pulls the trigger on the ritual’s completion.

* * *

The colonel shut off the telefeed monitor in disgust, darkly scuffling back to the single bulb-lit table in the small, dank basement. The lieutenant, knuckles white around his knees, tore his eyes from the now empty screen to watch the colonel pour himself another shot of dark green ale.

“He was perfect!” He muttered, throwing the glass back. He gestured angrily towards the monitor. “Perfect for the job, free us from those bastard priests and their grip on the balls of society, just had to pull the-”

The colonel stopped himself abruptly, pouring another shot. He glared into the ambrosia, eyes red. The lieutenant opened his mouth to speak, fists tense against his knees, but, not knowing what to say, he lapsed to silently considering his role. The captain was perfect – but the High Priest’s words had stopped him. The assassination was his mission now.

The captain had been his mentor, his guide, and the infallible choice for this mission’s success. The lieutenant ground his teeth in anger – for years the captain had told him of his duty to the military, and of the military’s duty to protect the people, even from themselves and their poor decisions, even if it was from their faulty beliefs.

“It was for the good of the nation!” The colonel roared to his drink, sweeping a myriad of festival-day pictures of the captain from the table. “We’ve been condemned by the damned world for decades now because of these pointless sacrifices, one man after another shot on a damned pyramid from the damned-”

The colonel interrupted himself with his drink, finishing the glass, pouring another, and continuing to drink. The lieutenant watched, waited, but the colonel didn’t continue.

“Sir, I would be honored to carry out the captain’s duty.” The words were out of the lieutenant’s mouth before he had time to consider their ramifications – such were the benefits of mindless militaristic training, a cynical part of him supposed.

The colonel eyed him, the drink reddening his face.

“Boy, I only let you in on this mission because – ”

“Because I was the best logistics officer in my class, I know, sir.” The lieutenant continued quickly, aware the colonel would rebuke him for speaking out of turn. “But sir, having planned the Captain’s mission makes me the best candidate to fulfill his duty.”

The colonel stared at him, soon shaking his head. “You’re fresh from the Naval Academy, you’re too young.”

“Sir, my youth makes me a candidate for the ritual -”

“You’re too young!” The colonel slammed his glass into the table, the overflow staining the wood. The glass somehow weathered the blow. “It’s a suicide mission!”

“Sir, life is a suicide mission. I’d like mine to mean the most it can.”

* * *

As the lieutenant stepped through the sliding glass door into the salty oceanic air, he realized he would never return to his apartment again. A part of him had held hope the moon’s color would fade, that the ritual and tradition would hold true, but knew from foreign reports that the dust storms traveling from Asia across the Pacific would ensure his fate. Looking at the crimson moon on the horizon, he felt the mission, wet and clammy, trickling down the small of his back. Funny – he could rush a fortified position alone without breaking a sweat, with no clue as to the outcome, but knowing today was the day he would die caused his breath to catch and his heart to race.

At least the sun was warm, the ocean calm – he could see the military contrails reflected in the distant water.

* * *

The captain paced around the basement table, staring at the lieutenant, who stood at attention. The colonel was away teaching a class of recruits, and the two were alone. The moon was predicted to turn red in under three weeks.

“I don’t want you involved.” the captain watched the lieutenant for his reaction, knowing the quirks of the man he had trained. The lieutenant tried to suppress his emotions, but failed.

“Sir, I-”

“You know why I volunteered for this mission?” the captain asked, eyes turning from the lieutenant to the table to the shadows in the corners of the room, his pacing growing more irritable. The pause extended just long enough for the lieutenant to question whether he was supposed to answer, and he grew antsy. He watched the captain’s back.

The captain removed a picture from his pocket, turned back to the lieutenant, and tossed it on the table. It depicted the captain, arm and arm with a young woman who would later be the rumored cause of the captain’s sleepless nights, having been killed in a raid. The lieutenant had never heard the captain speak of her before.

“I volunteered for this mission to save people like her.” the captain stared at the picture, face shadowed by pain and the room’s dim light. “Killed because the priests declare the one-God societies of the world to be heresy, killed because they’d attack our neighbors over something so trivial.”

The captain opened his mouth to continue, but paused, eyes caught by the picture. He picked it up, studied it, and returned it to his pocket.

“I don’t want you involved.”

The lieutenant made a move, but was frozen by the melancholy of the captain’s glare.

“You have someone. Don’t give her up for the world, because the world’s pointless without her.”

* * *

The lieutenant dried himself from his shower, noting the empty, disheveled sheets from a cold night alone. He wondered again if he could make her understand the importance of the mission, if words could somehow convey…but no, she believed, truly believed, and he was glad he hadn’t told her what he intended to do. She’d never forgive him for killing her leader, and he liked the idea of her loving him at least until the end. Selfish, maybe, but it gave him resolve.

He shaved and pulled on his uniform, pricking himself twice with his rank indicators before steadying his hands and managing the pins. He refused to acknowledge his mounting fight-or-flight instinct – he’d flushed the pills his doctor had given him days ago. His cell phone vibrated in his bed, protesting the innumerable voice-mails from the night before. Best wishes and fears for the day, no doubt. He remembered the captain’s day-of complaints – friends calling to wish him luck at getting himself killed on a giant pyramid by an old man in a funny hat.

“It all sounds so holy.” he’d grumbled sarcastically.

The lieutenant deleted the voicemails – friends, family, an entire theocratic nation who would hate him after today anyway, for what he planned to do. He pulled his standard issue sidearm from under his pillow, loading the weapon as he watched the High Priest on the television’s early morning news. The Priest was explaining how scripture had noted that oft the gods had refused to grant clemency to their civilization for but one ritual, and so the rituals would have to continue.

The interviewer smiled, nodded, agreed, comfortable in her studio with waving and smiling crowds outside sheet glass in the background. Undoubtedly thankful it wasn’t her life on the line – thank the gods, the lieutenant mused bitterly, that he was lucky enough to take her bullet instead.

Weapon loaded, he disabled two of the three safeties and locked it on the side of his thigh. It had been a long time indeed since he’d last pulled the trigger.

* * *

Bullets fell with rain throughout the jungle, and the lieutenant took cover behind a particularly thicker tree. Foreign soldiers – from North America, he guessed, though he couldn’t tell the nationality from afar – crunched roughly through woods they didn’t know, attempting to clear a path for their tanks to push towards the capital.

As the bullets slowed, the lieutenant knelt to the ground – the aerial cover fire was likely designed to hide scout units, and he expected less than a squadron. He was arguably alone, the rest of his squadron in special operations missions throughout the forest – but he was well trained.

His rifle jammed after the first three soldiers fell, and he pulled his sidearm on the fourth, a young man in his early twenties who tripped backwards in surprise. The lieutenant leveled his gun.

“Ple-please! We’re only here to help!” the man sputtered. The lieutenant cocked his sidearm, his training taking over. His eyes, however, caught a glimpse of an emblem on the man’s shirt. UN Peacekeeping Forces.

He paused, uncertain, and the man took this as a cue to continue.

“We’re here to save you! We just want to stop the violence and killing!” The man waved his hands, almost praying for clemency. “The moon’s just red ‘cause of dust! Just dust!”

The lieutenant’s sidearm erupted twice, and the man fell back to the ground, no longer anxious for life. The lieutenant’s training took over, and he moved deeper into the jungle, suppressing the realization that he’d pulled the trigger not out of duty, but surprise.

* * *

She hadn’t yet forgiven him for last night, when he told her he had been chosen for the ritual, that it was to save her, and everyone, from the world. She had taken “the world” to mean something not earthly but divine. At the time she’d shook her head angrily – she didn’t need saving, was he crazy? She prayed more than most – and, when he persisted, she had stormed out of his apartment.

Today, she had a more direct method of letting him know how she felt. The snow-globe, a miniaturized version of Paris minutely assembled to maximize the nostalgia of a lovers’ sightseeing sojourn – her favorite, and thus the first within her reach – glanced off his right ear, a sharp pain accompanied by her hurt scream.

“Don’t do this!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a snow-globe of Amsterdam. He paused, waiting for Barcelona or Brussels, the captain’s words on love echoing in his head as he watched her cry.

“I thought you’d be proud of me.” It was the first thing to come into his head, and probably the worst thing to say. Her beautiful face, now puffy, tear-stricken, and red, only grew angrier as she spun away to another room of her apartment. He waited awkwardly in the living room.

Of course he hadn’t thought that – pride had nothing to do with it. It was easy to be as religious as she was when the sacrifice wasn’t someone you slept with – even worse knowing the smiling face you reveled waking up to every morning had volunteered to never smile again.

Her angry voice spun out of her bedroom, a string of accusations that bordered on profanity, and the lieutenant approached. As he saw her, he recognized what he had been feeling, and tried to suppress the wave of sadness as her anger vanished with a choked “why you?”

Because the Captain had failed, had changed his mind.

Because the colonel was too old.

Because the theocracy’s backwards and immoral, earning only the world’s scorn.

Because – because – because.

His mind raced, and for all the words of the world he could only wrap his arms around her, voice caught in his throat, wishing for the means to take her pain away. The only world he wanted to save was hers.

* * *

The morning sun shone bright – he left the door open to his apartment as he left, to make it easier for the cleaners to remove his things. Passerby recognized, scrutinized him as he walked through the nearby market – usually comforted by the crowds, he was today the center of attention. Whereas the captain had been celebrated, the lieutenant realized he fell into a more questionable realm: the average person believed that if the moon stayed crimson for a full month then the end of the world would be at hand. They had viewed the captain as their savior, but now regarded the lieutenant the way one might question the harbinger of the apocalypse.

A nearby television was broadcasting an international station, surprising the lieutenant and betraying peoples’ worries of the times. International news was dangerous – the world condemned their rituals as “ignorant of modern thought”, and “crimes against humanity”. The High Priest had retaliated by declaring such stations heresy, and punishable as such.

The High Priest had ruled the country like a monarch, ignoring all signs of scientific advancement that may question his word- medicines and weapons were perfectly legal, but meteorology and other fields that explained the shifting lunar tint or the crisscrossing contrails were as well declared heresy. As the world grew more progressive, more active in interfering with the cultures of others, the United Nations launched military missions to force an end to the rituals, to erect true scientific schools.

The fight was long, claiming much of the northlands, including the captain’s love. After repulsing the UN, the country had undergone trade embargoes, sapping away the vital imports the country needed to survive. If the High Priest continued his reign, the country would destroy itself in a matter of years.

The lieutenant shook his head, turning away from the television lest he be caught and forbidden from the ritual. It was all so clear in his head, so logical – he had to do this. Their religion’s ancient traditions would destroy them. It was so simple – he only wished he could find a way to make her understand…it was for her, for her children, for-

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He was rationalizing again. Eyes on the distant contrails, he left the device rattling inside a trash can as he left the market. He knew where he needed to go.

* * *

The captain met with the lieutenant an hour or two after the scouts had been dispatched, smiling and clapping him on the back, congratulating him on defending his country. They were in the jungles of the northlands, and the captain was excited, the lieutenant knew, to go see his love once the enemy surrendered – she was in a town nearby, waiting on his return.

The lieutenant sat next to the captain on the forest floor, shielded by jungle ferns from any watching eyes, and found himself staring at his hands, thinking of the so-called peacekeeper he had shot earlier.

“Remember when we met, lieutenant?”

“Sir?”

The captain smiled, watching the lieutenant disrupted from his thoughts. He leaned back, looking towards the sky.

“When we met. You’d just given a pretty harsh cut to the notion of the gods taking physical forms.” The captain continued staring at the sky.

“But sir, we know contrails are produced by airplanes, nothing else. Just because it’s in the sky doesn’t mean -”

“High Priest banned such talk, remember?” the captain smiled as the lieutenant grew flustered. Technically, he’d just committed a form of blasphemy – he fell silent, and the captain glanced at him, a grin on his face that the lieutenant would remember for years afterwards.

“No worries, lieutenant, I’m right there with you.” The captain leaned back again, looking up at a sky the lieutenant now realized was crisscrossed from airtravel.

The lieutenant looked up with him. “I guess it’d be nice if it were true, if the gods really were the contrails, watching over us.”

The captain laughed. “Who says they’re not?”

* * *

The lieutenant watched as the colonel poured him a glass of what must have been the finest ambrosia in the fleet. Taking a sip of the blue liquid, he closed his eyes, hoping to capture the crackling warmth that spread throughout his body, still avoiding the realization that this would likely be his last drink.

The colonel’s office was spacious, overlooking the general promenade leading to the Great Temple in the distance. The colonel poured himself a glass, then wandered to the window to look towards the temple.

The lieutenant had finished his glass by the time the colonel spoke.

“I envy you, you know.”

The moon shone pink outside as the sun began dipping below the horizon, and the lieutenant was filled with a sudden pity for the colonel, a man watching his two star pupils fulfill a task he’d spent much of his professional life attempting to arrange in secret. Empty nest syndrome at its worst. The colonel didn’t continue, eyes locked on the temple, mind undoubtedly someplace a long time away.

The lieutenant stood to leave the colonel lost in thought, hating the idea of saying another goodbye.

* * *

He couldn’t see the High Priest or the altar from the bottom of the temple steps, the structure having been designed to imply the gods’ presence not amongst the people, but above, looking down from the contrailed sky. The moon hovered over the temple, crimson and full in the twilight.

* * *

“Don’t go.”

He registered the resignation in her voice. She was his last stop before the temple. Arms entwined and lights dimmed, they didn’t speak of love, loss, the future or the past. They hummed, murmured, whispered without words, hoping for memories even time would fail to challenge. She was warm, familiar from days and nights so long ago, and yet today he was meeting her for the first time. Head buried in his shoulder, she whispered pleas – to him, to the gods, to the moon and stars – and clung to what would become her last memory of him.

* * *

The lieutenant draws his firearm, cocks it, and levels it at the High Priest. A moment passes, then another, and the High Priest spreads his hands.

“My child, why have you come?” his voice is old and stern in the kind way a grandfather might reprimand a young grandchild. The lieutenant feels briefly belittled, bristling at the notion.

“You’ve made us the most condemned society on the planet.”

“For no other reason than Chinese dust travels across the ocean and turns the moon red – yes, my son, I’m aware of that.” The High Priest moves closer, studying the lieutenant’s face. “Our dear friend the captain had quite a bit to say about the virtues of science over religion.”

The lieutenant pauses, finger on the trigger and thumb just over the final safety. The guards grow antsy, watching from their corners at the top of the pyramid. The High Priest notices and sends them away with a hand gesture; quite suddenly it is only the two of them on the ancient Temple, overlooking the city’s thoroughly contrailed skies.

“Yes, my son, I’m quite aware of the virtues of this science I’ve heard you speak so highly of. And I’ll even admit to you, now that we’re alone – all that science says is quite true.” The old man’s eyes wrinkle into an odd smile as he turns to survey the city, blithely disregarding the weapon aimed for him.

The lieutenant is dumbfounded, slack-jawed as he tries to process the gall of this national leader. This is not at all what he had expected – the old priest turns to look at him, an odd glint in his eye.

“However, that is besides the matter before us, my son, as you never answered my question.” The priest spreads his arms wide again, a tired smile adorning his face.

“Why are you here? What have you come to accomplish?”

The lieutenant hesitates. Is the priest stalling?

“You’ve come to kill me, it seems, haven’t you? Always troublesome, our ritual involving one’s own firearm.” The priest watches the lieutenant attempt to resteady his hand, his smile appearing more infuriatingly knowing by the second.

“Tell me, my son – what would killing me accomplish?”

“Without you, the nation will be open to reform, to new ideas, to -”

“My son, are you fighting me? Or the religion of your people?”

The lieutenant pauses again, unsure. The Priest continues.

“After all, you can kill me, but I will come only to be replaced by another. It seems to me, my son, that you fight an idea, not a man.”

It surprises the lieutenant to hear the High Priest, leader for decades of their entire society, describe himself as a mere man. His finger slips for a moment, and he steels his aim. He can’t let the priest talk him out of his mission. It’s for her.

“Well, what about you?” The lieutenant challenges, attempting to steady himself with words, with logic. “The world hates us for our rituals – what do we get from killing people every time the dust turns the moon red? Why not be honest with the people and stop the cycle?”

The High Priest nods, his smile turning wizened as he looks back to the city, ignoring the threat to his life completely.

“The world does not hate us, my son, it hates what it does not understand.” the priest looks up; the altitude and time of day made the contrails nearly glow amidst the darkening sky.

“The rituals are an affirmation of our belief, of our purpose.” The priest turns back to the lieutenant. “Your science is powerful, yes, but will never provide the answers. There will always be a smaller field, a new this or that that needs to be studied.”

The lieutenant absorbs this as the High Priest nods to himself. “Science cannot give one a divine purpose, cannot give meaning to the hows and the whys of our daily lives. Science invariably raises questions when it attempts to provide answers – our religion does not.”

The lieutenant opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off.

“Your science encourages ignorance, my son, for only in ignorance of science’s vast, neverending questions can a man be happy or feel fulfilled.”

“But why kill people? Why the rituals?”

“Scripture, my son. We are told to do so.”

“That’s not good enough.” The gun clicks in the lieutenant’s hand, his finger wrapped tightly around the pulled trigger, the firing mechanism stopped by the final locked safety. The priest chuckles as the lieutenant, flustered, fixes the jam in his gun.

“My son, my son – the rituals occur to solidify, to cement this purpose of life. For whenever the moon turns red, our entire civilization looks to the sky and recognizes the importance of every moment they live. One person’s life is worth millions of lives lived true.”

“I can’t accept that. Every life is just as important as the last.” the lieutenant shifts the safety from his gun, resteadying it. The old man is insane, has to be insane.

The High Priest nods, smiling, then points to the contrails in the sky.

“Your friend the captain said something to me as he handed over his weapon – something I now believe he said for you. I suggested to him that it would be wrong to rob our country of its purpose, whether  that purpose is decided by the gods, or by man.”

The lieutenant loosens his grip imperceptibly.

“He said, ‘at the end of the day, planes produce contrails. Without planes, we’d never have contrails. But just because a contrail comes from man doesn’t mean the gods aren’t there watching.’”.

Popularity: 9% [?]