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Jolie

THEN

November 27th, 2010

New Eden Commune

“In the old times,before the great fires which ravaged the world and laid waste to the worst of humanity, there was a Biblical saying: anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

My father stood behind a large wooden pulpit, and his deep, commanding voice boomed out as he lectured us all once again on why we were here and what must happen soon. A gentle breeze ruffled his dark hair, which always stuck up in messy spikes no matter how much he combed it.

“Now, you all know we don’t go by the teachings of the old Book anymore. We follow His Word, which has been passed down to me from our almighty creator in visions and dreams. But in some cases, a saying from the old Book captures so perfectly what I want to say to all of you, my dearest flock, that I am compelled to repeat it.”

He lifted his hands up in the cool night air. My father was an interesting-looking man, and a lot of the women here found themselves drawn to him, but right now, his face looked utterly terrifying in the ominous shadows as firelight flickered all around us.

We were gathered outside in a ring of flaming torches; every member of the Path of the Covenant. It was a rare and momentous occasion, though not a joyous one.

Usually, the girls and women were only allowed out of the underground shelter for one day in spring each year for the mass weddings, and also for the occasional night-time festival the men might decide to hold. However, we were expected to come out for executions too. These events must be observed by every member of the church so that we could learn and grow from the sinner’s act.

Tonight, we had been brought up to witness the reckoning of Rebecca Brady. She was slightly older than me, somewhere around twenty or twenty-one, and she had recently been caught engaging in an act of the flesh with a man other than her husband. This sort of immorality could not be tolerated. Once a woman belonged to a man, she must submit only to him or the Elders, even during the communal Joining rituals.

Never to another.

The man she had been caught with, Eric Carmody, was unmarried. He was the same age as her. When they were caught together, they’d both begged and pleaded, trying to excuse their behavior. Rebecca said she didn’t want to be with her husband anymore, and Eric said he didn’t want to wait years to marry one of the much younger girls once she finally reached fruition and became a woman.

Eric had also allegedly told Rebecca some of our commune’s deepest secrets, which only the boys and men were permitted to know. Women did not have the intelligence or capacity to comprehend or handle this sort of information properly, so Rebecca’s tongue had been removed so that she would not be able to tell anyone what she had heard before her execution.

It was extremely fortunate that she hadn’t already shared what Eric passed on to her, because this would have led to an enormous catastrophe. Most of the girls and women would have lost their minds trying to comprehend the secrets, and it was a wonder Rebecca hadn’t lost hers already. She probably would soon, though, so it was a good thing she wouldn’t be with us for much longer.

Her husband was an Elder, and her crime of adultery was one of the worst things a woman could commit. For this, she would be burned.

Eric’s crime of spilling secrets to an unworthy female meant he faced an even worse fate than the cleansing fire. He had been banished from the safety of New Eden’s lands, and he would be forced to wander the Wastelands until the day he died.

It would be a terrible way to go. After all, most of the world had been scorched and poisoned by radiation when the bombs of the Great Reckoning came crashing down eleven years ago. Eric would likely wither and die in a horribly slow and agonizing manner.

If he had only stayed pure and followed the laws, he could have remained at New Eden instead. Our God had ensured the land on the ranch was protected from the nuclear fallout, so it was fine for the men to work the fields and spend most of their days above ground.

While it was safe for women to venture above ground on rare occasions, like now, it wasn’t safe to do it frequently. Our most important purpose in life (apart from serving men) was carrying and birthing babies, so it was too risky to let us above ground on a regular basis, in case any poisonous air or water just so happened to leak across the safety zone into our land. That could put the delicate female organs at risk.

My father droned on at his pulpit. “When a wife submits to her husband, when a girl carries out her father’s will, when a woman serves a man… that means we are all worshiping Him and his vision for the world. You have learned time and time again that these acts of submission must be done with a spirit of righteousness. But Rebecca Brady has chosen not to worship Him. She has chosen not to serve Him. She has chosen not to be righteous.”

I cast my gaze over to the pyre, which had been built off to the side of the pulpit. Rebecca was tied to a stake in the middle of it, her head lolling forward and her eyes closed. I knew she had sinned and she must pay the price for that, but I was still glad someone had been merciful enough to render her unconscious before the flames were set at her feet. I was not sure I could stomach the screaming if she was awake while the fire consumed her.

“However, Rebecca will soon be freed from her sins, and wewill forgive her!” my father called out. He slammed his hand on the pulpit for dramatic effect. “Won’t we?”

The women and children murmured their assent. Across from us stood the men and the Elders, most of whom were staring at Rebecca with naked malice in their eyes. They hated her for what she had done.

Some of them actually looked amused at the idea of her impending death, though. Not hateful. I saw this expression in the older men quite frequently. It seemed as if they found great amusement in women’s suffering.

I knew why. We’d all learned from His lessons that boys and men had a far greater level of intelligence than women, one which we could never hope to match, so we probably seemed like stupid, lumbering cows to them. It was no wonder, really, that they found it so funny to observe our mistakes and punishments. It was like watching an animal try and fail to learn a new trick, over and over again.

“We will also accept that it wasn’t entirely her fault,” my father went on. “All the women played a part in her sins, by virtue of their existence, and for this, they will be punished as well.”

We all nodded. Women were naturally sinful, so we had to be careful. Even our most private thoughts could have infected Rebecca’s mind with evil and caused her to stray onto the dark path.

“Elder Thibodeaux, you may light the pyre now!”

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