Story #162 - Community Minded

Community Minded

“It is the for the good of the Community.”

Jassen Fairbanks sighed, then straightened in his seat. It wouldn't do to have others around the table perceive any sign of weakness from him; the situation was already out of hand, and he had to do all he could not to make it worse.

“Please,” he said distantly, “explain to this council why stoning Ms. Pless would be of benefit?”

Lorm Westlan turned fiery eyes on him, and the younger man's mouth was open in a half-snarl. His election to the council was one that Jassen had strenuously opposed, but Lorm's unceasing dedication to those members of the Community he felt were worthy, along with a complete lack of fear that bordered on madness had led to his rapid rise in the group of five thousand and his eventual position as a council member.

Fairbanks wasn't sure where it had all gone wrong. The idea was sound, even now, when he examined it, and at first the development of the Community went exactly according to plan. With cities and towns around the globe flailing and failing after a nuclear winter brought on by vain politicians, it was clear a new solution was needed. While science had been able to barely avoid the disaster that no sunlight could have caused with a timely and effective intervention, Jassen knew the truth: it was science that had allowed such weapons of destruction to be built, and a return to a simpler, more honest time was necessary for the human race to survive.

Finding five thousand willing souls hadn't been difficult, and he had kept his message as religiously neutral as possible. He didn't believe that god was the answer, any more than satan was the cause. Humanity had done this to themsleves, and he would be damned if he would see people he loved suffer again.

Hopefully, he wouldn't be damned at all, but old ways of thinking were hard to break.

The Community had taken root quickly, and using the land he had purchased outside of what had once been a small city, those he had brought with him found ample space for cultivation, and enough left-over preserved food that they were able to eke out the first few winters until their farming skills improved enough to produce reliable crops.

Everything had been going so well.

“You know as well as I, Fairbanks.” Lorm's tone was disdainful. He had paid lip service to Jassen when he was running for his council spot, but once he had achieved his goal, his promises to “work with the Community's creator for the good of all” had all but disappeared. Lorm was after one thing – his own good – and everything else was a distant second. “She was caught with another man, in full defiance of our laws.”

Lorm was technically correct, thanks to a small error that Jassen had made when he created the Community's legal system. Believing that marriage was an institution owned by the state and no longer in the hands of the people, he had eliminated it for those that followed him. Couples were free to stay together or drift apart as they so chose, without the burden of a ceremony or the need for complex legal action.

What he had paid less attention to were punishments for “lewd behavior in the public eye”, something that he broadly defined and left open to some interpretation. His plan was to have them cover such things as exposing oneself in public or excessive and offensive demonstrations should a power group ever rise to oppose him. He had never considered that someone like Lorm would use the law to twist a passionate but mostly innocent kiss between a woman and her lover into the grounds for a moral stoning.

Stoning had been included as the method of choice for executions largely as social commentary – Jassen had been sure that his Community would never need to use such methods, but having a terribly strict consequence would show outsiders the requirements for living among those in his paradise.

Now, he was afraid he might have to carry out his specified punishment, though it had never been meant for use.

“In principle, perhaps, but in spirit, hardly. You know as well as I do that Ms. Pless is a good woman, and your case for 'another man' is merely an attempt to rattle old moral cages. That she was in public performing what you define as a 'lewd act' is the only grounds for such punishment.”

“So you admit it!” Lorm's voice was triumphant. The man had all the signs of classic zealotry: unwashed hair, terrible body odor and fashion choices that bordered on the ludicrous.

“Hardly,” Jassen said calmly, “I merely frame your case as you present it. I disagree with you on all points. This is not how our Community should run, brothers,” he met the eyes of each man at the table I turn, “and you know this. Do not listen to him.”

“You see,” Lorm said quickly, “it is just as I told you.” He stood, moving to each councilman and placing a hand on their shoulders. Some flinched as he touched them, but the majority smiled as he came near. “Even those closest to us have been corrupted by the filth of the lost world.”

Lorm came to a halt at the head of the long table, and spread his arms wide. “I have nothing but respect for our founder, his time has come, much as that of Ms. Pless. His idea was pure, but his creation could never be, so corrupted was he by the world outside. Only eight of my years were spent in the world as it was, struggling to find my way. I was truly born here, as a child of the Community.”

Jassen felt a pressure in his chest; he did not like where this was going.

“The time for following the ways of Jassen Fairbanks has passed. We must move forward, and he must step back. I ask him to do this here, in public, so you may see his response, see how deeply the lost world has cut to his bone.”

He sighed, and rose from the table. He had heard rumors of such a coup in the works, but obviously paid them too little mind. Lorm had done the legwork; a refusal to step down now and he would be committed to a stoning he couldn't condone. Jassen was up against a wall, but he wouldn't sacrifice another human being for his own pride.

“They're all yours, Lorm,” he said as he moved past the smaller man, “good luck to you.”

A familiar determination settled over him as he swept through the town hall doors. He had raised the Community from the ground twenty years ago.

He was sure he could destroy it.

- D