http://writing.progressiveu.org/node/quote-9
"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
-Charles Mackay
Whispers disturbed my slumbering ears, their soft sibilant sounds gently caressing my mind to wakefulness. As the silver-lined tendrils of grass swayed before my slowly opening eyes, I saw strewn around me the puffs of dense white curls that denoted the rest of my herd. Like stones jutting from the earth they lay immobile, immovable under the deep blanket midnight cast over them. Once again drifting past me, the whispers called me to slow, golem-like motion. Carefully, hesitantly, I found my feet sinking into dew-spotted greenery; trembling legs, their use an archaic memory, barely held me up. Lifting my head to the night breeze I found the motion suddenly restricted.
Slowly lowering my head back down, I gazed with growing panic at the thick black net suddenly illuminated by silver moonlight. It hung heavy over us all, its metallic strands reflecting against my pink-tinged eyes. Breath quickening, heart racing, I snapped my teeth over it. Sharp pain resonated back through my gums and into my mind, echoing the feverish claustrophobia developing within. Once again gazing about me, I willed my legs to step forward. With alarming speed I found myself crashing back to the ground, head bouncing against a layer of unyielding dirt camouflaged below the pale grass.
Hot tears welled up, their cleansing sting washing me free of the traces of sin in my eyes and about my mouth. The moon watched me without pity as the trees whispered their accusations into all-too-open ears. Memories burned their way across my mind, harsh sensations unforgiving in their judgment of the red-tinged liquid falling from my eyes. As if through a mist, I watched as others about me were slowly roused by the merciless message blown this way and that by the wind. I watched, shedding guilt and sin all the while, as they too met the net and faced their own actions.
A cry rose up, quickly taken up. "Never again," we chanted to salve our souls. "Never again," we believed, trusting in our own sense of morality. "Never again." We blessed ourselves with the words and forgot the net above us. As the red sunset once more bathes white in its light, maddened eyes turn away from reason and plunge once more into infernal ignorance. As the dark twilight hides all, I watch with sadness and pain as we once again feast upon brotherly flesh. I forget it all with the first bite.
