Dark Judgement 6

Dark Judgement

Part 6 - Moving Picture

Posted: June 1, 2007

*****

I woke up in a small room, which had a mattress built into the floor. A raised shape formed at one end of the mattress meant I did not need a pillow and I had one cover, which was thick and quilted. An undefined light source bathed the white walls in a pale pastel wash of pink. Coming to my wits, I realised that the Valar had given me a new body. I felt my face and it was familiar; I looked like I had done when young. There was no pain and I wondered what it all meant. What did the Valar have planned for me?

There was nothing to do and so I slept. I awoke when I heard screaming. Sitting bolt upright in terror and thinking the noises must be coming from myself. I huddled into a ball to protect my new body from the horror. Was this some new form of torture by Melkor? Had I imagined my rescue by the Valar? Surely, it could not be anything else. A new desperation took hold of my fëa as I wondered how much more I could endure. Then a door appeared in the wall and Nienna walked through it.

“Sauron, you curl up like a fearful elfling when you hear screaming?” She sat on the floor beside me. “Once you would have revelled in the sound.”

“I thought I was back beyond the Door and that Melkor had tricked me.” I looked up hoping that she really was one of the Vala.

“Be calm Sauron. The second part of your sentence starts from now and we expect your cooperation. At any point, we can send you back through the door so that the time you spent there will start all over again. Melkor will do exactly the same things to you and you will relive your first experience.” She put her fingers under my chin. “Will you cooperate or will you go back?”

“I do not want to go back.” My voice choked; the thought was too awful. But I did not want to be a pawn of the Valar either. “I want to die - my fëa too; I see no future. I definitely do not want to go back through the Door. Why can’t you let me die?”

“Why should we? There is no reason why we should do anything for you and yet we are giving you a second chance. Only a fool would not grasp it with both hands.” Nienna spoke softly, but she meant every word.

I knew that I was beaten. I could not bear to go back into the wasteland so I had to cooperate. “What do you want me to do?”

“We want you to learn from your experience so that you can move on. Eventually you will work for us.” Nienna smiled.

“How can that be and why would you trust me so?” My shock must have been very evident as she laughed and replied that I would know one day and I would never be trusted.

“Do you feel any remorse for your actions on Middle-earth?”

“No, I believed in the cause. To feel remorse would be to betray everything I believed in.” I hoped I had given the right answer, guessing that they wanted to hear the truth rather than what I thought they wanted to hear. I did not tell her that after my treatment by Melkor, I felt that he and his cause had betrayed me. She probably knew anyway.

“Good. That is the answer we wanted to hear, anything else would have been a lie and the Door would have awaited you.” Nienna rose from her sitting position and looked down at me. “Be careful to always tell the truth, Sauron, no matter how unpalatable you think it might be to us. We will know if you do not.”

I nodded that I would do so. “What will happen to me?”

She smiled. “A lot of things.” The door appeared in the wall and she walked through it.

Immediately after she went I went over to the wall and felt for a door. There was nothing but empty space. I went back to the bed and sat on it, wondering what I was supposed to do. The pink jumpsuit covering my body had no fastenings and fitted me like a second skin. It was soft and fluffy and covered my feet and hands, but left the fingertips free. My hair was shoulder length and free. I lay down to sleep because there was nothing else to do. The screaming started again and I opened my eyes again in panic. The wall changed to a moving picture, as if a painting had come to life, but real and lifelike. Never before had I seen anything like it. There was someone in the distance suspended by his hair, which was fixed to a chain. What magic was this that I should see myself being tortured? The body was jackknifed with each slash of the whip and I could hear my screaming. I touched the picture to try to reach out to stop it, but as my hand met the solid surface, I knew I could do nothing. I tried to look away, but the horror kept me watching and the tears ran down my face as I relived the memories. I so wanted to save myself from being hurt.

In the end, I vomited and flopped exhausted and tearful onto the mattress, trying to block the sound of the screaming by putting my fingers in my ears.

I wanted to help my other self in the moving picture and I had tried. Grieving because of the ordeal I knew he would have to endure, I grieved for myself also. Was I showing compassion or was I merely feeling sorry for myself? I did not know, but it was a new and strange feeling. I knew then that it would not be the last time I would feel it and that the evocation of the feeling was meant to happen.

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