​Sleaze Land – Chapter 17 (Four and Twenty Blackbirds) Part 2

​Sleaze Land – Chapter 17 (Four and Twenty Blackbirds) Part 2
 
 
 
 
     “If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.”  Julius Caesar
 
 
 
“Acceptable losses,” Emma said, just as she appeared at the base of the huge bonfire.
 
“That’s what they called us, as they sent our protectors off to war.  And that’s what they called our protectors, when they returned them broken into a million jagged pieces.”
 
Emma looked around her office, but only saw the audience the AI system was piping in from another location.
 
She’d chosen not to see the bonfire, nor the men that sat waiting for their execution to begin.
 
She’d chosen not to see the harsh reality of her actions, just as the men she was punishing had all refused to see theirs. 
 
Yet Emma Jorgensen wasn’t fully aware of this little bit of hypocrisy. 
 
“But the men here didn’t fight for any of us, not when they had the chance.  They didn’t prioritize people, people who gave them fame and power.  Instead, they chose themselves, time and time again.  Not a single man here chose to do the decent and noble thing.  Not one of them.”
 
The audience didn’t know whether to cheer or to remain respectfully silent, and so, for a moment, there was a smattering of both.
 
“This is how we tell the world it ends.  This is how we reclaim our power.  This is how we demonstrate the lengths to which we will go,” she told the choir, just before they were to sing.
 
“This is our moment in the sun.”
 
And with that, a small woman with large breasts strode on bare feet out into the center of the large wooden colosseum.
 
But this woman didn’t have any words to say.  She only had two lives to claim.  For they had stolen from her and her kin the dignity of their death. 
 
In fact, they had stollen the dignity of millions and millions of tortured women and children.
 
And all this woman wanted was to see them burn.
“No!” the one tattooed in pig shit screamed.
 
“No!” the one with the giant snake up his sewn-shut ass yelled.
 
But the Fire Witch, who was a stay-at-home mom who worked at Starbucks on the weekends, just smiled, as she felt the heat of a thousand suns flame to life within her heart.
 
And then, as if it were the will of millions of lives lost, she burst into a giant ball of flame.
 
Slowly, the flame circled the piled pallets that built the foundation of the bonfire. 
 
Slowly, she eyed the men who thought the lives of her kind were some marketing tool, some kind of joke, some… discarded remnant from someone else’s history…
 
And then she set the whole fucking thing on fire.
 
A beautiful, beautiful fire which enveloped the screaming men in less than a minute.
 
“Justice might not always be swift,” the giant whispered into his friend’s ear.
 
“But she sure is mighty beautiful.”
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2022
 
 
*Inspired by life.
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved
 
 

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