Time Will Allow

 

The general consensus seems to be Hot.

What do you mean, what am I talking about?

Revenge, of course.

All those I've spoken to are much more of a mind to strike while Hot, rather than dish up Cold.

You could plan for years to get your own back on someone, and then when your plan is finally ready, they have gone.  Nowhere to be found.  Or if you’re really unlucky, already dead.

Nope, I think it’s best to act while you can.

What?  No, not me.

Did you really think I was planning revenge of my own?

Of course not, I was speaking for those whom I represent.

My characters, of course.  They get put through the emotional wringer and get to act upon what they feel.

They get the means and the opportunity to act on their dark motives, to take the revenge they feel is so richly deserved by those who have wronged them.

Which is a very freeing thing for them to be able to do, and for us to read about.

If they choose, they can trap the source of their revenge and take them to a deep dark place, to be tortured and held captive.

They can do all the things to them that they have dreamt of doing.

They can hurt, they can maim, they can kill.

Up to a point.

And here's the rub.

The world they inhabit has rules.

The rules of cause and effect.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Very smart man said that once, in between apples, and they are few and far between.  Smart men, I mean.

The rule of cause and effect is forever present.

And it does not let them have their own way for long, without the consequences coming to hunt them down.

So for those who choose to capture and torture the object of their vengeance, we know that there will be a consequence.

We do not know what it will be, but it must be equal to the pain they have caused.

It feels like a giant cycle, with everyone causing each other pain throughout time, linked back to the very first people.

And who knows why the first tormentor struck out.

Who was it that put upon them?

I have an idea that they might have done it to themselves, and decided it was someone else’s fault, so began the circle of punishment and justice.

Taken to extremes, this is where you find the mafia.

It is expected, even honourable, to have your revenge or your ‘justice’ on someone who has wronged you or a member of your family.

But they know just as everyone does that there is a consequence.

A price to be paid for having that vengeance.

And woe betide those who do not pay it.

It seems like a never-ending spiral of pain and vengeance, with no hope of reprieve.

But there is another way.

There are ways of getting justice without resorting to violence, without feeling the need to exact bloody vengeance on those who have wronged us, even if we think it will make us feel better.

Or make the characters feel better.

There is a right kind of justice that keeps them this side of the line, the one they occasionally step across to take the action they feel they must, and then come back across to accept the consequences.

I suppose in the end its down to the moral sensibilities of the writer, the creator of these people in this world.

Do I enforce my moralities onto those whom I create, or do I have only the power to control where they start from, not where they end up?

Do they reflect sides of who I am and what I believe, or purely mix-matched amalgamations of everything I have seen, heard and experienced?

Questions for further and much deeper thought.

When time will allow.