"Unto The Breach!" What the Fuck For?

"Let us speak in good frankness now
"the boundless blackness of man's soul;
"And in so nobly doing shine
"true inside this harrowing hole."

In the copper mines of Giba escape was an unknown word. There was only today, tomorrow and death. Enslaved by manmade chains pretending to be chains of nature, the miners' souls succumbed to the clawing dimness, having no place left to go. Like a man freefalling through the air, his arms wailing outward for something to hold onto only to find nothing before his final, inevitable doom, the lives of the men were an exercise in incremental, unstoppable terror.

Bottled rage vexed their sweaty brows having long forgotten the slightest hope of life's promise. Their unthinkable misery was unthought of by the world outside, unbearably inconvenient to those who benefited from their despairing labor. Perhaps it was all a grand conspiracy to prove no life has an inherent purpose after all - and thus no responsibility to it. Tormented Russians loved to put intellectuals, artists and others gifted into the salt mines in glorious mockery of a workers' utopia. Where ends the sadness and the madness?

Not soon enough for these forsaken miners of misery. When aching for softness comes the stinging lash of the overseer, expressing the life of his heart. Over him stood the servants of the coin of which had been doomed no man can live without. In Sisyphusian cycle, the copper for the coin needed the men of the mines as the men of the mines needed the coins of the copper. No way out was to be had until body gave way to decay finding rest in the ground even as the soul wandered still.

"Laughter yonder sings brightly of the moon -
"starry reflector of unseen sol in the night;
"For laughter like a willing wind
"carries the eye afar from shuttered fright."

Then a man of fraud calling himself a man of God ministered to the miners as one who seeks water in the desert. Like any blind to his own evil, the preaching man was ruthlessly driven to believe he knew The Way without ever walking its path. This servant of the world heard his call to duty errant: to succor the miners to their chains of metal while severing the pains to freedom. In practiced gentle touch, he rested his hand on each miner's shoulder, claiming in boiling blood, "God loves you."

"Jesus, mate! If this is love I'd hate to see hate!"

The preacher wanted to succumb to the miner's words, to throw off his own shackles and admit his god was not the God of love. But he knew the praise - and copper - that awaited him if could return a report of souls still slumbering. For the worldly man's Judas dreams of self betrayal were shared by many if not most. Any yearnings for life threatened to shatter their devil's deal of order without faith. Pangs of the conscience must be numbed and those who achieved this were rewarded as children of the worldly god.

Living a life as useless as the miners', the preaching man knew the words for which they longed, telling them they served a greater purpose, that even if their lives held no meaning their deaths certainly did. He spoke of how society could not function without their godly efforts and how the worldly structure would deadly collapse, plunging millions into chaos. Injustice, said this man of cloth, is not to be fought when lives are at stake. Inwardly he smiled, picturing his masters' approval to hear him spew.

But as his luck would have it, the canary in these mines was not dead yet.

"And when proud bursted dams built by
"man's infallible hands finally fail,
"peace is released to the longing land,
"bodies drowned and dead take their grail."

"No! No! You can't do this! This is an outrage!"

Slowly, ghoulish smiles of the miners lowered the priest into a deep, abandoned hole where no scream can escape to living light. Tethered by a coarse rope, the only light he could see was a glimmer from the unreachable top mocking his human hope. Like water reaching further inland with every wave, insanity eroded his mind in the relentless march of time. How can this even be happening? Who are these people? What kind of planet am I on?

When the high-pitched wailing and deep moaning echoed throughout the mines, the miners took heart in their enemy's plight as he gave voice to the terror of their daily lives. This soothed their savage souls. In rare anticipation of joy, the wounded workers gather round their prey to feed on his forlorn pleas.

"You can't do this to me! This is completely wrong!"

"Didn't we tells ya the good news? You's serving valuable purpose to our society. We feeling much better now!"

"You people are monsters! Can't you even see how wrong this is?"

The miners pretended to confer among themselves. "It's our consensus that you are displaying a poor and self-serving attitude based solely on your own plight while not considering the well-being of others, namely us. I'm afraid we cannot tolerate that sort of class warfare. We do this for the common good!"

"You're not fucking me for the common good. You're fucking me because you're assholes!"

"You ain't hearin' us, mate. Sees, human nature is just shit. We're, like, philosophical experts and such and we finds we needs to base our system on people being shit cuz, ya knows, ya just can't trust them to be anythin' else!"

"That's bullshit! You could pull me up right now if you decided to."

"Oh, that's impossible! You need to learn personal responsibility and pull your own weight. It's simply not feasible to live your life dependent on others."

"Fuck you assholes!"

"That sort of hysterical anger clearly denotes a fringe element of thought."

"Since when is not fucking someone a fringe thought?"

"Jeez, pal. Where you been all yous life? Wit your head up yous arse?"

"Madness! I'm surrounded by madness! Don't tell me there's nothing you can do! You're driving me insane!"

"Unfeeling darkness swallows the truth,
"To undiscovered stars soars my dream.
"Why give forth a fine feast of reason
"To be vomited by men so vile and lean?"