Justices, Poetic and Otherwise

[pulpdecameron]

Someone suggested we meet every crime with a just response. We discussed the idea, to get at its heart. This would not be the measured justices of imprisonment and reform, which are not so much justice as social reform masquerading as justice. Nor the flacidness of "an eye for an eye,' which suggests that justice is nothing more than reciprocity. We sought a pure justice - a justice of principles. No mere retalliation. Instead, we would take all actions to their logical end. A murderer would see everyone he loved killed. And not just killed, but killed in front of him, and tortured first. A limitless justice - all encompassing in its reach. A justice that went beyond the mere justice of man, and even the divine justice of the hereafter. A justice that struck with the force of creation itself. A justice accountable to nothing. A justice that lay beyond its own reach. It was monstrous. It was more than monstrous.

But once we had thought the idea, the problem became clear. The only just response to its conception was its implementation.