This blog contains material I wrote and posted on multiply.com between the years 2005 and 2011 only. It does not contain any new material. For newer writing, please check my main blog (Bill the Butcher).


Sunday 25 November 2012

The Petition


Great Conqueror, Monarch of Heaven and earth, we pray thee, listen to our humble petition.

Though we be but poor weak women, utterly without merit or intelligence, you are a strong and just ruler, and caring for the welfare of even the least of your subjects.

O King of Time, we implore you, then, to let us approach you, so that you may give us your ear.

We, the Set of Four – Mother, Sister, Lover, Daughter – we entreat you to listen, if only for a moment, to us; after which you may order us to forever hold our peace.

We know, O Lord, that your kingdom, though it extends to every corner of earth and heaven, has not yet all the people of the earth under its protection; and therefore it is necessary to fight wars and overthrow tyrants of various kinds who torment the innocent and the valorous, and reward and cosset the evil and the unworthy.

But, O King, we entreat you to remember that in these battles you use our flesh and blood – our son, brother, father and lover – as your instrument. It is for your glory that they serve; it is for your glory that they live and they die.

Spare, then a thought for them, O Lord, and spare a thought for us.

When you burn a city and destroy an army, O Lord and King of Time, your name is written in letters in the golden pages of history; but every word of that writing is in the blood of our son, our father, our lover, our brother; and in the blood of the sons and fathers and brothers and lovers of women very like us, even if they speak other languages and worship different gods and live under the rule of some lesser King.

O King, you build great monuments to your victories, monuments that will last until the end of time; but the foundations of those monuments are the bones of our men, and the gardens that grace your kingdom are watered by our tears.

Even as your glory grows, O Mighty Lord, we, the women, become as ghosts in this world, bereft of home and hearth, of lover and son and father and brother.

Bring them home from the wars, O King. We, the women who make up half your subjects, beseech you. And in the gratitude of our hearts you will have more glory than in stone columns and glittering spears.

Give the winds of Peace a chance, Lord, and the world will truly be yours.

We, the Women of your Kingdom, have spoken.

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