Canto 7: The Swamp
The next thing he knew, Marcus was slumped over a wooden pew. The air smelt foul with bacteria and, for some reason, his legs were moist from the knee down. Sitting up, he found them to be submerged in a dark purple mire.
“Ugh!” he exclaimed, lifting them out.
Around him, swampland extended all directions with bald cypress trees rising like patient ghosts over floating vegetation. All trace of the Colosseum’s warm sun had vanished, replaced by an eerie, frigid fog.
An American-style courtroom was assembled in the swamp with four rows of pews on each side filled by crocodile-like beings sitting upright with human posture and hissing at each other. A line of humans in orange jumpsuits moved clumsily down the center towards the podium, kept in line by crocodile guards with spears. Marcus caught a glimpse of an older man who twisted his direction. His eyes had been removed, leaving empty black sockets.
A creature with the body of a catfish and four lengthy tentacle arms stood behind the podium. Its whiskers pulsed in a sinusoidal motion over its mouth.
“Order! Order!” It demanded, slamming a giant mallet. Its voice was deep and watery. “Bring forth the accused.”
The crocodiles jabbed the woman in front of the line to the podium.
“Politicians?” Marcus asked a captivated Dante.
“Indeed.”
“Lena Fischer,” the catfish began. “You stand accused of voting against the Reconciliation Acts whose rejection led to global revolution and death. How do you plead?”
“Reconciliation Acts?” Marcus murmured. One row up, a crocodile spun and hissed.
Dante waited for it to turn before responding. “Yes, when the threat of revolution became apparent, the working class put forth legislation as an ultimatum—collectively named the Reconciliation Acts—which gave first-world governments the chance to set things right by redistributing wealth into a sustainable economic structure. It was an ideal solution for that moment in history, one that didn’t abandon capitalism but upgraded it to address the predicaments of modernity. The outcomes were generally close but, in most countries, the Reconciliation Acts were rejected. This swamp contains the corrupt politicians who took bribes from elites and voted against the acts. They now face perpetual sentencing from Judge Levi in the crocodile swamps of Hell, fully aware of their crimes but blindly unaware of their locale.”
“What, they think they’re in a regular courtroom?”
“Exactly.”
“Time is running out, Lena,” Judge Levi gurgled. “How do you plead?”
The woman shivered. Finally, words burst from her lips with a German accent.
“I didn’t want to vote against the Acts! My career…my life depended on it. They demanded I oppose. You don’t know the power they have! If I went against them they would have taken everything. My budget, my base, my legacy. Oh, and the promises they made! It became a matter of survival, you must understand! I’m so sorry…so ashamed of what I did!”
“Interesting,” Dante commented. “They rarely apologize.”
“Hm,” Levi spoke. “I must reflect on your revelations, Lena Fischer.”
Suddenly, the crocodile audience erupted in outburst.
“Come on, Levi,” one shouted. “Have mercy!”
“It wasn’t her fault!” shouted another whose tears poured into the swamp.
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“They made her do it!”
“She just wanted to be successful!”
“Order!” Levi pounded the mallet until the courtroom was quiet. “Your honesty has moved me, Lena Fischer. I will indeed bestow mercy this day.”
A hopeful smile enveloped her face.
“This is my judgment, and my judgment is final. You, Lena Fischer, shall receive a swift and immediate execution at mine own hands.”
“What?” The smile evaporated.
Levi gripped the mallet with a second tentacle and bashed Lena’s skull in, spraying blood onto the young man next in line. Her body collapsed into the mire and sunk.
The crocodiles roared in approval.
At the end of the line Lena emerged from the mire and was poked back in line by spears.
“Bring forward the next accused,” Levi pounded his bloodied mallet.
“Christ, that’s mercy?!” Marcus whispered. “And what did she mean survival was on the line? Was someone threatening to kill her?”
“Shh,” Dante hushed as crocodiles began to glance over. “You have to stay quiet.”
“Bryan McKinley,” Levi addressed the next man. “You stand accused of voting in opposition to the Reconciliation Acts whose rejection led to global revolution and death. How do you plead?”
Bryan McKinley answered confidently in a southern drawl.
“Not guilty, your honor. Check my record, I have and always will be a champion of the working class. Although our votes were undisclosed to the public, I can assure you with the renowned solemnity the American people have learned to expect from Bryan McKinley that I did by God’s grace vote in favor of the Reconciliation Acts.”
The audience hissed murderously.
McKinley turned an eyeless gaze to them. “What’s the matter with y’all? That’s no way to behave in a court of law!”
“Order! Order!” A fishy smirk appeared on Levi’s face. “Mr. McKinley, given that the votes were indeed undisclosed I cannot prove your guilt and have no reason to distrust your incomparable reputation.” Spears nudged McKinley around the podium. “You are free to go, a vessel awaits you a short distance ahead.”
“Right on,” Bryan McKinley attempted to salute Judge Levi. “Thank you, your honor.”
He waded clumsily through the mire, bumping into trees and shrubs as he went.
“What?!” Marcus couldn’t help himself. “They’re killed on-the-spot if they confess but he lets them go if they lie?”
Overhearing this, the crocodiles gasped.
“Dante,” Levi gushed furiously. “Whom do you bring to my courtroom that dares question mine judgment?” He pointed a tentacle. “I suggest you leave before my servants take action for his blasphemy.”
Dante grabbed Marcus and rose. “We were just on our way out. Apologies, your honor.”
They exited to the sound of hisses.
“Come now, Marcus, I have a reputation to uphold here,” Dante lectured. “And besides, you should have learned by now no one is simply let go from Hell.”
Ahead of them, Bryan McKinley approached a deep section of mire over which a rope bridge was strung with a portal at its end. To the courtroom’s satisfaction, McKinley missed the bridge by a few feet and began swimming through muck.
Suddenly, his eyes rematerialized.
“I can see! Oh, thank the lord, I can see again!” He paused, treading water and spinning. “Now, where on god’s good Earth am I?”
Not far away, something large snaked towards him through the mire. Suddenly, a serpent emerged, two-stories tall with pitch black teeth.
“Ah!”
With a sharp tentacle arm the serpent turned Bryan McKinley into a shish kabob and fed one-by-one on his limbs as crocodiles applauded from the courtroom.
“Holy shit!” Marcus exclaimed.
Dante grinned. “Impressive, isn’t he? A beast with political purpose nonetheless! You see, in the seventeenth century, philosopher Thomas Hobbes postulated that government, no matter how corrupt, is a necessary evil to establish order from natural chaos. Therefore, he believed citizens ought never bring bloodshed upon their countrymen through revolution. They must let things lie for the sake of peace, even if their government becomes as monstruous as the Leviathan.”
When the job was done, the serpent burped and returned to the depths.
“Here in Hell, however,” Dante concluded. “Bloodshed is encouraged.”
“I’m not crossing that bridge,” Marcus said. “The Leviathan’s just going to eat me.”
“You’re quite the worry wart, Marcus! Here, does this help?” He snapped and the mire froze over. “Now it’s unable to breach the surface.”
#
As they traversed the bridge Marcus received a memory in which he stood in a real courtroom. He wore his lab coat explaining the anatomy of a holographic brain to an intrigued and well-dressed audience.
“I testified for something, Dante,” Marcus began. “What did I testify for?”
“There’s no record of it.” He skimmed Marcus’s hologram profile curiously. “It probably wasn’t important. Doctors testify all the time. Perhaps you were providing scientific clarity in a case, or perhaps you did indeed botch a surgery.”
Marcus sighed, hoping it was the former.
The white portal to the next canto stood only a few wooden planks ahead of them.
“You know, Dante, this is the first canto since Limbo where I didn’t receive some sort of gruesome and terrible…”
A plank snapped and Marcus plummeted, breaking through ice and into the mire. The shadow of the Leviathan moved towards him, followed by rising blood and bubbles.