Sternum Music

They have heard of him by the hearing of their judgmental ears, and now for the first time their eyes are really looking at him. And soon thereafter he has come to abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes.

A committee of an elite fellowship have gathered to humiliate one of their own found to have committed a heinous crime against tall poppyism, and herewith they are to decide upon a suitable solution. Justice is waiting for this person, who is known as G, which can be sanctioned only by The Omniscient and which at the same time is antithetical to the committee designed to condemn G. This is what the committee calls the Holistic Law – what is given can never be wrong. The committee, in all their humility have spied an aberration in G, an evil which they don’t see in themselves, and to act objectively, they agree to set themselves above and superior to G, who in turn is inferior to the committee’s intelligent design, and is therefore ripe for humiliation. To this effect G is now lowly, and submissive to the punishing intentions of a vanquishing committee. Phrases like ‘we would like to’ and ‘could we?’ and ‘on behalf of the offended masses’ and ‘indoors or outdoors depending on the weather’ are bandied about while G, in the embrace of The Grip dangling from the Town Hall ceiling, looks on in discomfort, but with an examining conscience, for G’s self worth has been reduced to that of a piece of sun-dried animal scat.

The end game of this affair will be to alter G’s demeanour now abhorrent to the committee and the community it represents. What G has done is create a barrier to faith in community and to show resistance to the expectations of a general tall poppyism, where humility is the least that is required. G understands the leap from humility to humiliation. It was G who first suggested The Grip, a cage of inpointing needles that delicately pains the tenant as The Grip sways, be the perfect starter for the journey toward humiliation. G expects this leaving to be emotional. It was G’s exultation of The Grip that really excited the committee now looking to punish him, after the years of chronic apathy toward breaches of public humility. And ironically G is the first beneficiary of the cage’s punishing caress. The misdeed, being of an unconscionable nature, could be nigh irredeemable, except there is always hope. And on the first flagstone of this journey G now stands, for the virtue of humiliation as medicine is magnificent to this committee whose members love agreeing with each other.

So now the committee is to decide G’s fate. There can be no limit to humiliations and low forms of abasement; physical and mental abuse, torture, shaming, hazing and others not yet thought of; all of which may be required to smash G’s pride and ego, self worth and esteem, and into such mush, that G’s revaluing as a loved member of the community is dependent upon it. Since G instigated this scheme G’s redemption is sure to come because G is the first. And like a prisoner propped and slouched on a wall before a firing squad, head bowed, with Fate lending a peaceful moment to the condemned one, G is resigned and ready.

Now, the imaginations of the committee are as long and wide as history. The community’s libraries are filled with documentations of humiliations, both common and rare, including every known edition of the Malleus Maleficarum. Punishments that have led to better victims; those who survived, and those dispatched to Heaven or Hades or in between. History tells the committee that the satisfactions of the righteous who judged and condemned were immense. Immense also were glorifications to The Higher Being across cultures and continents. And the blows of excruciating pain could not be just and right without these glorifications. The committee therefore see no need to hold back on their lateral suggestions for the public humiliation of G, though it must be short of death, for G’s act is yet to be fully understood, and G may be required to front up and explain it.

The committee have retired to deliberate on the punishment. G, in The Grip now lowered to just off the floor, has been given a cup of tea and a plain biscuit. For accidents a plastic curtain is drawn. Family and friends are able to contact G via mobile phone, its pouch having been fastened to a rib of the cage, its ringtone ABBA’s Fernando. The committee have said they might be awhile. G understands.

What shaming would satisfy the righteous lusts for justice? Perhaps G’s head will be shaved; he be paraded naked down the high street, tarred and feathered; stretched on a wooden cross to be left for days, alternating between starvation and forced feeding; the show of regular bodily functions be gazed upon and laughed at by a mob suddenly dominant in their nature; for they will feel ‘superior’ over G, this mysterious former committee member, now humiliated. They could spank G; play touchy feely with the genitalia; spit on G, urinate on him or worse; and show G how humility best comes from humiliation, and G will be a better citizen for it. During this scenario’s description the committee’s loins electrify; they stand together on a large table and display their amperes, making it clear that discussions of this kind bring sensual rewards to those that decide. They will look amongst themselves for a new G once this business is over and done with.

The top fellowship will need to learn about the new relationship it will have with bottom G. It must still be considered normal despite G’s humiliation. This is because the bonds of the wider community and G are expected to last. Indeed, G’s standing in the community may yet be exalted like those special ancient persons who, having endured humiliations and then died, are now immortal spirits. That would be ideal. But since these are modern and liberal times, whatever the committee decides for G, it will be no less than an erotic revelation for them, the wider community, and for G.

G expects the committees’ decision to be as wholesome as when, with G as its head, they had devised strategies for implementing public humiliations. G vaguely conspired to be the first. And G is. For no tall poppy should ever be exempt from humiliation. To fall from grace is a leader’s rite of passage, and after G has been through what the committee decides there will follow another G and another. The public’s lust to humiliate will never abate once it’s got the taste. This is the nature of the relationship between power and powerlessness, leadership and following, dominance and submission, mastery and oppression, politics and proletarianism. Pressures inevitably build.

The committee have returned and now deliver the path of humiliation G must face before there is redemption. The new G stands and delivers the following;

“G the condemned shall forthwith be forcibly extracted from The Grip to be stripped naked and clothed in a jumbo bin liner and then chained at the feet and to carry upon the shoulders the stocks in which G will be placed for a period of a fortnight at the town square after first crossing twelve intersections and passing through twelve red traffic lights and walking around twelve roundabouts to not show sufferance nor utter cries of despair until placed in said stocks and only once seek the help of a loved one mysterious to the committee at the appointed hour so determined by a lottery that will commence on the stroke of twelve comprised of twenty four tickets each to bear the hour the said help will take place and drawn by a twelve year old mute who must give the hour of help by sign language and after the said help is given shall G count twelve paces from the curb marking the beginning of the square directly toward the centre of the square and place the stocks upright at the twelfth step into which G will place body and mind to remain there day and night porridge fed and lemon water quaffed through rain fog and shine to endure the humiliations the folk so decide as directed by the committee which will show no bounds nor restraints nor joy nor sorrow for the ordeal is to restore the community’s hurt to the satisfaction of the committee the general public and not least G”.

Before the procedure begins G is expected to acknowledge the judgment by shaking The Grip and to curse the system until hoarse; as G and the committee had first discussed when crimes against tall poppyism were first thought of.