reading room
I, The Dictator of the Universe
(a moral thought experiment)
I never wanted the throne. It rose beneath me like gravity, the stars demanded someone to decide what burns, and what endures.
I did not ask for subjects, only witnesses, but the silence of the cosmos is easily mistaken for consent.
So I rule, reluctantly, absurdly, sincerely. I outlaw murder, rape, conversion, the bending of truth for power. I forbid the eating of those who think or feel, for life does not exist to be consumed.
I sign my name beneath mercy and strike the word punishment from every law that bears my seal.
In my cities, no one is blamed. We are the sum of forces too tangled to call choice, yet still, we must choose.
I build centres for renewal on the ruins of vengeance, offer relocation to those who cannot live beneath gentleness.
Voluntary exile. Voluntary ending. Nothing forced, except the refusal to harm.
My laws are not carved in stone. They bend and breathe, spectral restrictions, drawn from the faint light of intuition. They shift with reason, refined by discourse, rewritten by persuasion.
I trust experts more than myself, but someone must say yes, someone must say no. And I, reluctant god of thoughtful clay, am the only one I can be sure of.
At night I confess to the void: there is no object good, only the ache that whispers, some things should not be done. Still, I listen. Still, I act. That is enough to move, and too much for peace.
So I sign another decree: to live kindly, even when kindness feels uncertain. To guard life, even when meaning fails.
And I sit, not on a throne, but at the edge of understanding, head in hands, ruler of conviction, architect of mercy, dictator of the trembling light between right and wrong
— Lilith