More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.
We are instructed to write down not just our deeds but our feelings, because it must be known that we do have feelings. Remorse. Regret. Sorrow too great to bear. Because if we didn’t feel those things, what monsters would we be?
“You see through the facades of the world, Citra Terranova. You’d make a good scythe.” Citra recoiled. “I’d never want to be one.” “That,” he said, “is the first requirement.”
Death makes the whole world kin. Rowan wondered if a world without death would then make everyone strangers.
“But remember that good intentions pave many roads. Not all of them lead to hell.”
He didn’t see himself as morally superior to anyone—but he did have a keener sense of empathy. He felt for people, sometimes more than he felt for himself.
When it was decided that people needed to die in order to ease the tide of population growth, it was also decided that this must be the responsibility of humans. Bridge repair and urban planning could be handled by the Thunderhead, but taking a life was an act of conscience and consciousness. Since it could not be proven that the Thunderhead had either, the Scythedom was born.
Before the Thunderhead, governments had constitutions and massive tomes of laws—yet even then, they were forever debated and challenged and manipulated. Wars were fought over the different interpretations of the same doctrine.
“One apology is enough,” the scythe told the boy. “Especially when it’s genuine.”
because power comes infected with the only disease left to us: the virus called human nature. I fear for us all if scythes begin to love what they do.
Will we all be renaissance children, skilled at every art and science, because we’ve had the time to master them? Or will boredom and slavish routine plague us even more than it does today, giving us less of a reason to live limitless lives? I dream of the former, but suspect the latter.
You’ll find your own path. It may not bring you redemption, it might not even bring you peace, but it will keep you from despising yourself.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, I’m just busy today. Can I throw you under a truck some other time?”
