The Divers' Game

by Jesse Ball

He said, we can welcome them, as long as we can tell them apart.

Yes, they had no safety; they were not persons, anything could be done to them.

There was a good deal of blood shed, the blood of full citizens, as well as a great deal of attrition among the refugee group.

large-scale shift in belief: that things done to those beneath are not properly violence. It was a new definition of violence, and helped to create a vibrant morality,

Vibrant? that's an odd word choice. Especially since the new morality is immoral.

within those walls, no one had any rights, not even a citizen. This was deemed precivilized space.

How can a civilization create something that pre-dates itself? More language lies.

He realized that the quads were working so well, we might expand them. Why should we send criminals, by the thousand and million, to penitentiaries, prisons, and jails when we could simply join them to the quad population?

Humans of the past were often hobbled when they saw other humans and felt themselves like to them. Was this not the cause of so many wars, a series of wars

The opposite difference causes war

the end of his canister would pop—and

More language: the canister is the subject, not the person, so there is no responsibility

So we call the tunnel between them the divers’ game.

We are maintained by a violence so complete, it is like air. And because of that, I would rather die than anything, rather die than be alive. I’m sorry.

a man like this did not die because of what he did but because of what he was. We are the ones who have the privilege of having things happen to us because of what we do. Not everyone is so lucky.