My Dearest Brother,
As is my custom, I write to you once every biblical threescore and ten, as though I have just lived yet another full lifetime, and burn my offering to the post in the sky where I hope you shall receive it, or at least it shall be received by our creator. My burden is, as always, greater than I can bear, yet have I born it this century as every other.
I write to you from a mountain hideaway called Masada, composing a letter amongst a thousand blackened corposes. I have just composed a speech I shall tell the world was written by our general, Elazar-ben-Yair, exhorting his people to nobly fall on their swords rather than allow themselves taken prisoner. I shall leave it next to his body ere I depart.
But there was no speech, and only one of these deaths was a suicide. Rather than tell and risk their families' flight, each husband strangled his own wife so they would not cry out in death and scare the children before the child murder itself. For once all the mothers of their children were dead, each father slaughtered his own children like kosher butchers, slitting the throat as two other men held the child down. Only then did they kill each other, for surely suicide is a great sin . . .
One might understand their plight, as surely torture, rape, and slavery is their best hope at Roman hands, and yet were they any better than the Romans? All I could do in response was hide a few women and children in a singular small alcove of which I knew I was the only person to discover. I wanted to save so many more, yet where could I hide them that their patriarchs would not find? The lots were drawn for whom should be the last man to live and burn the corpses ere they be sodomized, and of course, the chosen man was me. For I am Cain, who since that awful day in the field has died in every century yet resurrected from each death in different corner of the world with 4000 years of memory within me. I have died by burning and drowning, sword and beast, famine and thirst, violence and plague, strangling and stoning. Much of it self-inflicted, for if God will not let me die, he can at least see how much I long for it.
Jesus-ben-Joseph, if he is whom Paul says, was only resurrected once, and for that he is god, whereas resurrection is all I am, and I am not even a devil; merely sentenced to life eternal, wanderer and witness to all things, not even permitted sleep, everlasting to everlasting. Perhaps Satan is who awaits the sinners, but since I am the true and knowing perpetrator of original sin, I am His witness for all sins on earth. Your blood cried out to God, but for my injustice perpetrated upon you, God cries out the blood of every injustice to me.
It is nearly 4000 years since we trod earth together. I have written you in every century of my trevails and few small triumphs, but I do not know if you have received my letters, so every century I write you anew of my sufferings, my guilt, my experience, and my horrible knowledge. I have seen century after century of death. I have killed a thousand more than I have been killed - in war, in execution, and for pleasure. I have watched millions of slaves groan under their burdens. I have watched millions of tortured and executed plead for mercy. I have watched millions of women cry out against their captors, and millions of their children cry out before their sacrifice. I have watched billions cry out at every age for release against the pain of illness, the one pain which I shall never know, and therefore can never be released. All that I have loved has died so many times that I worry my longing to love shall rot, yet I am cursed to love anew in every lifetime - the eyes and embraces of so many women remain etched within me, all of them cursed to live alongside my curse, and bear my fate even after I am gone. My wives have born thousands of children, and each time I am reborn, my children think their father dead. A whole race of Cains exist upon earth in every corner of God's Earth - the wretched class of every empire and territory, existing at the mercy of all who are not them, their treatment a mere bellweather for whether their hosts shall be rewarded, or punished in manners little different than Cain is in every lifetime.
He with no name thinks he can reward me with wisdom, but the greatest wisdom is that wisdom is no reward. He who increases knowledge increases sorrow, and to He my soul went with you, and like you, I am eternally departed from it - the one material man on earth. What shall it profit a man if he gain the world but lose his soul? Well, I have heard Christ preach on the Mount and was crucified the week before him. I wrote reports for Augustus Caesar and warned Julius about the Ides of March. I was sentenced to death by Cyrus the Great and forced into slavery by Nebuchadnezzar. I have meditated with the Buddha and sat at Confucius's feet as disciple. I died in the Punic Wars twice, once for Rome, once for Carthage. I was killed by the soldiers of Qin Shi Huang four times. I designed pillars for Ashoka, meditated with the Buddha, and sat at the feet of Confucius as his disciple. I fought alongside both Alexander and Achilles and was there when Troy burned. I was methodically examined by Socrates, examined Aristotle in turn, and redacted Homer. I sealed the treaty at the Peace of Nicas with my blood and drowned at the Battle of Aegospotami. I hunted with Gilgamesh and sat at the gambling table of Yudhistira. As a slave I built pyramids for Pharaoh Khufu and sphinxes for Hatchepsut, yet advised Pharaoh Thutmose on science and served as high priest for Akhenaten. I attended to Cleopatra in her chambers and I counseled Queen Esther on how to please King Ahasuerus. I have written songs for David and wisdom for Solomon. I was with the Jews at Mount Sinai and with Pharaoh at the Red Sea. I, too, am that I am, and I everything the world is, I have gained, but gain after gain, life after life, I shall lose.
Fifty-nine years ago I was poisoned by Empress Livia before I could tell Caesar Augustus of her many plots against him. There was a great man, the divine Caesar, charisma King David
With love and regret,
Cain
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