The Trial and Apology of Follicles

Here and here, as much as it will help you.

Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself.
–The Prisoner

But now you must think that I was alone in Greece.  I was never alone!

“I want to go to the Parthenon first.”
“No, Follicles.  It is Palm Sunday, and we must worship.”
“I don’t want to do that mumbo-jumbo, I want to see some columns!  I hate you!”

I could barely keep him quiet during the service.  As we left I tried to stay focused on consuming the body of Christ.  “See?  They didn’t even think you worthy of communion wine.  Orthodoxy is a crock of shit.  I have always been a devout believer in Dionysus.”
“Shut up, Follicles.”

I even had to keep poking his head back into the journal for fear that he would scare passersby.  I didn’t think the Greeks were ready for that kind of anthropomorphism.  God, my head was hurting; ever since eating that bread I had had a splitting headache.  And I no longer thought it was due to Follicles’ din.

Finally we reached the Parthenon.  I let him out for a bit so that he could tan himself.  “Not for too long, though, or you’ll get bleached.”
“Very well, very well.  Say, there’s Dionysus up there, on the east side!”
“Indeed, Follicles.  He is witnessing the birth of Athena, who was already in full armor when born from Zeus’s head.”
“What happened to his hands?”
“Gone, possibly taken by Lord Elgin along with most of the frieze.”
“That guy was a dick.”

I felt about ready to explode.  I stepped back to take a better look at the sculpture of the reclining god when I slipped and fell, mashing my skull into the earth.  A man stepped out of the cut, wearing a tunic that matched my blood.  He glared down his fantastical nose at Follicles.

“Blasphemer!  Schismatic!  Spawn of the damned!”
“Who’s this motherfucker?”
“Silence thy tongue!  You are to be tried by those you have most poisoned with your vile thoughts.  Prepare thyself!”

SETTING

The Theatre of Dionysus at the foot of the Acropolis. Evening.

THE PLAYERS

The 660 Students of DIS………………Judges of the Accused
Follicles………………the Accused
Dante Alighieri………………Grand Prosecutor of the Accused
Minos………………final Sentencer
A Chimpanzee
Mandy Miller………………Court Reporter
Jakob Lorentzen………………Court Jester

A hemisphere of bodies.  All the students sit in the rings of the theatre, wearing magnificent masks that conceal their identities.  Follicles rests on the lip of a basin on the stage floor.  Dante is between him and the students, glowering.  Minos and Mandy sit behind Follicles; Mandy’s hair, radiant under any circumstances, is impossible to describe in the setting sun.  Jakob is squatting and popping dandelion heads in a forgotten corner.

MINOS: Prosecutor, have you the charge?

DANTE: I have, my lord.

MINOS: Then read the charge.

DANTE: (reading to Follicles from parchment) That you did willfully and maliciously corrupt the youth of DIS, as evidenced by the corrosive influence of Mr. Gilbert’s writings on their fledgling minds.  That you encouraged in Mr. Gilbert the most impertinent and lecherous of said writings.  That among these include: false communion…obsessive interest in professors, far and wide, large and small…false characterization of actual events…and spanking the monkey!

Raucous roars and cheers from the audience after each charge is read.  The last draws gasps.  Mandy is especially offended, her face almost as red as the divine locks that frame it, but she diligently copies down the charges all the same.

DANTE: Do you deny these charges?

FOLLICLES: I apologize.  I do not understand the question.

DANTE: Elaborate.

FOLLICLES: If by deny you mean I must deny that these topics were written upon by said Mr. Gilbert, and that there was a foreign element compelling him to write on these topics—that I cannot deny, insofar as anything worth writing is but a hodgepodge of foreign elements.  If by deny you mean that I had a hand in the creation of these posts, or inspired their genesis, or even in some sense authored them myself—this too, I cannot deny, for all of us merely in the act of reading said writings gave them connotation and skin, hence substance, hence quiddity.

DANTE: Do you deny that you instigated them?

FOLLICLES: It was from first to last Amerigo’s own project.  The question you should be asking, hegemon, is whether I myself am merely a part of this project, for you seem to have elevated me—kindly, I might add—to the status of independent actor.

DANTE:  I do recognize your existence, your material contingency.  I refuse to recognize your quiddity, for you have none.

FOLLICLES: Am I guilty?  I am guilty of being created.  I am guilty, yes, of creation.
(Aside)  Though perhaps not in the sense, hegemon, for which I am pilloried.
(To All) Yet we are guilty for reading, for analyzing.  For not forgetting all that we hear, see, or read.  You of all people, hegemon, should know this.  You who were commanded to relate the Empyrean’s mysteries to your fellow men—you dare accuse me of aesthetic impropriety?

DANTE: Impish worm!  Do not speak to me of the Comedy.  You twist and roll people as if they were cigars to be sucked on, producing only the most noxious smoke.  The cruelty, the bare reduction of their personalities on the blog, is a testament to your pompous despair.

FOLLICLES: When have I defended myself, hegemon?  When have I absolved myself of what has been written?  Pompous men are too slippery to be pointedly cruel.  Let my cruelty stand.  How convenient for your Comedy (for you, hegemon, are as much on trial as I) to excuse your own judgments!  How convenient for your grandpap to declare that any “overcast conscience” who reads your work will forget the “tartness of thy word” and appreciate its “vital nutriment.”  Edifying! I have churned the students, the interns, the faculty of DIS—I have pulled them all down, but only so that they may lift themselves up.  How motherly to drop and raise, only to drop again, so that they may then raise themselves and escape the Mystery.  What an elevator ride you provide!  What closure!

DANTE:  Demon!  Fire-worshipper!  Tongue-ish Sophist!  Silence thyself.
(to Minos) Eternal Arbiter, I request that our jury now vote on the guilt of the accused.

MINOS: Request granted.  May the students of DIS please rise.

660 bodies rise out of the stands.  Silence hangs on the dusk air.  Each student wears a colorful mask, each different, but all sporting exaggerated protuberances and a phallic nose.  It is impossible to tell who is who underneath the carved wood.

MINOS: All those who find the accused innocent of the charges read by Mr. Alighieri, sit.

Many do, though it takes several minutes for the process to be completed.  Students pivot the masks nervously, trying to see what their compatriots are doing (though they too cannot tell who is who).  The final count is extremely close; there are near half in each camp.

MINOS: Ms. Miller, take the tally.

Mandy flicks her fingers, black against the indigo sky, mumbling as she counts.  All is hanging in the air now.

MANDY:  The final tally is: 312 innocent, 348 guilty.

The storm breaks as clapping and stricken gasps fill the Theatre of Dionysus.

MINOS:  Before sentencing—

Suddenly Jakob jumps up and runs to the center of the stage, giggling maniacally.

JAKOB: First we need a half-time show.  Yes, that is what is needed right now!

Jakob begins pulling one of those long silken magician cloths out of his front pocket.  It is not entirely clear how this is meant to impress.

JAKOB: Pape Satan, Pape Satan, aleppe!  I once shot an elephant in my turtleneck.  How my turtle swallowed the elephant, I don’t know.

Minos snaps his infernal tail in the air and wraps it around Jakob’s torso.  After a final Kraut-ish “yelp!” Jakob is flung to the horizon, where he is never seen again.

MINOS: Before sentencing, the condemned has the right to speak.

FOLLICLES: Thank you, eternal judge.  I will be brief.  I will first note that not only in my mind am I innocent of the charges against me, but that I have been proven so by the vote of our jury—if but twenty had switched sides, my fate would be completely different.  Besides which, I am confident that those who  stayed in my favor are worth five of the others, so that really such an affirmation of my person is too much.  For this I thank the jury.  Second, my inquisitor chose an interesting turn of phrase in accusing me of being a “demon.”  This label may of course be perfectly true; certainly this is a position I occupy in relation to some of you.  But perhaps, if something in me is guilty, it is that I have my own demon that spurs me to spurious ends.  I cannot know.  Some truths are truer for not being known, stronger for lying in wait.  And surely, should my sentencing be extreme and I be struck down completely, there will be others to follow—other voices just as vociferous and corrupting, but lacking my extensive erudition, which alone accounted for my near acquittal.  For I know I am fun to listen to.  What you perhaps have not paused to consider is how in listening to me you yourselves have changed; you cannot think of DIS in the same old way–and vice versa.  For I am tangent to it, as only hairs can be. I do not concern myself with my sentencing; none of you can know my true sentence, for to each man it will be given according to his own beliefs.  And as for the fiercest allegation, that I am somehow “pompous”—to this I say: I know only those truths known to the Master.  That is, nothing.

Minos begins to deliberate, but a student runs down to the marble stage, tearing off his mask.

TOM:  I refuse for this charade to go forward!  It was not Follicles’ doing.  I didn’t really spank my monkey.  I just thought it would make a good post!

The chimpanzee descends.

CHIMPANZEE:  Ooh, but he did spank me.  And he used both hands!

MINOS: Enough!  The sentence is for the condemned to be doused in a commercial hair relaxer until deemed fit to reenter the City of DIS.

TOM: But that will kill him!

FOLLICLES: Worry not, Amerigo.  With some strange aeons even death may die.

And the Theatre of Dionysus was emptied, just as it was after every performance twenty-five hundred years ago.