The Human Acts

What is a 'human act', does it mean a bill passed that relates to humankind? Does it mean some sort of theatre performance, each act constitutes a part of human?

What kind of law can regulate humans, and what performance might depict humankind?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, someone we all revere, once wrote a book called (in its grossly translated English version) The Cost of Discipleship. He said with full affirmation in Christ, in a voice with ecclesiastical authority, ‘When Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die’. Indeed, he made it, with the grace of God. But what about us, what about us who God has left us hastily?

The alien room of mine has a huge whiteboard across, full of handwriting that I myself do not comprehend. What is ‘Warwick BSc Mgmt’? Does that even mean anything? I know what it means in a rational sense, but it never… occurs to me with any sense of reality. It means a hope towards one’s future, some parts one’s – another’s - destiny is bound to partake.

What is ‘re legal memo…incl sentencing guide’? Does a thin sheet of paper get to decide one’s fate and what’s not?

I remember that time I went to the police station in Ersha Island with a summon. Or is it me that remembers?

‘Officer, those are the medications and insulin injections I must take daily. If permissible, please handle those to correctional officers.’ He/she said in a submissive, gentle tune, without any tremble in his/her voice.

The light shattered through the tinted glasses of the interrogation room. It makes one wonder why they are so abundant in budget, so they even got that nice decoration, projecting a spectrum of colours? How sweet is that, feeling almost like home?

‘You’ve got a nicely decorated window, officers. It reminds me of my home, you know? I used to got these wooden-framed windows, poorly assembled, so I can see some rainbow through the edge of glasses… You’ve got a nice window. Those rainbows used to project on my bookshelves. Do you read To the Lighthouse too, officers?’

Do those tanks have temperature, too, in a silent city full of scream, when they run over those human bodies? Is that a right word, bodies, or should it be carcasses? Those meat… they do resemble humans, but why can’t they laugh again?

‘Book me in and let me die with her! Please, book me in and let me die with her!’

What does it take to be human, let alone disciple? What does it take to love, live, and laugh? Why it feels so ridiculous for me when I open my Criminal Law textbook? I can no longer read what is a ‘full code test’ or the cliché ‘R v Brown’ again and again. The world I am put in does not have due process. Book me in and let me die with her.

I got assigned to a number. I was taken to the nurse station where my weight was measured. They’ve got a band for me. Not the first time, and I know I can’t remove it.

I am the fourth bed now, assigned number 323063.

You are detained under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. I did that to her. Did not Xia meet the same? ‘She was tied to a lumber for two days’, you said. Then let me do that to myself.

With times she can no longer feel her body. Her body aches every inch, especially the back. I am just a flesh tied down by belts. Am I even a ‘she’? I can no longer feel anything anymore, just pain. It’s so boring, I can only stare on the celling. Let me out. Let me out. I tried to get up but to no avail. Human fleshes are not even stronger than those seemingly gentle belts made of clothes. This ceiling is the only thing I have now, just like in those erased time. I can no longer think of anything about that time, just washed, threadbare white walls.

I begged her to get me out. Just sixteen hours, Yonah, you are truly a piece of shit. That wouldn’t fulfil a Section 136.  I am not even tied up tight even, I just couldn’t move a lot.

What is the cost of being human, does it involve a flesh that generates filth every second? Those sweat covered that bedsheet. How could she make forty days? Does God evince himself even in that ever-bright light of washed white? Where is God when we are sent to those camps without shower or our hormones? Do you still wish to live as a male? Where is God - I know he sets four corners of our universe when angels are crying for Him – where we labour and toil for so little, yet humiliated every place? Where is God, when you proclaim your humanity and discipleship, but we get to labour every hour? Does not saint take a crowded train in late night, so he is full of filth and sweat?