The Good Slave Read Online Free PDF

groans.
    At nearly the exact same moment the door to the jury room also opened and the thirteen jurors stepped out looking as grim as usual.   Each man silently walked to his assigned seat and stood there, staring straight ahead, as expressionless as an wind-up automaton with the tension of its inner springs completely spent.
    “Hear ye!   Hear ye!” cried the bailiff.   “The Christian People versus Stephen Messinjure is now back in session!   The Honorable Horatio P. O’Malley presiding!”
    The judge seemed anxious to be done with the proceedings as he flipped open his binder and curtly announced, “You may be seated.”
    Phoebus’ stomach knotted up.
    The judge took a moment to quickly look over some papers before turning to the jury.   “Mr. Foreman,” he said, “have you agreed upon a verdict?”
    A man sitting in the front row stood up.   He was tall and gaunt.   His skin looked nearly as gray as his suit.   Phoebus could see he was clutching a folded piece of paper.
    “Yes, your Honor,” he replied in a flat, nasally voice.   The courtroom was rapt.   “We have.”
    “Bailiff,” the judge muttered, motioning toward the gray man.   The bailiff walked over to the jury box where Mr. Foreman handed him his folded paper, which the bailiff took to the judge.   The judge unfolded it, read it, and handed it back to the bailiff who took it back to the jury foreman.
    “Mr. Foreman,” the judge asked, his thin-lipped expression remaining impassive, “how say you?”
    Master Josef gripped Phoebus’ hand.
    “We, the jur--” Something seemed caught in the gray man’s throat.   He cleared it and continued very loudly.   “We, the jury, find the defendant, Stephen Messinjure, guilty as charged.”
    Instant pandemonium.   (In all honestly, this seemed a little showy considering the predictability of the outcome to most but naive little slaves.)
    “Order!” the judge yelled.
    Phoebus felt like he was going to puke. His heartbroken master let out a low moan.
    After the noise settled down the judge turned to the jury and said, “My opinion is that your verdict is correct and just.   I must say that as an individual I cannot be happy because this is a sad day for America.   The thought that a citizen of our country would debase himself to the destruction of his fellow Americans by the most foul and unnatural means known to man is so shocking that I can't find words to describe his loathsome offense.”
    You seem to be doing a pretty good job to me , thought the little slave.
    “This young man—if, indeed, we can still think of any sodomite as a “man”—was given a full, fair and open trial.   It was proven beyond any reasonable doubt, by reason of your verdict, that he is guilty of having committed heinous acts of homosexual perversion time and again.   Your verdict is a warning that we can and will fight sin with vehement resolution.   You have sent a message to others who may think they can get away with undermining our sacred Christian democracy that no matter where they are, who they are or how powerfully connected the may think they are, we will hunt them down and destroy them for the greater glory of God.
    “I thank you for your dedication to this sacred duty.   You are dismissed.”   The judge then pounded his gavel.   “Sentencing will be in fifteen minutes.   Court is in recess until that time.”   He pounded his gavel a second time and quickly exited the room.

    Everyone knew what the sentence would be.   The Church-State had long ago declared that homosexuality was an inexplicable in-born infirmity of the mind that could never be cured, a diabolical curse that could never be lifted.   All attempts at rehabilitation had failed and were eventually discontinued.   Post-incarceration sexual surveillance had proven many times over that even homosexuals who had married following their release from prison always sought sexual relations with an individual of their own