Pariah the Unperson did not identify as a person, because she specifically was not one. She was not human, so when her victims pleaded with her, asking where her humanity was, she would laugh and put in her earbuds.
Despite inventing the word ‘humanity’ and a cultural definition that implied compassion and kindness, humans did not necessarily possess this skill. Not all humans had humanity (despite the etymological implications of the word), so why should she? She wasn’t human.
Pariah had encountered human murderers and backstabbers, who she had murdered and backstabbed. They had not had compassion; they had not had “humanity.”
What made someone a human? What gave humans humanity? What made someone a murder or a backstabber?
If it wasn’t a self-identified title, (which it often wasn’t), then it was earned by their actions. Only negative actions though. She did not hear people called “rescuer of children” or “filer of on-time taxes” nearly as often as “killer” or “pickpocket.”
Maybe humans just liked negativity?
Regardless, tonight she had named herself Pariah the Unperson, a Moonkin that was so utterly un-person-like that she might as well have been the first “aperson” to ever exist.
She did not have an ounce of human, a molecule of person within her. Nor did she like to think she had humanity. And like a murderer, she had earned this title.
As Pariah sat on the couch, she scratched her chin.
Maybe she could be a “disperson.” Or maybe “antiperson” would be a better fit. But George Orwell’s word choice was almost a perfect descriptor of what she was—wiped from the records. Unpersonified by both the Moonkin and human society. Why change something so perfect as the unperson?
She might as well be nothing at all. But until they invented a title that represented the anti-matter of space she took up, she would be Pariah the Unperson, an unsympathetic, unloved blip in the record who, really, needed no title. She had earned her place here, in the lack of space she took up, by destroying every instance of herself from the collective’s memory.
I loved this. The message of rising over our differences and embracing the human identity is one that should be promoted more.
I loved the piece, and the fact that she’s named Pariah only enhances its impact.