October 7, 3014

Dread Sovereign,

Before I begin the tale recounted to me by an old man about his youth in which he became part of what is one of the more unusual and distinctive phenomena among the people of Bravia, that is, as one of the living dead, I feel it necessary to provide some context as to the story and what it involves. As shocking as it may seem to many people, the nation of Bravia is steadfast in its hostility to Marxism. Any promotion of Marxism and any desire to recruit people into Marxist organizations is a capital offense, and this strong Antima position is not only to be found among the rulers of Bravia–which would not be too surprising–but among ordinary people as well. As I mentioned before, the populace of Bravia is resolutely bourgeoisie, and ownership is widely spread throughout society, so much so that there is hardly any group of people who lack property rights of some kind that I have been able to discover. The widespread nature of property rights has made those who attack property persona non grata among the people of Bravia.

How, then, given this reflexive hostility to Marxism and all that it stands for, is a people to retain some semblance of the graciousness that we would expect of a nation in the contemporary world? The solution of the Bravians to this dilemma is a truly remarkable one. I will not spoil the details of it, as the old man himself told me what was done specifically to demarcate the change in his life from that of a somewhat foolishly idealistic and definitely deceived young man to someone who had passed into another stage of life altogether, and I will go into much more detail about that later on, writing it as I heard him say it from his own perspective. In general, though, what is done is to create a situation where someone is legally dead, and thus unable to vote or to hold personal property themselves (although it may be, and often is, held for their heirs in trust, with them receiving the rights to use that wealth to keep themselves alive and purchase things needed and wanted for consumption), while leaving them alive to serve the interests of the people they claimed to serve in their misguided political ambitions and perspectives while being unable to harm the nation through foolish behavior. For those who truly flagrantly behave, the death penalty is an all to real one. Yet it is instructive to note here that the government does not appear to be trying to manipulate the ferocity of the people for its own advantage, but rather reflects the genuine will of the people, from what I have seen.

While our own relationship with Marxism is hardly more positive than that of the nation of Bravia, I think it is reflective to know how differently we deal with the problem than they do. We ban Marxist parties and jail or exile Marxists, which appears to be a pretty standard form of behavior among many nations of similar culture to our own. Bravia, though, does something that I have never seen other nations do and view Marxism itself as a capital offense, while also providing an opportunity for those idealists who are vulnerable to the siren call of the left to serve people even if their own political lives are over. And if they prove themselves to be capable servants of the people despite lacking political rights, the result is that they are able to serve in unexpected ways.

Here too I feel I must comment on the wide difference that exists between Bravia and many other nations, including our own. I would not wish for it to become popular for our people to engage in the habit of killing Marxists or looters, whether metaphorically or in reality, as happens in a nation like Bravia. Neither would I wish them to view bureaucracy as being the sort of job that requires the loss of one’s political rights, under the assumption that those who serve in government should have no role in seeking to bend it to their own interests, but should rather be slaves of the people rather than seeking to be its rulers. Our own bureaucrats are few, as are those of Bravia, but in our country they tend to come from elite courtiers or their relatives, providing a chance for people to gain influence and a chance for us to appeal to powerful classes through allowing them to convert their money and influence into positions. This is simply not done in Bravia, for they have a serious concern, perhaps even a paranoia, about bureaucrats seeking to rule over society by making laws themselves and not merely enforcing laws. By having people who serve in government lose their own ability to vote as a result, there is a great deal of weeding out of people who want political power and the cultivation of those who wish to serve, which appears to be a real part of the Bravian ethos from everything I have been able to see.

Having thus given a little bit of context about the political and cultural norms that would lead to someone becoming a member of the living dead in a way that does not involve vampires or anything that smacks of the demonic or the supernatural, I think it would be worthwhile to give a bit of context into how I heard the story. I was sitting and talking one afternoon with some of the servants in the cave-palace when one of them asked me if I had ever met one of the living dead. I had not heard of the concept and expressed my interest, and the palace servant directed me to one of the private rooms for people within the palace where an elderly man was laying in bed and greeting his grandchildren who had come to see him. The story he told him is what I will now tell you.