Dictation - 6 [Text]

[drabsolutelynot]

[Rosen has now been in the cave going on 7 months. He's marked out the time on his laptop,  little digits scribbled here and there between his thoughts and observations. 7 long months and as he scrolls through his records, inconsistent as they are due to the lapses in his mental capacity over the past few months, he finds certain reoccurring issues. Most are to be expected, issues of loneliness, fear, and an overwhelming sense of uselessness. However, there are others. Ones that keep him awake late into the night. One's that linger in the way he chews at the corner of his mouth or the way he uncomfortably flexes his fingers.

Prominent among those that he can't help but pick at like an annoying scab is the question of killing. A question that has always dogged him in his very specific line of work and now weighs heavily on his thoughts once again. It is not a coincidence that only a few days earlier a certain friend of his appeared in the clinic wounded and that this same friend subsequently posted to the network asking about the procurement of more bullets for his gun, a weapon that had been implicated as part of the problem in the events that lead to his injuries. 

Lee also hasn't forgotten a certain conversation he had with this same friend weeks earlier, a conversation during which Lee had hoped to convince them to use an alternative and less deadly form of self-defense. Rosen's hopes had inevitably been dashed and though he's tried to let that go, the thoughts that had driven him then are still festering now. 

So now he types out a question, having decided to pose it to the cave as a whole.] 

 

Under what circumstances do you think taking a life is justified? 

Comments

[claritatis]

I have killed where my life and the lives of my friends and compatriots have been threatened, but my personal reasoning would, in all honesty, vary by each encounter.

May I ask a question of you in turn?

[drabsolutelynot]

Go ahead.

[claritatis]

What is the purpose of the question?

[drabsolutelynot]

To gain perspective on a matter that troubles me.

[claritatis]

And what matter is that?

[drabsolutelynot]

The matter I asked about, clearly.

[claritatis]

Usually one has a personal reason for asking such a question.
Unless your interest is purely in the hypothetical.