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19day

2006-05-10

We’re still sorry

Filed under: General — 19day @ 21:52:17

I had written about this later on when she had been found, her body anyway. Here is the text from my entry Hellfire, which was part of my old journal, reprinted here.

Cecilia Zhang

Cecilia Zhang’s body was finally found. For anyone who doesn’t pay attention to Toronto news (which must be quite a number of people), she was kidnapped in october. Being cynical, I figured the worst, although the police were reportedly optimistic that she was being held for profit. I had been following this story since it started. Though I was not optimistic, stranger things had happened, like Elizabeth Smart’s case… Cecilia’s remains were recently discovered, and I have no personal doubt that she was taken, raped and murdered in fairly quick order. This is the legacy of my gender. I have never wished harder that the christians are right, and that there is a hell, because the man who did this should burn, very slowly, for a very very long time.

Of course, this goes on a lot, and every now and then the media latches onto a specific case. I’m not sure how to feel about that, I guess it’s a balance between reporting all the news all the time between the occurance and the resolution, and giving an architype like report, to remind us of the evil that surrounds, permeates, and is, us…

Cecilia, we’re sorry.

I’m somewhat pleased to know that I was wrong, always assuming the that the self-confessed murderer, now charged and having pled guilty, is telling the truth about what happened. I don’t know if it’s any real comfort to anyone, that she died of smothering during the kidnapping. I thought perhaps it was, but then thinking about it… what would I prefer? To have my raped, beaten, tortured daughter returned to me alive, or have her bones, she who may not have suffered much, perhaps, but is still gone forever.

During this, and other such cases, my mind repeatedly goes back to a game I played, Chrono Trigger. It was an RPG, where you started off as a party of one, Crono, who met up with a bunch of other characters and could create a party of 3, but always with you, Crono, in it… until you die. You are utterly destroyed by the evil monster when you encounter it too early (but are scripted to do so of course). The rest of your party escapes, and returns to the End of Time (the game heavily involves time travel and time manipulation). The Guru of Time tells you there is only one possibility for saving Crono, and gives you the Chrono Trigger, which is just a symbol of changing time, but time can only be changed if the timelines will allow it (in defiance to the changes in the timeline made in the game already by your actions, but whatever). You get a clone of Crono (in fact, a doll won at a fair that looks exactly like him) and return in time to the moment he died, and invoke the trigger.
Time is stopped, and you are able to swap out Crono for the doll, and leave, time resumes, and for all intents and purposes, Crono is killed there and then, the timelines have no disagreement about that… but he is also saved.

I have wished such a thing were possible, of course if obviously requires travelling in time, but say you couldn’t make any changes since the changes were already integrated into the pre-travel timeline… at least with the Chrono Trigger concept, it may not be impossible.

And then look at Cecilia Zhang, smothered and put in a trunk. When he checked on her later, already dead. If ever a time machine could exist, would it not be a perfect time to swap a perfectly created (but unalive) clone for her, and revive her. He even seemed surprised that she had died, perhaps this has happened already… the religious are not the only ones who engage in wishful thinking I suppose. Hopefully my thoughts to a video game are not too distasteful given the subject matter.


Sadder still, is how her parents pleaded for her return, how the police suspected she was alive, and why not, for at least a day or two you’d figure, time to do something…. but she was dead before her dissapearance was even discovered, no time for anything. And the reason for her kidnapping at all… pointless…

The media is as fixated on this case I have been. It’s not particularly good, or fair, to focus on the deaths of particularly fair and young girls, but still in our collective unconscious they represent the upmost innocent, and the photographs of Cecilia herself almost appear to be an advertisement for innocense. Perhaps the media should shine a bit more light around to the other cases, but once in a while one comes along like a sign post to show you exactly how bad things have gotten.

Everyone always says it, so I will as well: “I can’t imagine how it must be for the parents.” It’s almost enough to make you not want to have children at all, to know your sanity will be determined by the wellbeing of offspring that you’ll want to do anything to protect, but know that you never could possibly do so all the time. You never know who will be waiting outside the window.

We’re still sorry

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