Zardoz by John Boorman

atrophy or months of idle sub-emotions, their bodies stood—on the edge of life and reason.
    Friend talked into the ring.
    “I’m voting for the poor sod. It won’t do any good, nothing does… Absolute acquittal.”
    Zed walked up to one exquisitely beautiful girl who seemed to be looking at him. He grasped a breast, then squeezed it. No response. She was still slowly focusing back from where he had been to where he was now, her nervous system, minutes behind his, dulled and defeated.
    Friend smirked. “Go on—help yourself!”
    Zed caressed the girl, gently, then fiercely. She submitted blindly with no response to him—for or against. Friend walked among the others and placed their arms in weird positions. There they stayed, then slowly sank back to their original positions, through the liquid air.
    “Didn’t Zardoz tell you about the Apathetics? No? It’s a disease and it’s slowly creeping all through the Vortexes. That’s why Zardoz made you grow crops—to feed these people. We can’t support them anymore. Apathetic or Renegade—take your choice.”
    Zed gulped at the information and it stuck inside him. His God was a grain-ship to feed these infirm people. Emotional mutes, sad statues that were once Eternals. Zed saw them clearly, he saw inside them,, and there lay a voice. This could consume him. He felt the pull of their great sad emptiness and was afraid. No enemy had been so passive yet so strong. Their very weakness was their strength. He felt them pulling him like the spirits of the dead into a grave that had no end. These Apathetics drew him to an endless night, where he could see and feel but not move. To be paralyzed by some great insect demon, like a helpless grub, and then to live on while the canker of another vulture ate into his live but mordant flesh. They, had ceased to live and yet they could never die. He felt the process starting, his limbs were leaden. He could not move. The soft assurance of the living dead enfolded him. He felt an awful sleep come upon his face and neck, his eyes dropped and glazed. He could not scream, he was buried alive in the thin crisp air.
    His heart still fluttered at its steady speed but slowed a trifle, sinking him to their torpor. His blood was cooling down to their icy level. Then his heart stirred and pumped faster. He would not be drawn into their web. His blood pulsed quicker and his brain began to fight the numbness of their gaze. He would survive and win. He would endure. He would surmount them all. His body sang, his limbs, flexed, he was alive, he sprang.
    Zed picked up the girl and threw her into a pile of straw, where she lay like a monstrous doll.
    Zed smashed a barrel into the wall. He overturned a cart and roared out his life’s energy in a cry. Some of the Apathetics stirred, some rose to their feet. The girl’s eyes flickered from the straw, perhaps with fear. Zed stopped, spent. Friend clapped ironically.
    “Good—now you’re beginning to show yourself.” Zed felt the clammy hand of despair touch him for the first time. The nameless, faceless foe that confronted him seemed overwhelming.
    The gong rang again. The Apathetics settled once more into their sea-bed trances.
    “Final votes: For: nine Against: five hundred and eighty-six; undecided: eighty-six. George Saden will be aged five years.”
    Friend scowled, then his face cleared, and he turned to Zed.
    “Welcome to Paradise!”

    The commune was assembled. Once again Zed was on show in the large orange room.
    As they examined him, so he looked back at them.
    There were not more than thirty active members at any time. The building and the grounds could accommodate a great many more. Where were they now? Either Apathetic or Renegade.
    Time was wasting, drawing him to his execution date. How would they kill him? He knew death, but the Eternals' stoical mixture of superior knowledge, emotional indifference, and perpetual childhood chilled him. They were like the wicked, spoiled