Saga The Cleaner - OC vignette

Title: The Cleaner
Author: VaderLVR64
Characters: OC



The Cleaner



I became a good Imperial in the same way and at the same time that everyone else did. The day we got an Emperor, I was made an Imperial. There was no need to make a decision; it was already decided for me.
I?m not important. No one outside my tiny circle of friends and family knows my name or even that I exist. To the Empire, I am a number, a commodity who happens to be capable of doing hard tasks with a minimum of fuss. So in that way, I?m valuable I suppose, but only as long as I can do what needs to be done.

I woke up one morning as a citizen of the Republic and when I went to bad that night, I was a part of the Empire. I?ve had worse things happen to me, and to be honest, life didn?t change much. I was one of Palpatine?s menial servants. I cleaned up the messes that the Supreme Chancellor left in his wake. A thankless job, but one that kept me safe and protected in the days to come.

So when he became Emperor, I had nothing to prove, and was assimilated into the web that surrounded him. I simply changed my allegiance from Chancellor to Emperor. It was so simple that it was almost ridiculous.

Yet, I admit I felt a twinge. The man I had known as Master was transformed into something hideous and terrifying. It wasn?t just his face that changed.

It?s strange to me that you can know someone for years and still never know them. I wonder how many thought that about him when we watched him climb over the bodies of the Jedi to ascend his throne?

Shades of Imperial grey moved in and banished the bright and varied colors of the Republic, but I hardly noticed. My mind was filled with visions of what I had seen at the dawn of the Empire.
I saw nothing but the blood that had filled the Temple.

I was one of the few who saw the destruction, the death that had been visited upon those who lived in those Temple walls.

I am a ?cleaner.? I still clean up, but the messes are bigger now, and they stain my hands.

It was my job to gather the corpses from where they had fallen in the Temple. It was my job to destroy them.

It is my job to remember.

Not even to my children did I relate what I saw during those three hellish days. There are many nights when I see the bodies lined up in neat rows, the rigid pattern of arrangement belying the chaos and horror of their death. They had been reduced to nothing more than dim shapes on a floor.

One hundred to a row.

Rows and rows and rows.

Some rows were smaller than others ? even with a hundred corpses.

The young ones?

Lined up like their elders in neat and tidy rows, like small toys broken and tossed aside by a cruel and careless child.

All hail the Empire! See how our mighty Emperor brings order to chaos! Little bodies, neatly displayed...

I never uttered a whisper of protest while I did my job. I gathered up the bodies, both old and young, and arranged them as I was told. I supervised their consignment to the huge cremation ovens that waited for them. No ceremonial pyre for them, just a cold impersonal slide into a hungry heat.

No tears, no flowers, no comforting words. Quick, quick, quick! Get those bodies in there. Growing cold and stiff, their wounds blooming ever more grievous on their flesh. The smell?

Dispose of the ashes, get rid of the evidence.

But I could never get rid of the memory, or the stench of it on my clothes, my hair?my heart.

I did what I was ordered to do.

I was alone when I put the last little one into the heat. I cried, one of my tears falling on her cold face. I wiped it away with the corner of my tunic and prayed that no one would walk in on me and see that tear.

A tear was a betrayal of the Empire, my Emperor ? but not my heart.

All of us were responsible for those deaths. Palpatine gave the order, his troops carried it out, and I got rid of what was left.

Following orders, that?s all I did ? all the troopers did.

Follow orders. Kill. Kill. Burn. Burn. Let the ashes drift a

 

*shudders* Absolutely chilling, K! History is filled with those who were just "following orders."

A powerful piece.

 

That was haunting!
But powerful, deep, and very well written!! You did such a wonderful job displaying the character's emotions and guilt. Wow. That would be a nightmare of a job. Great job as always!!
Now, off to read something happy!

 

Oof that was chilling, and describing what had happened many times in many places

Great writing

 

Oh, my God this is good.

Your understatements were, for me, the most powerful:

Shades of Imperial grey moved in and banished the bright and varied colors of the Republic, but I hardly noticed.

... ... ...

It was my job to gather the corpses from where they had fallen in the Temple. It was my job to destroy them.

It is my job to remember.


And this:

No ceremonial pyre for them, just a cold impersonal slide into a hungry heat.


Wow.

-and wow.


All gone. All done.

Nothing left.

Just an empty Temple, echoing with the voices of the dead.

May all the gods have mercy on me; I was only following orders.

Perfect ending after the horror you had described.

 

That was amazing! very well written. I could almost feel like I was the person that had done those things, and could feel the very emotions tugging inside.

Again, amazing job!

 

Less is indeed more!!! Astounding, not a sentence wasted!!

The way the cleaner tries to justify his/her work to him/herself before finally accepting the guilt is a great character arc that has been well executed (probably a bad choice of word considering the piece)!!

What I really loved however was how the story reflects a sad reality that exists in our own world, in that great atrocities are commited on the grounds of "orders" being followed. My favourite quote?

"...the rigid pattern of arrangement belying the chaos and horror of their death."

That to me summed up the message of the piece: people de-humanising huge acts of violence and hate by dealing with it in an efficient and "work-like" way i.e. following orders.

Superb!!

 

This was just awesome work all around! Loved the choice of character to explore, and the quiet way you did so. "Understatement" is a good way to put it; you avoided the more melodramatic turns of phrase that most people would go for and in doing so it meant even more.