A crackling sound sweeps over the horizon, and the smell of ozone fills the air. Electricity dances over fat little mounds, hastily moving ever forward without a thought of what's behind. The destination is reached, the last synapse fires—and there is pain.

“It doesn't look good,” a disembodied voice informs you in a soothing baritone.

“...a threat to our society, to our very way of life!” another voice shouts. This one is just a bit higher in pitch but is several orders of magnitude greater in annoyance. “Look around you! Look at the men and women who sit by your side.”

Pinpoints of shadow dash back and forth in front of you amongst swirling flashes of color. The shadows act as refuges for your eyes, and you wish they would just stand still. Concentrating, you can almost—get—one to—hold...but then it's gone, lost back into the kaleidescope of your vision.

“I will have one more chance to defend you once he's said his peace,” the baritone whispers.

There! You've found the slip of darkness corresponding to this man's voice. The lights seem to slide around him, as if to hide him from you, but his shadow looms larger and larger as you focus.

“What crime did I commit?” you ask.

“You lived” is your answer. “Now be silent.”

The aggravating voice starts up again. “On the sixth day, God created man and gave him name. He was placed in paradise: a land of fruit trees and grass, a land without pain or disease. It wasn't until man sinned that suffering became known to him for it was then that he was expelled from paradise. The flaws were dug out and perfection was maintained.

Somehow...this voice is familiar.

“This man that has come before us seeks to perform the reverse. He seeks to enter our paradise while smelling of blood and infection, bearing open wounds and begrimed skin. He wears the marks of a man of sin and yet believes that he is worthy to enter a land where there is no disease nor is their suffering! We have perfection, my fellows. Let us not be the ones to implant flaws within it.”

The baritone shadow shrinks in width but grows taller beside you. Clearing his throat, he stands and, instead of delivering beautifully crafted words in your defense, he sneezes. Not once or twice but three times.

The room is silent.