Paradox
The prison warden says to the prisoner, “You will be executed sometime during the next week. It will be on a day you do not expect.”
The prisoner concludes that they cannot be executed on the last day of the week, or they would expect it. Further, this means they cannot be executed on the second-to-last day of the week either, or they would expect that.
The prisoner concludes that they cannot be executed.
Tragedy
The prisoner is executed on the third day of the week.
Border
The prisoner is surprised.
Paradox
A vagabond is asked why they are passing through a town. According to the law, any person who does not explain their true intention will be shot.
The vagabond answers, “I have come in order to be shot.”
Border
The soldier lowers their rifle as the vagabond falls to the ground, dead.
Tragedy
The soldier thinks, “Now, we’ll never know what they came for.”
Paradox
The prisoner is not surprised when the guards open the cell doors.
“You said that you would only execute me on a day I didn’t expect!” the prisoner says. “I expected you today! I expected you!”
Border
The prison warden says, “I know.”
Tragedy
When the prisoner has been taken outside and shot, it doesn’t matter if they were surprised or not.
Paradox
The vagabond says, “Every vagabond is a liar.”
Tragedy
“According to the law, any person who does not explain their true intention will be shot,” the soldier explains. “And everyone knows that vagabonds are liars.”
Border
The soldier says, “Every good soldier enforces the law.”
Paradox
The vagabond says, “I came here to live.”
The soldier replies, “How do I know that’s true?”
Tragedy
The soldier thinks, “Better safe than sorry.”
Border
The bullets are fired, and the prisoner feels the pain of metal meeting flesh.
Paradox
And still, the prisoner believes they will be freed.
Border
The prisoner is executed, to keep the people safe.
Border
The prison warden says, “It is borders that protect us from paradox. A paradox is two opposites coming together. Wherever there is a paradox, the logic that leads to it must be discarded entirely. Everything must be discarded. It is my job to hold apart the opposites of our world, which is the only way to protect its laws.”
Tragedy
The soldier must touch both.
The soldier cannot be anything for fear of being another’s opposite.
The soldier can only be emptiness.
They can only be a soldier.
Border
The prisoner makes a border running through themselves.
“On one side, I will be surprised when it is time to be executed,” the prisoner says. “On the other, I will know it is coming.”
Border
The soldier sets a border running through themselves.
“On one side, I am a soldier,” the soldier says. “On the other, I am only a person.”
Border
The prison warden makes a border running through themselves.
“On one side, I will be a prison warden,” the prison warden says. “I will not speak of the other side.”
Paradox
The vagabond is run through by a hundred borders, but they walk over each one every day.
“There are borders everywhere,” the vagabond says. “Sometimes I think there’s nothing in this world but borders.”
Tragedy
On one side of the border, the soldiers pull the trigger. On the other, the bullets hit their target, and the prisoner bleeds.
Paradox
The vagabond asks the soldier, “What are you here to do?”
The soldier replies, “I have come in order to shoot you.”
Tragedy
The vagabond asks the soldier, “What are you here to do?”
The soldier replies, “Shut up with your smarmy questions. Who do you think you are?”
Border
No one asks the soldier why they are in the village.
Paradox
The vagabond says, “The question isn’t whether or not you are full of borders. The question is how easy it is to cross them.”
Tragedy
The soldier says, “No one will cross my borders, least of all me.”
Paradox
The vagabond says to the soldier, “I’ve come here for a hundred different reasons. I’ve come for as many reasons as I’ve been afraid to come. I don’t even know half of the reasons I’m here.”
Border
The soldier says, “You must give a simpler answer than that.”
Paradox
The vagabond says, “Every person who gives a simpler answer is a liar.”
Border
The prison warden says, “You cannot imagine a world without borders. The firing squad cannot be human. They can only be human and soldier. The peoples of the two countries will still be separate, even without their countries. You will still always be you. The execution will still be some day next week.”
Paradox
The vagabond says, “What about a world that crosses its borders?”
Tragedy
The prisoner concludes that this world cannot be replaced with a paradise, or it would already be done. Further, this means the world cannot be replaced with an almost paradise, because an almost paradise could be replaced with a paradise.
The prisoner concludes the world cannot be replaced at all.
Border
The prison warden says, “Without borders, there is tragedy.”
Paradox
The vagabond says, “There is always tragedy, but never only tragedy.”
Border
The prison warden says, “Every person who promises you certainty is a liar.”
Paradox
The prison warden says, “I am a prison warden.”
The soldier says, “I am a border.”
The prisoner says, “I am a tragedy.”
The vagabond says, “We are all paradoxes.”
Paradox
The soldier aims their gun, but hesitates.
What if the person were to decide what happened next, rather than the soldier?
What if they crossed the border?
Paradox
The vagabond says to the soldier, “I have come to live without borders, to live in paradox and in contradiction. I have come to be a liar, and to be surprised. I have come for a hundred other reasons, and in spite of a hundred more, and yet, I have found you, and you have found me.”
Paradox
The soldier says, “Maybe that’s a good answer.”
Paradox
The prisoner says, “If another world comes to be, I will be surprised.”
But the prisoner is always surprised.
Paradox
The vagabond says, “A paradox is not a mistake. A paradox is simply a place that reminds you it is larger than the laws you have built for it.”
Paradox
The prison warden opens the door to tell the prisoner of the execution.
But the prisoner is already gone, because for once, they too let the person decide, and not the prisoner.
For once, it is the warden who is surprised.
Lillie E. Franks is a trans author and eccentric who lives in Chicago, Illinois with the best cats. You can read her work at places like Always Crashing, Alice and Atlas, and Drunk Monkeys or follow her on Twitter at @onyxaminedlife. She loves anything that is not the way it should be.