THE LAST LORD OF THE BODY

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There once was a man —and there still is— who proclaimed himself king.

Not over a realm of mountains or over armies.

He proclaimed himself king of his own being.

Absolute lord of his body. Legislator of his flesh. Sole judge of his life.

“My will is law,” he said.

“There is no greater good than what I choose. No truth beyond my decision.

Not even God may command me, for I am free.”

And with that stone, he laid a foundation.

It had no roots, yet he built it high.

He called it the dominion of freedom, and raised its columns with decrees,

verdicts, referendums, and solemn formulas.

Each generation was taught:

“You have not received life. You hold it.

And what one holds, one may dispose of.”

In his kingdom, death ceased to be a mystery.

It became a right.

Life was no longer a gift, but a loan.

And the body, no longer a temple, became territory.

The judges of the realm learned to obey desire.

The lawmakers learned to legislate demands, not justice.

And the supreme court no longer ruled from the throne of righteousness,

but from the echo of majority will.

Thus the self-king ruled with a firm hand:

he permitted abortions, assisted suicides, mutilations,

experiments on bodies, freedoms without purpose.

And if anyone spoke of natural law,

they were branded heretics against the new faith:

self-determination.

One day, the king fell ill.

And, loyal to his laws, he issued his final decree:

that a clean, dignified, legal death be administered.

No prayer. No mystery. No surrender.

But when the body no longer obeyed,

when pain arrived without consent,

a voice arose within him.

It was not the law.

It was not memory.

It was something else.

And it asked:

“Can one abolish what one did not establish?”

“Did you give yourself life? Did you craft your being? Did you author your soul?”

The king fell silent.

Too late, he understood

that he had lived as if he were the author,

when he was only a creature.

That he had signed laws over his body

as though it were property,

when in truth it was a sanctuary.

That he had called freedom what was escape,

and called sovereignty what was solitude.

But his signature had already been sealed.

The protocol had already been set in motion.

His death was clean, legal, and empty.

No one bid him farewell. No one wept.

Not because he was unloved,

but because no one remembered what a soul was.

And so ended the reign of the last sovereign of the body.

Not as a martyr of freedom,

but as proof of error.

For he had been coherent, yes.

But coherence can destroy as much as falsehood,

when it begins from a false premise.

And there is no premise more false than this:

that man is his own god.

For man does not belong to himself.

He is not the master of his life,

nor the judge of his death, nor the author of his being.

He is a creature.

And he forgot.

OMO