The Return of Zarathustra:

CHAPTER THREE: THE JUDGE APPEARS

The Judge’s form solidified atop the towering seat of judgment. His features were never still, flickering between archetypes: one moment the bearded visage of Zeus, lightning clenched in his fist; the next, the stern, jealous eyes of Yahweh; then the distant, calculating mask of the Machine-God of modern science. His robes wove themselves from scriptures, law codes, and blood-soaked flags.

He was every god ever dreamt by men. His throne pulsed with shifting alphabets—Hebrew, Greek, Latin, binary code—all languages that once crowned men as rulers and erased women as myth.

“You have been found guilty, Zarathustra,” the Judge thundered. “Guilty of corrupting the minds of mortals, of severing their faith, of leaving them hollow and aimless. Guilty of spreading madness among men.”

Zarathustra’s eyes narrowed. He did not bow, did not flinch.

“Madness?” he repeated, his voice sharp with contempt. “You mistake me, Judge. I did not bring madness to humankind. I revealed the madness of men that was already there. The minds of women were never mad to begin with. How dare YOU accuse me, as if truth itself is something to be blamed? Suppose that truth is a woman—then what is your judgment worth, if not absolutely nothing?”

The shadows in the gallery rustled, their whispers growing louder. They hungered for blood, for penance, for Zarathustra’s submission.

The Judge leaned forward, looming impossibly large.

“You dismantled the hope of the masses. Without the gods I gave them, they wander without purpose, without morality. You tore down their temples and left them shivering before the abyss.”

Zarathustra laughed—cold and bitter. “No. I simply held up a mirror to their collective insanity. And they wept at what they saw.”

The Judge’s voice turned darker, now echoing with the voices of kings and tyrants: “You will be sentenced to eternal silence. You will be erased from the dream.”

Zarathustra’s voice cut through like a blade: “NO SENTENCE SHALL BE PASSED—not until you answer my question.”

The courtroom froze. The shadows fell silent. Even the stars above paused their screaming. The Judge’s countless faces stared down at him, waiting.

Zarathustra folded his arms, calm and resolute. “Tell me, Judge. Before you pass judgment on me—can you answer this?”

His voice became low, steady, a drumbeat against the void: “Was there ever a man… who was not born of a woman?”

The abyss shivered. The glass floor beneath Zarathustra’s feet pulsed faintly.

The Judge’s eyes flickered, uncertain. His ever-changing face twitched, cycling faster—Moses, Aristotle, Augustus, Christ, Newton, Darwin, Einstein—all cycling like a broken reel.

Zarathustra spoke again, louder: “Was there ever a king, a prophet, a savior, a scientist, a soldier, a god—who did not crawl from between a woman’s thighs?”

The courtroom trembled.

Zarathustra continued, with the righteous fury of every woman burned as a witch: “No man has escaped the womb. No man has given birth. No man has come first.”

The Judge said nothing. He sat as stone, frozen by Zarathustra’s gaze, while cracks began to spider across the pillars around him.

Zarathustra took a step forward, voice now thunderous: “Answer me, Judge! Before you pass judgment—YOU stand on trial!”

The silence became suffocating.

Then, like a distant echo, the muttering of the shadows resumed—but now uncertain, fragmented, as if questioning their own dream.

The Judge remained frozen. His throne creaked beneath him.

Zarathustra smiled. The first move had been made. The nightmare was beginning to fracture.