Is mercy really mercy
when it destroys the merciful?

So I’ve changed the name of the creepy vampire-like nursing robots in my forthcoming novella, All the Humans are Sleeping, to mercybots (as revealed in yesterday’s post).

These mercybots are tasked with keeping the human race submerged in pods of synthetic amniotic fluid while connected to a virtual reality simulation. It’s a slow genocide under the guise of “mercy.”

The other reason I called them mercybots was because the Sisters of Mercy is a Catholic order of nuns who were instrumental in developing modern nursing practices. The robots already wear nun-like nursing uniforms, so the name fits.

Not that I’m suggesting the Sisters of Mercy are creepy vampires. Again, it’s double-speak — such as calling poison “safe and effective.”

Rather than vampires, the Sisters of Mercy have a history of self-neglect. Here’s a historical snippet from The Catholic Health Association of the United States:

“In January 1848, the Sisters of Mercy admitted a sick boatman to [Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh]. When they realized he had typhus, the sisters, most of whom were Irish immigrants, thought of the deadly epidemics they had witnessed in Ireland. Despite their fear, they cared for the patient and subsequently opened a special ward to care for 18 additional typhus victims… The sisters nursed these patients night and day, exhausting themselves. By the time the epidemic ended less than a month later, all but four of the patients had recovered. But the entire nursing staff—four Sisters of Mercy, all of them under 30 years old—had died.”

Why were those four nuns’ lives not shown as much value as the typhus patients'? And if they had not literally been overworked to death... would they not have lived to save far more than 15 patients?

Is mercy really mercy when it destroys the merciful?

John C.A. Manley

PS For more on this theme check out: "Don't work for my happiness, my brothers"

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/