Dune

“You’ve heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There’s an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind.” - Dune, Frank Herbert

A young boy is led into a room, where a powerful old crone awaits. She commands him to put his hand inside a box, saying that if he removes it she’ll inject him with a lethal poison. He complies. The boy’s hand burns inside, but he keeps the hand inside, because the pinprick at his throat would kill him if he removes it. Finally, the agony stops. He pulls out his hand. . .

And it’s perfectly fine.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movement becomes headlong – faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thought of obstacles and forget that a precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late.

--Frank Herbert, Dune

It was a Tuesday, and I was in British Literature I.  We were discussing an early text, either Beowulf or Canterbury Tales.  Our professor was teaching via teleconference from a campus two hours away.  As she was listening on our class discussion through the television, an off-camera student leaned in and whispered something in her ear.  Her expression changed immediately.

“Thank you,” she said, as one of my classmates finished speaking.  “Uh, we’re going to end a little early today.”