The Grey
Life, Chapter XVIII
Is
there ever due punishment? Perhaps punishment serves no other purpose
than to satsify the vengeance of the victim. We are encouraged to
hate each other, to gather in crowds in the public square and watch
the torturer at work, to assemble before the television set and watch
the cops harrass the working class, and all in the name of justice.
After
the events in the forest the six of us were in a daze, trembling and
silent and delirious. We later discovered that Anne had found her way
into Antonius' apartment and locked herself in his bedroom. She
refused to answer the door, and, to speak the truth, nobody tried
very hard to get her out. So we sat ourselves on the living room
floor, stared at each other dumbly, blindly, our eyes blinking
stupidly and asking each other questions no one wanted to answer. It
was middle March, the end of winter drawing near. But sitting there
then not one of us could possibly imagine that a new, warmer season
was about to arrive, or in what way the present one would conclude.
It was suddenly and so coldly obvious that something was happening to
us that was dangerous, something not inhuman, perhaps, but twisted
nonetheless. The cold seemed to have drenched our clothing like
blood, frosting our minds, and it would take a long time before I
could enjoy any warmth from the world again.
Life
from the outside had been returned to us. It was a matter of some
relief to my frantic mind, because while we were being judged I
feared it would not. Now we were left in the wake of our accusations
to await the consequences of what we had been brought to say against
each other. Yes, all my life I have been waiting for something. I
still cannot remember leaving that awful place in the woods, nor how
we had come upon it. It might as well have been a dream, and I might
have believed that it was had we not all shared it to the exact
detail.
Salvatore,
across from me, looking desperately calm. He had already popped four
of his pills, but they didn't seem to be doing anything for him. He
sat before us rigidly, eyes riveted to the floor in front of him,
seemed to be meditating. But that empty look on his face, how
familiar it is, and how ominous.
That
look. I remember, not too long before that night, when he and I
decided to go to our twelve o'clock class. We were taking a course in
mathematics called Numerical Methods. Salvatore and I sat pulling
bong hits at his place after I showed up with Anne. I remember how
she sat glowering at me. She couldn't keep her mouth shut about my
habits, couldn't stop telling me that I was destroying my life. But
was hers any more satisfactory? I ignored her, an act which so
infuriated her that she only redoubled her efforts. After one
particularly ignorant remark Salvatore lifted an eyebrow. "How
much more of this crap do we have to listen to, anyway?" he
growled, facing her. So she stopped and would say nothing more. But
still she tagged along, and because of the infrequency with which we
attended the class no one had the slightest idea that she didn't
belong there.
But
the point of my telling you this is that while we were in class
Salvatore was asked to solve a problem on the blackboard. I think the
professor did it out of spite, to embarrass him. And Salvatore was
embarrassed, but only because of his perpetual fear of people. He
slithered his way toward the front of the room while the professor
smirked behind him, came to stand before the haggard drivel scrawled
across the blackboard. For a moment he simply stood there, his head
held low and studying the task before him, before he picked up a
piece of chalk and started writing.
It
was almost worth going to class that day just to have seen the look
on the professor's face when he observed that Salvatore was
proceeding correctly, but that is not the point of this story,
either. There was someone present who used to buy drugs from
Antonius, somebody whose name I can't quite recall. I heard him
chuckling in the back of the room when Salvatore was summoned to the
blackboard. Assuming he was stoned, the young man called out, "Hey,
Salvatore, do you want do die?" He was referring, of course, to
the slogan on the back of the Slayer teeshirt that Salvatore had
absently pulled over his body that morning.
Some
of the people in the room started to laugh, but I caught myself when
I saw his reaction. He simply stopped writing, as if frozen, the
inert chalk still in contact with the board. For a long moment there
was no movement, until there was a silence in the room that seemed
drawn out and belated. "Yes," he said. And then he
continued to write, as if the question had never been asked.
The
answer was accompanied by scattered laughter, and the professor
called for renewed silence, but neither Anne nor I betrayed any
emotion whatsoever. We were stunned, and after a moment exchanged
uncomfortable glances. For some reason we both had the undeniable
feeling that he had forgotten about his teeshirt, which he must have
selected blindly from a pile on the floor, that he had considered the
question seriously and given his answer.
It
must have been the same look in his eye that day facing the
chalkboard as there is now, I thought. That same emptiness, that same
capitulation for which he suffered every day. Would he ever find the
strength to resume the struggle, as had Canine, or Emmanuel, or
whatever he is to be called? I do not think it unnatural that certain
people desire death. For some of us there comes a time when all hope
for love or salvation has long ago been blurred by the harsh mark of
our reality. And if there is no recourse to end the pain in this
life, then the life must end because continuous torment is
intolerable. It is not right that we drive some of our own to commit
themselves to death. Suicide is not an unnatural act, even though it
be horrible. Do not be so quick to judge.
So
I ask you, is it possible to act contrary to one's own nature? If
humans are evil and perverse and we have been for countless
centuries, then are we not simply evil and perverse beasts? There is
deprivation all around us, hypocracy and murder. Rape. And every
thousand years or so the populace somewhere grows excitable and
latches on to a strict view of morality and the man that gave it to
them, and then a lot of people must die and countless others suffer
so that humankind can feel that it has redeemed itself, so it can
embark on yet another long descent into debauchery that will lead,
once again, to the coming era of retribution and judgement. Are we a
shallow race, bitter and filled with hatred, or are we merely at the
beginning of our history and still young and reckless?
Is
there such a thing as good and evil?
Are
there any gods at all?
Salvatore
was afraid now of the complete and manaical ecstacy that had thrown
him onto the tree to pronounce judgement. It had always been there,
now that I recognized the madness for what it was, but to him it must
have come as a surprise. Perhaps he thought better of himself. Such
is the power of belief, that it will lead men to do great things, and
the great, filthy sink of unbelief, where all our scorned must
sojourn. Every man must choose early in his lifetime between them.
Except it is not a terminating question. It is one that is asked
repeatedly, over and over, until the belief hardens beyond reality,
takes on the aspects of reality.
But
now the yoke of Christianity is lifting, and belief is replaced by
unbelief. There is dispair in the faces of those whom I pass on the
street. Our children don't understand their place in the universe.
There is dissatisfaction, there is repression, and most of all there
is unhappiness in the land of the brave.
It
is usually out of turmoil of this kind that our prophets come to us.
But,
for the moment at least, Emmanuel was frightened. I could sense the
fear etched in the contours of his face so incredibly close to
Salvatore's. There was nothing but the fierce intensity of his gaze,
and the way he was holding the tiny, black metal box in both his
hands. But his other, Salvatore, was turned away, staring
incredulously at the floor, refusing the appeal for strength.
There,
once denied.
What
manner of passion was it that these young men shared? What sort of
aching need? One for healing, for absence of uncertainty, for the
lifting of ambiguity, for something to believe in other than the
immutable fact that one day he will die. And the other for the
strength enough to act as his heart commands him, the carrier of the
Word, who dreams dreams. Why, then is it that the sheep has turned
its back on the shepherd? Salvatore's mind was screaming for the
salve that Emmanuel was preparing, and yet the power of unbelief, and
the resulting fright, is such that it denies the victim the simple
power to accept his succor. How is it that such things come to pass?
I
have already told you. For some men, the instinct for
self-preservation is overridden. Some men grow to love their
affliction, and identify themselves with it.
And
Antonius, across from me. His hands were moving furtively between his
legs, splayed out before him across the floor, almost reaching my
knees. His searching gaze was wandering the room, yet avoiding all
eyes, and he was rambling. " - because I don't know who I am
anymore. I used to be so sure. Everything so easily explained. But
now, the simple fact that I'm alive disturbs me. How is that? If
there is a God it is evil, a horrific monster to have put me here and
force me to suffer like this. Why am I always punished? Is that
supposed to show me the error of my ways? Or just harden me in them?
I used to think that people can change, but I know now they can't.
The only reason things ever do change is because people die and their
children take their places. Living memory is so short, and yet we are
held accountable for things done long ago. Is there really free will?
Is my every act just the result of some monstrous series of chemical
and physical equasions? Are we just trapped in some farcical play for
an unseen observer's petty amusement?"
Once
again Antonius appeared haggard, unsteady, as if he were about to
topple over. The supreme power of command was bereft him that day,
and it would take him some time to get used to its absence. One role
has ended for him, another assumed. And it did not seem as though he
had been given much choice in the matter of its nature. One becomes
so coldly aware, at odd moments, that there really are other forces
at work, greater than ourselves.
"I
don't believe anything anymore." The lips move, trace the words
in our minds, but no one seems to be listening. Antonius doesn't
care. His voice is for himself alone, his anchor to rationality.
Ours, too, I guess, because it was the only thing tying us all
together. "What does a person do when he realizes that
everything he once believed in is false, and suddenly there is
nothing solid left to stand on, some place from which to say, 'That
happened because'? Is every person simply mad and all of us raving?"
Eventually,
he fell silent. The last words hung from his ruby lips like flecks of
drool, but there were no answers from us for any of his questions.
Anne's sobbing through the thin walls was suddenly audible, her
brief, wretched wailing.
Next
to me on the left, wrapped in a warm blanket, head lowered so that
her silky hair spilled past her head and hid her face, was my love,
Shanai. She sat there, crosslegged beneathe the blanket, pressing it
close as if she could not possibly derive enough warmth from it. She
did not move for some time. Her skin felt cold and clammy when I
touched her, like jelly, and she did not react. So I left her to
herself, to work things out as best she could.
There
must be some conclusion, you see, and we all knew that, but before
you can possibly determine would it might be you need a fairly good
understanding of what went on before, and that we were all lacking.
Why do things only become clear in hindsight, when the wisdom is no
longer of use to us? There was confusion all around, cloaking us, and
I got the insubstantial fear in my head that there was no escape from
this hell, that the rest of the world's rooms contained situations as
twisted as ours, that this sphere of insanity was truly infinite.
That no matter where I went all the faces would be dusty and on the
verge of panic. The world seemed black and dirty, desperately in need
of a good scouring. And that day would come soon, somehow, but it
would require more than I could give. Already, even as I sit here
writing these words, I can smell the sweet odor of retribution and
satisfaction in the air. It is something that vaguely resembles the
crusty smell of blood.
Emmanuel
suddenly put the black box on the floor in front of him and stood up.
His growing anger at Salvatore's apparent rejection moved him to act
when the rest of us had deemed it unfit. None of us would look at him
- least of all Salvatore, who cringed at the sudden sounds - except
for myself, but there was no contact there.
"I
was there before," he spat into the silver air. I heard Shanai
next to me gasp underneathe the blanket, try and crawl deeper into
her body, as if she were going to make herself disappear. "Not
like you, David," he continued, and threw his radiant eyes upon
my own. The immensity of his passion overcame my percipience. "No,
not in this place. I was there in here!" A thin and severe
finger indicated his forehead. "In here, David. Can't you see
the impossibility in that? I dreamed the fucking place!"
"Canine,"
Antonius began wearily, but Emmanuel cut him off.
"Wake
up, Antonius!" The current of his voice washed all other
thoughts from our heads, and now even Shanai was looking. The air was
suddenly chilly, and I couldn't keep myself from shivering. "Wake
the fuck up, all of you!" He washed us all with his awesome
gaze, and we were compelled to return it. Even Anne was brought from
the bedroom, appearing behind him, her hair disturbed and her clothes
torn, her face ashen and simply watching. His hands were smacking
against each other, as if he were itching to strike something, or
someone. "Don't you see what's happening? Don't you understand
what's going on? We've been judged! And we've condemned ourselves!
It's all madness, don't you see? All this talk about gods and the
divine that we've been trying to avoid. Didn't you feel it, that
power in the air, the fucking power of that will. It was fucking God,
or something like that - whatever the fuck there is. Look at
yourselves! Sitting there and trying to find ways to deny the truth.
The truth, god fucking dammit, the fucking goddamn truth is what's
staring you in the face, and it's not going to go away so denying it
is only going to make matters worse! What the hell does it want with
us? We're the only ones who fucking know! We're the ones who fucking
conjured the damned thing! It was fucking us that made that place! We
brought ourselves there. Don't you see? There's nothing except what
we believe in our heads! Salvatore was right. We're all sinking ships
and there's nowhere to go but down. Because you all know it, the only
fucking thing that exists is our minds and when life's over, coochy,
it's over - kaput, done. The end thank you good night." And with
that he turned us the back of the Prophet who has spurned his
children.
Is
there such power in judgement? Is it an actual thing?
"I
don't understand." Anne's voice was plain and simple in the
heavy silence after revelation. Almost mystically our eyes averted to
her face. She was staring at me in plain need, the recollection that
she had with such fiery passion attacked me either forgotten or well
concealed. But there was only digust sitting like cold meat in my
stomach as I sat there looking back at her. Because the truth is that
I knew somewhere deep down inside that she had lied when she said she
had my baby.
"Fool!"
Emmanuel hissed at her from the table by the door. He was dressed in
the shadows that flitted in the half-light, swathed in cavernous and
shifting patterns of dimness. "You're the fucking reason it all
happened, and you don't even know it, do you?" His voice had
risen to a shriek. He took a menacing step toward her, the features
on his face blurring into practical divinity. "If it hadn't been
for you, you ignorant fucking cunt, none of this would have come to
pass and we all might have gone through our lives a little bit saner,
thank you. You and your fucking anger, and the egomanaical universe
you live in. You and the way you wave the fucking David's baby in
front of his face! Why you're nothing but a pathetic and bruised
little child who came crying all the way across an ocean for
sympathy. Well, let me tell you, bitch, there's no sympathy for you
here so why don't you go running back home to France with your ears
down and your tail between your legs!"
Anne's
mouth dropped, and when he stopped she suddenly clamped it shut.
"David," she began, but it was a moment before she could
get her eyes back from Emmanuel. "David, none of your friends
likes me." Her voice was quivering slightly. "Why, David? I
didn't do something, did I? Tell me what I did."
There
was such a need in her face that even Shanai's calm, hot gaze on my
face did not quench the fact that there was sympathy for her here,
and whether or not it was right of me or just another way that
punishment was taking form was not apparent then. So I said to her,
"Just try and relax, Anne. Just take a deep breath, and think
about things for a moment."
But
now she was babbling to me in French, and as she continued she began
to cry, until the tears were slurring her words and she had slid to
her knees, hands cupping her head as she leaned wearily against the
wall. "Tell me you want me to stay, David," she was
pleading. "Tell them you want me to stay. Tell Shanai to fuck
off and come be with me, like you used to. Yes, just the way it used
to be, David, when we were young and everything was alright."
"The
chemistry between people is strange, let me tell you,"
Emmanuel's voice came then. I looked over at him, managing somehow to
avoid the renewed wrath in Shanai's eyes. "Just one malicious
little bitch and we're set off. Boom! A fucking explosion! Who knows
what it's going to look like when the dust clears." He shrugged
brusquely. "Of course, if we weren't so fucking pissed off at
each other all the time -" He seemed to have stumped himself,
and so he stopped speaking.
There
were no sounds for some time except those of Anne's pathetic sobbing,
which eventually tapered off into a snickering attempt at pity.
It
came again, the crisp interruption of reality that hits me sometimes.
Everything for the span of a few moments that could have lasted
forever fell away, as if it had never existed, because in the space
between moments there are no material objects, no conscious thoughts
of revolt against what is.
What
is the nature of the beast when the beast can rationalize its own
nature?
And
suddenly the absurdity of the whole situation overcame me. The
fucking most ridiculous thoughts seemed always to be flooding my head
at the oddest and most inappropriate of times! The fact that I had
been searching for a justification of reality was ridiculous.
But
wait, I wander again. You see, as I have come to this point in the
story the emotions and the questions and the absolute needs I knew
then are flooding me now. And I thought over the years I had resolved
them! How foolish. I can remember now as I can see, even if the
dreamscape is obscured by clouds, and at times it becomes difficult
to separate the past from the present. It has always been this way.
The
fact of absurdity, the fact that there never were any reasons at all,
that all of Emmanuel's fuming about judgement and Salvatore's
specific denial of faith and Antonius' assumption that he was faith
meant nothing because they all knew some belief. The three of them
were anchored somewhere, off some rocky coast, even if it was an
island immersed in perpetual, polar darkness.
Because
in these moments, the experience of the stoning, the discovery that
there is some sort of absolute truth in the universe, even if it
remains far beyond my grasp, and the exigent thirst for blood on
Salvatore's face cannot be reconciled. Nothing I have experienced or
observed with my own eyes can be explained. Events happen for reasons
completely isolated from my comprehension. Thus, everything fits
together. It has always been beyond me how. Because I know there is
no chaos, and yet everything is chaotic to me. Therefore, I cannot
trust myself. I cannot believe in myself.
Can
you not see the inherent necessity of impossibility, or paradox - of
contradiction? It is only in terms of these concepts that other
concepts are defined. Otherwise anything is possible. Nothing makes
sense so everything makes sense, everything is perceived in terms of
other things but every thing is itself. How it was that I found
myself among these impossibly young, divine philosophers who could
only muse about themselves in horribly abstract terms, how it was
that they had now come to the verge of understanding that they must
destroy themselves, Shanai as well, and accepted it, how they had
managed to drag me into it I cannot say except that it was not by my
own choosing.
I
asked Salvatore once, "Salvatore, tell me - the universe exists,
does it not?"
He
threw me a funny look. "Sure."
"And
people exist?"
Now
he was looking at me with interest. "Of course."
"So
when an individual dies, and he can no longer perceive the universe,
can we say that relative to him the universe doesn't exist, even
though it does exist because you and I are sitting here now talking
about it?"
Salvatore
nodded bitterly, drew the flayed flesh that formed his lips into a
crooked smile. "No. That man ceases to exist. Not the universe."
"But
how can something that once existed no longer exist?"
"David,"
Salvatore told me, grabbing my forearm, "does love exist? Does
hatred? Mathematics? They only exist as long as we believe in them,
and once we are gone so are they."
Can
a man make belief of unbelief? It's hard to say with these damned
angels cackling in my ears. Of course, we can only discern true
meaning in the whole, not in pieces. That is why a human is not
entirely who he was until he is dead.
So
how is it that I must now reveal the final and greatest passion of
the Prophet? With dignity.
Salvatore,
his face twisted in a snarl, had risen to his feet and faced Emmanuel
with fierce determination. "Look at you," he hissed,
jabbing a finger in the Prophet's direction, "standing up there
in front of us like some goddamn preacher! Who are you to judge? Who
are you to give us lessons? You're the one who's fucking scared to
death, right? You said so your fucking self. Sounds to me like a load
of shit. Sounds to me like you're trying to talk yourself down.
Fucking weak-ass motherfucker!"
Emmanuel's
eyes flashed. "Weak? Yeah, well I'm through with it. And look
who's talking. You're just scared because I'm not going to sit with
you in the corner anymore and listen to you try and freak me out. I
don't need friends like you, Salvatore, because you're always taking
taking taking. What do I know? I know enough to know that we were
just warned and I'm listening. I'm getting the fuck out."
"Oh,
I see," Salvatore breathed, rolling his eyes. "So now
you're better than us. You know what I think? I think you've got an
inferiority complex. I think you want to be white."
"Salvatore!"
It was Antonius again, but he did not rise. There seemed to be
something holding him back, something dreadfully heavy draped across
his back. "Emmanuel!" he barked.
But
Emmanuel was laughing now, laughing hollowly. Salvatore stood
glowering, nervously redistributing the weight between his feet.
"Really now? And why would I want that? It was your fear, your
weakness that troubled me. You're a bunch of effeminate non-entities,
sitting in coffee shops drinking your chocolate latees, and admiring
childish montages you call works of art. Walking around looking at
each other out of the corners of your eyes, wearing sunglasses when
its cloudy. You think living is what other people think of you. Well,
I don't see anything to feel so superior about. I mean, look at you.
When was the last time you got laid?"
"What's
that got to do with anything?"
"When
was the last time you got laid? Frankly, I can't remember one time
since I've known you."
Shanai's
hand clutched my own, grabbed it with her cold and clammy fingers as
if it were as hard as she could, and yet it was not very hard at all.
"David," she whispered, fraught with promises of
conflagration, "make them stop!"
"What?"
I uttered the word dreamily, not really wanting to draw attention
away from bent and degraded Emmanuel. We were all just peripheral
now, most of all myself.
"David!"
Her grip on my hand tightened, and I brought myself to look at her.
The eyes in her face seemed to jump at me, leer over me with more
impending apocalypse than we had already suffered. "David! You
can't -" Here she was again, my little angel, bedecked in
decaying brilliance and trying futilely to save the world. "Don't
allow this!"
"Allow
this what?" I returned, slightly annoyed. Somewhere ahead of me
there was distant thumping.
Antonius
again, his voice a mere plea in the wind that we had already heard
before, packed with the resonance of power that existed once, long
ago, in another place. "Salvatore, get from thy countenance this
storm of doom!"
Salvatore
was stamping the floor with his foot. His eyes bugged from his head
lecherously. His hands were fists at his side.
Emmanuel,
though, was smiling. "So which one of us is weak, Salvatore?
Come on. You need me because it makes you feel better to walk around
with someone you think is worse off. Like Antonius over there, but
he's just better at making people think they're inferior. You can't
even own up to your own sexuality."
"My
own sexuality," Salvatore scoffed, but he glanced at me out of
the corner of his eye. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"O
really." Emmanuel folded his arms in front of him. "You
told me so yourself."
"You're
all fucking crazy!" Now it was Anne, standing in the corner
clutching the wall, her form transfigured into the most hideous demon
from any of the hells any biblical prophet ever imagined. Her skin
was red and bruised, from sunlight as well as fury, and her eyes were
glimmering. Yes, that night I'm telling you they were glowing red.
And I saw it, there, just the hint of steam escaping from her mouth
as she exhaled wildly into the air. Beneathe the nightgown her body
seemed to be undergoing horrific changes. Or maybe those were her
arms squirming about under the fabric, because I don't recall her
having any just then. "You're sitting in a circle and trying to
figure out how you're not all out of your minds! Well it's too late
for that. And you've got entertainment, I see."
"What's
she saying?" somebody whispered to me, but the words were
somehow lost between the horrible thumping. It was speeding up, too,
falling from the heavens around me like pieces of stone.
"Well
what are you waiting for?" Anne continued, her eyes livid and
her mouth twitching and flexing her claws dangerously. "Are you
all going to watch him kill himself and then decide which of you gets
to die next? Is there going to be a contest to see who's the
craziest? You know, the one who's last and just watched the rest of
you shoot yourselves, who's going to get down on his knees and lick
the blood and start laughing horribly when you don't notice?"
She caught herself then, and jerked her eyes toward mine. The hate
was plain there.
"And
you want to know who's the craziest? Do you? That Salvatore of yours,
that's who. The most dangerous kind of maniac, the one who just sits
there quietly in his hellish universe and doesn't say anything to
anyone, because he's not got enough time to plot horrible ways of
scaring someone to death. David, did you know he told me that he was
going to kill me one night while I was sleeping and drain my blood
and drink it? Did I tell you that? David?"
The
thumping suddenly intensified in my ears, as if the air were
tightening in the expectation of some dreadful cataclysm. Emmanuel
and Salvatore were shouting at each other, but I couldn't hear what
they were saying. Anne's voice fell away, and I hardly heard her say
to me, as I beheld Salvatore in slow motion pluck the metal box from
the floor, "Watch out, David, because one day he'll come after
you with an axe when you're not looking, although I expect you
wouldn't try and get away even if you had a weeks' warning. Salvatore
doesn't want to die! He's too afraid. You want to die, David! You you
you fucking you, David, are you listening to me?"
But
Salvatore had cocked his arm. Strangely enough, there was neither
rage nor madness in his face. There was no expression there
whatsoever, and to see it was more frightful than the most hideous
laughter. The boy was dead inside. The boy was taking someone with
him.
Emmanuel
tried to duck, but there wasn't enough time. I saw, too, Salvatore
hurl the box at his head, saw his eyes flash with satisfaction and a
dreadful smile begin to form, saw that the box would miss its target
and strike the wall behind him. And in that instant my head was
suddenly filled with alarm bells, and the singing of angels, and the
brazen laughter from behind clamoring for blood, and I saw in that
instant the world coming apart, the bonds that hold the very
molecules of the universe together suddenly falling away, and then
the box was almost there and now it was, and this time there was no
thumping but a spark and then a bright blast of light. A loud noise
cut off by incessant ringing, filling everything, and such a shove
that I landed several feet back on my shoulder blades, found myself
lying in a painful position with this mist about my head, and
ringing. This terrible, high-pitching ringing in my ears and through
everything.
There
were people moving around me, but I just lay where I was in
confusion, not exactly sure what was my name or what had just been
going on a moment before. The only thing I could remember was that
last fleeting image of the world coming apart and then this spiraling
blast and conflagration, and then newness, because for something new
to come into the world something else must first be destroyed.
After
a moment the mist cleared, and the faces I saw near to me were
broadening on familliar. Eager mouths filled with intent were
shouting at me, but all I could hear was ringing, and so I just
cocked my head and tried to furrow through the noise. It was no use.
A
girl was suddenly at my side, her deep, delicately bronze skin was
blackened slightly in places and her blouse torn. She wore a smudge
of blood on her brow, and for some reason it looked properly placed.
But there was something urgent and clear in her eyes, and for some
reason I was filled with the need to kiss this most beautiful angel,
and so I got to my feet and for a moment we two strangers were locked
in an embrace with our tongues magically roaming inside each other's
mouths.
What
a strange few moments those were after the blast. My head had been
delivered a nasty but fortunately glancing blow by one of the table
legs, an event which I cannot recall even to this day. But in those
semi-moments between confusion and reality all there was inside me
was peace. The echoes of the outside world were dim and distant and
wholly unnecessary, as if I were walking dead on a battlefield among
the soldiers whom only recently I had been fighting.
But
while I was caught up in my delirium actual events were passing, and
it took a few more moments before I could actually make out
screaming, so distant and small that it would have been hardly
noticeable except that it was the only other thing I could hear over
that metallic squealing in my head. It was then that I took my eyes
from Shanai's shoulders and turned toward the front of the room. My
mouth dropped open, but Shanai held me firmly, and her strength as
the only thing in that cold moment I could feel except despair. No,
not terror, because there had been enough of that already.
The
table behind which Emmanuel had stood was on the floor, its legs
blown out from under it. What was left of the wall was crusty and
blackened. The couch had been tossed across the room, and the chairs
had been knocked about like toys. Black dust clothed everything in
that corner of the room, black debris littered the ground. Some of it
appeared to be stuffing from one of the seat cushions; it certainly
smelled like it.
And
lying crumpled on the floor near the heart of the blast was the
Prophet himself, delivered, as it was, from his people. And there was
his mouth, the source, I could see, of the distant screaming. I thank
the gods for the ringing in my brain and Shanai's hold on me then, or
perhaps I might have joined him. His hands were on his face, and
everywhere there was blood, but most horrible of all were the black
gouts pouring out where his eyes should have been, and the flecks of
tissue that covered his bloody shirt.
Then
Anne was in front of me, shouting. But there was so much confusion in
my head, and Salvatore's trembling back as he stood cradling an arm
and staring at Emmanuel. My head reeled, and then I felt Anne strike
me. Turning me her back, she started for the door, practically
running, and I knew instinctively that this had been too much for her
and she had snapped, that she meant to leave for good and never
return. Something inside broke, I don't know what it was. Anger? But
there were echoes of grief and loss, too. I cried out after her -
emptily, it seemed, since the sounds were excluded from my brain -
and for a moment I forgot about Emmanuel and Shanai and tried to run
after her.
Shanai
tried to keep her hold on me but I broke it, ran after the fiery
goddess to the doorway but stumbled along the way and fell. I was
still lying there when Antonius ran into the room with the
paramedics. I know that because their first thoughts were that I was
the one who needed treatment, that I was the one screaming and not
crying, that all the blood in that room at that moment were from my
veins.
And
so, I ask you once again: Is there ever due punishment?
This site and all its
contents are the result of the tumultuous workings of the mind of one
Adam Wasserman.
All rights reserved.