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Prolific Writer
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: America.
Gender: Male
Posts: 481
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What Matters Most
I must ask for your time, and for this I apologize. There are places to be, people to see, and a world of glee awaiting you, but not me. Do you comprehend?
Let me ask you a question: Do you believe in destiny? I hope not.
However, if you answered yes to this small, insignificant matter, then let me prod further and see if I can uncover the darkness under the rocks of your outer façade.
Do you believe every action has a purpose? That, beyond the steps you take and the words you speak, there is an overseer who nods in approval as you travel along the preordained road that you feel you were meant to walk? Do you take comfort in this idea? You shouldn’t.
But perhaps you do. If that is case, then allow me one more question. If you were killed, right here, right now, and in the fade before death you were to see neither light nor gate but instead a black crevice to which there is no bottom, would you be enraged? Disheartened? Perhaps no more than slightly annoyed? Would you still hold true to the belief that, some way, some how, a life of grace awaited you behind deaths dark swallow? Would you hold onto that fading glow? If so, that is admirable, but not at all worth the time to praise.
I must confess to you, dear friend, I have not been entirely honest. There is much more from you that I wish to take, something much more concrete than those passing seconds of your temporary stay. We have spoken of destiny, and you have agreed. We have mentioned the idea of God, and you have concurred. We have spoken of death, and you are silent.
Now then, please, look here. What I hold here is a knife.
The man throws his hand over the boys face and slams his head into the alley wall. His hand shifts sideways and covers the gape of the boy’s mouth, and from his left hand protrudes the winking grin of a blade, a silver star that shines in the narrow paths endless black. The boy tries to kick, but the man who wears a concealing hood is stronger than he seems, and with an effortless push lifts the boy off the ground, pinning him between wall and palm. The boy’s eyes, a light ocean blue covered by strands of hay blonde hair, bulge and shake. In the black pit of the man’s hood, the only feature which can be seen is the arc of his grin. He lifts his knife to the boy’s neck, and the boy’s eyes stop. A tear forms at the corner of each.
What I would like to ask you, one more time, is if you believe in destiny. You answered yes, if my memory is to be trusted, and if unlike many others you believe what it is you say, then surely you agree we were meant to meet this way, just you and I, here and now. You believe in destiny, and this is yours.
Why did you agree to speak with me? What purpose resided in the act of conversation? Perhaps you would take something from this moment, return home, and poor the fragments of its existence into the realms of art so many of your generation choose to dwell in. Or perhaps, destiny simply guided you here, and the man who nods for all of us is nodding now. To think. He is watching.
The man lets go of the boy, and the boy drops to the ground. He opens his mouth, emits almost a scream, but is stopped. The man kicks him in the ribs, falls on top of him, covers his mouth, and thrusts his knees into his chest. He holds the knife to his neck, and the boy can see his eyes. They are a cold, icy blue. The man lowers himself to the boy’s ear, holding steady to his knife. He whispers.
But what matters most are not the steps we take, nor the destiny that directs them. It is the darkness after the death, the secret behind the veil of that which awaits unknown. I have sent many there, I confess. I have sent many to the other side, hoping one would come back, as an enemy, a friend, an informer of that which I know soon I must meet. I will be honest. I fear that which is coming for me, for all of us. Perhaps you are correct. Perhaps destiny is true, and perhaps we are but puppets commandeered by one whose plans exceed far beyond our own. I do not know. But I ask you a favor, in this moment between us. I ask that if you reach the garden, you inform me of its existence.
He lifts himself and stares down at the boy, whose mouth is still covered, whose eyes still peel wide. The boy heaves under the man’s strength, and the tears once small now rush down either side of his cheek. The man leans forward, pressing the knife deeper into the thin fragility of the boy’s skin. The boy is young.
Tell me what it is that waits. The darkness that is or isn’t, the garden that grew or never was. That is your destiny. And this is mine.
He lifts his blade, removes the hand covering the boy’s mouth, and uses both hands to pry open the boy’s mouth. Before the boy can react, a knife slips past gums, teeth, cheek, into the bottom of his throat. A wet tearing that at first resembles a crack, then a pop, sounds the only noise in the alley. The boy’s body jerks. His hands sprawl to either side, and the digits of his fingers jerk like worms screaming in their silent paint. The man lifts his knife, drives it down, lifts, drives it down. Blood gushes around the boys tongue, then pans out in a warm flow. The man keeps his hands still, relishing the heat of this, knowing that he too shares this proof of life, this proof of what once was. The boy stops moving. The man stands and puts both hands in his pocket, the knife along with them.
He turns and walks. He whistles as he does. He returns home, washes his hands in the kitchen sink of his apartment, and walks over to the right side of the room. On the wall are etches driven in by the tip of his knife. He counts them. Thirteen. He removes his utensil, and drives it down the paint with a dry grate. Fourteen.
Perhaps, he thinks, this one will return and grant to him the answers he has for so long craved.
Last edited by SevenWritez : 04-13-2008 at 11:11 PM.
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