The grass rustles beneath my feet.
Swish. Swish.
As I tread firmly on, stopping for no one.
Seeking justice. Seeking redemption.
Life flows from my side, mixing with the dust in the air.
Dripping into the dirt, making small droplets of mud.
Staining the tall grass as I pass through it.
Swish. Swish.
I must not stop. Not even for this.
Redemption is near.
I can see his shadow before me.
I can see the stained grass that he has left.
I can see his droplets of mud.
Swish. Swish.
I am gaining. Justice is nearer.
He stops and waits.
For me.
Turning, he lets life flow.
Swish. Swish.
I stand before him, treading no more.
Swish.
We both know the end is here.
Not near. Here.
No one will walk away, but honor must be restored.
Justice must be done.
He grins.
I lunge.
Sun glints off steel
Justice must be served.
No. Not justice.
Vengeance.
Category: Writing (Page 4 of 4)
This story, like any other, is about a girl. All my stories are. It’s not that I have a one-track mind, or that I’m so desperate that I can’t think about anything but girls. Nothing like that. No, this story, and all others, are about girls for one very important reason. That’s what the audience likes to hear.
One very bright and sunny spring day, I was wandering home from school. I say wandering because I had decided, for the first time of many, that heading straight home was altogether boring. I saw the same buildings, the same cars, the same people, the same rocks. I wanted to see something new. So I wandered.
In my hometown, it’s easy to wander. In small towns it always is. Backyards are rarely off-limits, and when they are, it becomes a challenge to sneak through, anyway. Front yards are just as passable, and if you cross the right yards, you just might find a tree worth climbing. Wandering, however, is not just a rambling and a shuffling in any old direction you choose. Oh, no. There’s a science to it. If you ever catch yourself heading in the direction of home for too long, you have to immediately change directions. Sometimes this can put you in a bit of a pickle, what with thorn bushes, fences, and the occasional guard dog. But once you’ve decided to wander, you’ve got to stick to your guns. You can’t change your mind just because of an obstacle.
On this particular day, I was wandering exceptionally well. I’d managed to cross an enormous mud puddle and only got my sneaker a little wet. My hand was muddy, but that’s what jeans are for. Mother would probably have something to say about me coming home late, anyway, so I didn’t care too much about the jeans.
I was about half-way home and still had at least 15 minutes of wandering left when I stumbled through a backyard that had changed abruptly since my last wandering through it. The house had once belonged to an old woman, but I heard rumors at church that she’d died and the house was for sale. Whispering old ladies loved to talk about other old ladies. I never usually paid them much attention, but I’d pick up the pieces here and there. The backyard was full of wonders I’d never seen there before. There was a brand new swing set and an old tricycle. There was even the beginnings of a new sandbox.
Now, normally I’m not one for playing with toys. I’ve been the man of the house ever since dad went away, and men don’t have time to play. But the sight of those toys still filled me with awe. I heard a screen door open and I quickly hid in the bushes at the edge of the backyard. I heard a woman’s voice from inside the house say, “Don’t get too dirty. We have company coming tonight.”
“Okay, mom,” came the reply. My heart sank in my chest. It was a girl. I realized then that I would not be coming over to play here. Girls and boys don’t play together, so men and girls certainly don’t play together.
She came around the corner of the house and plopped herself down into one of the swings. She was wearing a pink dress. I know you’d like a better description, but that is the best I can give you, as boys don’t usually pay much attention to girls’ dresses. Men pay even less.
She sat on the swing and looked pretty sad. A strange tingle went down the base of my spine and she quickly looked up at the bushes where I was hiding. No, not at the bushes. Directly at me. Somehow she could see exactly where I was. More than that, she could feel it.
“You can come out, now. I know you’re there,” she said, and turned her head away from the bushes. She sat that way for several seconds and I knew that she would stay that way until I stepped out of the bushes myself.
So I did.
Slowly I walked toward her and when I was about three arm-lengths away, I stopped. Three arm-lengths is the safe distance to avoid cooties from girls. Jimmy taught me that. Jimmy was my best friend before I became a man. We’re still friends, but men and boys don’t play together. Men don’t play at all.
“I’m Kira,” said the girl. “What’s your name?”
I’d never heard the name Kira before.
“John,” I replied. I’d heard the name John a lot.
The girl didn’t say anything. She just sat there on her swing.
“You have mud on your jeans,” she said. I looked down at the mud on my jeans and for the first time felt as though jeans weren’t meant to be dirty. I didn’t know what to say. “Would you like to push me?” she asked.
Boys don’t play with girls. Men don’t play at all. But men push girls in swings all the time. That’s not playing. That’s helping. Men help.
“Sure,” I said.
I started pushing her, softly at first, but slowly picking up speed. She didn’t say anything, but she closed her eyes and smiled as the wind blew her curly, blond hair back. When I started to push her really fast, she began to giggle.
“Higher, John!” she cried out. I pushed as hard as I can. I pushed harder than I’d ever pushed before.
When I thought she couldn’t go any higher, she suddenly jumped out of the swing. The smile that had crept across my face as I was pushing her quickly vanished as I watched her soar through the air. I’d never seen anyone jump out of a swing at that height before. It was dangerous.
She landed on the ground and crumpled into a ball. She didn’t move.
I waited.
She still didn’t move.
I ran to her side and knelt by her and shook her shoulder. “Kira! Kira, are you okay?” I asked, frantically. She rolled over and looked at me with one eye, the other squeezed tightly shut. She was grinning.
“That was fun,” she said. I felt a grin break out across my face, my fear forgotten now that I knew she was alright. “You should come over and play again tomorrow.”
She got up, brushed herself off and ran inside. The swing was still swaying from being pushed so hard. I turned to it and stopped its movement. Men don’t play at all. But boys do play with girls. Maybe I could still be a boy sometimes.
I ran all the way home, without wandering. From that day on, whenever I could wander, I always made sure to wander into that backyard.
They came on very quickly. Even with his superior reflexes, he nearly didn’t react soon enough. The first one fell on him from above. Rising as quickly as he could, Zephyr rolled out of the way, directly into the second one. It was waiting.
And that was the only way to describe them. “It.” They were clearly not human. Zephyr chuckled inwardly at the thought. He knew that humans were a lot less common than they realized. Many even believed themselves to be human and were not. Some, of course, knew what they were. The Anemoi had known for millennia. That knowledge had allowed them to protect the planet for some time.
But these things didn’t even appear to be human. They were quite clearly something different. Something new.
Someone had been busy.
Nearby, a scream split Zephyr’s thoughts in two, and his reflexes faltered.
Iris. Zephyr’s instincts had caused him to forget her briefly, and a third one had appeared and grabbed hold of her from behind. He turned toward the scream, prepared to rush to her aid, when the second one took advantage of the opportunity.
Lights blossomed behind Zephyr’s eyes. These guys hit hard, he thought to himself as he crumpled to the ground, a feint. The second one stepped in, eagerly. With his eyes still closed, Zephyr kicked out and up, snapping the thing’s head back with a sickening crack. His third eye, the one that could see everything, was satisfied that it would not stand back up.
One down.
“Zeph, help!”
Zephyr’s eyes fluttered open. The first one was missing, but the third was busy dragging Iris away. Zephyr rushed toward her, but was snagged from behind. The first one had slipped around behind him and it’s grip was deathly tight. Zephyr twisted and heaved, trying to break free, but found no way out.
“Sweetie, no…”
Iris’s voice had changed. It was softer, calming. She was no longer panicked. Zephyr looked up to see that the third had let her go and was standing idly by. Zephyr’s confusion radiated and Iris seemed to bask in it momentarily, a sad smile breaking out on her face. She approached him and placed a hand upon his cheek. Zephyr looked into her eyes and his heart shattered. There was no welcoming glance, no loving look from one who had claimed to love him. Only betrayal. For a brief moment a look of regret flickered across her face and vanished, to that place where suppressed emotions go, never to return. But it was in his head. It stayed there, and he treasured it for the rest of his life, knowing that a part of her still truly loved him.
Iris leaned in and kissed him on the lips, her tongue probing. His lips parted without thinking and his tongue suddenly felt a pinprick. He jerked back, the taste of blood in his mouth. The thing holding him shoved him to the ground at a nod from his love.
Zephyr struggled to his feet. The drug was working quickly. Too quickly.
What did she hit me with?
His mind reeled and his body faltered. He was strong, always had been, but even this drug was more powerful than he was prepared for.
“Iris…”
She appeared before him. His lover and betrayer.
“I forgive you.”
The world went away for a long time, and Zephyr found rest for the first time in months. A longer look of regret crossed her face, but Zephyr did not see it to take with him, and the two with her didn’t live long enough to inform their master that it ever occurred.
And suddenly, the light comes on. Paralyzing.
Zephyr finds himself staring into a small sun at the core of the room. His eyes, so well adjusted to the darkness never flinch. They are moths drawn to the flaming near-vacuum-encased filament. Burning away everything that makes them unique.
His eyes focus—relaxing, recovering, remembering what they are, their purpose, their teeny little place in this grand universe of insignificant pieces combining into even more insignificant wholes—upon a table.
No, not on the table. On the thing laying on the table.
He struggles to his feet, the paralyzing effect of the disorientation wearing off, and places one hand on the table for support. Dizzying images swim through his head, a nightmare of recent memories and fearsome probable futures ransack his brain, seeking a perch to call their own.
At least one is successful.
He sees a name slip in and out of focus on the cover of the folder on the table in front of him.
Brother, he says in that part of the mind that realizes things just a split-second before the rest, what have I done?
Frantically, he tears open the folder, scattering the malcontent pages to the wind. Zephyr finds what he is searching for and holds it up to the light, daring it to crumble to dust before his face under the searing heat so that he can pretend it’s not real.
But he is not so lucky. And neither is the one whose name is scrawled across the paper, a death certificate.
“Euri, no.”
He always was the unlucky one, he thinks.
Zephyr spins as he hears the creak of disused metal behind him. A door he’d not yet noticed opens and a familiar face enters the room.
Not a welcome face, but a familiar one, nevertheless.
“Zephyr.”
“Notu,” is his curt reply.
“Are you okay?”
Zephyr’s fist tightens reflexively around the morbid piece of paper in his left hand. Instinctively, he considers rushing the man standing before him. He also knows that to do so would be a terrible mistake. Determined to show no weakness, Zephyr nods his head. Slowly.
“I’m choosing to believe you,” comes the dry reply from Notu. “After all, if you can’t trust your family–”
“The last of my family is dead by your hand!”
“Brother…” Notu, with deliberate slowness that lends a poisonous air to his actions, begins picking up the papers from the file and placing them back in their obsessive compulsive home. “Let’s not fight today. I haven’t seen you in years and there is so much for us to talk about.”
Notu finishes gathering the papers and places the file on the table between Zephyr and himself. He motions to a chair for Zephyr to sit in.
“Please, let’s do begin,” Notu says, smiling.
His smile eats itself and Zephyr Anemoi begins to cry.
[plinker heading=”Like my writing? Check out some of my other posts.”]
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.