Carioness and Appennon

It was evening when the rain slowed to a mist, and people began to emerge from the hovels and storefronts that lined the cobbled path. The flotsam and jetsam that washed down the gully and puddled in the wagon tracks of the road brought a new foulness to the humid, fetid air.

Carioness looked up into the cloudy evening sky, pulling his hood a bit forward, and stepped out into the roadway, avoiding the rivers and riverlets that were slowing into ponds and puddles. It had been a fortnight since he had last seen Apennon, and wasn't quite sure if he would be able to find him again. Apennon had a way of not being found, even when he wasn't avoiding Carioness, and he was very much avoiding him. He owed Apennon a sound beating, but that wasn't why he was looking for the slippery vermin. Apennon still had the sword he had taken from The Vendipaln, and it was Carioness who had been tasked with returning it to its place in the hallowed hall. When Carioness had found Apennon, it was quite by accident, and Apennon took advantage of the surprise to disappear into the crowd. Apennon was not carrying the sword, which troubled Carioness. Had he already sold it? Had he damaged it? Carioness feared that neither was the case. Apennon was not a thief. Was he a Believer? Few things made Carioness nervous, but Believers were the boogeyman every child grew up fearing for the tales told to make them behave. There was irony in that, and the thought made Carioness smirk derisively.

As he moved through the streets people nodded towards him, recognizing the scarlet trim and ornate deep blue and silver designs of the High Praetorian with respect and a smile. There was curiosity too, as Carioness walked alone, and the Guard was rarely seen, but more rarely seen singularly. But Carioness was no common High Praetorian, and they had no reason to know that he always worked alone.

Apennon had been a student of the Arts, and taught history at the University. It was long thought that he was a leader of a shadowy group that sought to overthrow the Saemositen and its republican rule of the Three Realms, a cult that was called The Gramen, for the region they were thought to hail from. It was a bastion of nationalism and the last remnants of the past rule that had darkened the continent for millenia almost two hundred years ago. There was irony in this too, his being a historian. He was well aware of the rife, terror and ruin of the Canseore, the family that had ruled the largest Realm with fear, hate and violence. It took centuries to overthrow them and establish the Saemositen, the people they had ruled keeping them in power for the hope of favor in the short term, denying the realities of the long. The peace and prosperity that came with the fall of the Canseore brought the Three Realms together, as the leaders of the Three Realms found their way to common good rather than common animosity.

He paused having found himself in the midst of a round, where the worn streets went off in five different directions, one differing from the other not the least in appearance, only in the direction in which they promised to go. This vexed him, badly, as he had neither the time, patience nor desire to muddle with riddle. And so he sat at the edge of the ornate fountain in the center, and he waited. If there was one thing predictable about Apennon, it was that he too has no time to waste in playing this game.

Not today

In one of those moments,
when my  heart is open to wound,
a sadness winds in and visits briefly,
reminds me that I am human,
and that my troubles weigh on me
as they do on all the others,
the silent, and the loud.

I sift through them, finding the one that seems to matter,
hold it up, blow the dust off,
and wonder if tomorrow I will care as much as I do today.
Will the dust accumulate again and dull the pain,
lighten the burden,
until I decide to let it dry out, and turn into dust itself,
forgotten, leaving perhaps a scar in its place.

In that same moment I sit, I see, I listen, I feel,
the games and turmoils of others swirl around me
pulling at me, threatening to pull me in,
some hurled my way,
creating new worries, troubles, fears.
Most wash by, not in my circus today,
but all leave a trace nonetheless,
a sense of danger, an empathy, a sadness.

I watch as others struggle through their own storms,
Some making it rain and crying for the dampness,
all hiding their pain in myriad ways,
parrying, fighting for control, struggling not to drown in fear,
others not aware they stopped fighting long ago and died,
many keeping their arms up, their hearts closed, hiding,
to keep the violence and pain at bay.
Too many creating drama and rot in others
in a life and death struggle with themselves,
to control the narrative that others see,
to cloak the damage that is their center
by hurling pain and strife into the stream,
that it stain others, that it focus on others;
you cannot hurt me if I cause you pain.

In these uncalloused moments I am profoundly sad.
Why, when we know in ourselves the pain and the turmoil,
do we cause it in others?
Why do we find succor in false gods, false beliefs, anger,
when real peace is within another a word away?
We are renewed when kindness is shown even to strangers;
knowing this powerful love, why do we deny it to others,
ourselves?

This is our end,
that we forget that we are alone in this but for each other,
that kindness and compassion are the human way,
that we are capable of so much more,
if we would just stop being afraid.
It is in that moment, when we let go of fear, when we open up,
pain rushes in, hurled by another who knows nothing else,
who seizes the moment for themselves,
and we are lost to our sadness, hard or subtle though it be.

It is then that we learn what kind of human we are.
One unburnable, one who lives, one who matters and makes a difference,
or one who will be ruled by fear, died, and meaningless.

I put the trouble away, caring not that it is all akimbo.
Today I have no time for this.
Today I choose peace.

This, of all things.

He waited for the rain to stop before deciding if he would go. It wasn't that the rain was the issue, it was just another excuse to keep from deciding what was rather obvious. He leaned against the lamppost, it's gas hissing in concert with the steaming drops landing on the hot top, it's light muted by the afternoon’s amorphous sun. For a moment he allowed the water dripping from the rim of his hat to distract him, anything to keep from making a decision.

Without really coming to it he decided, at once picking himself off the lamppost, pulling his coat closer, and starting off down the street in a manner of someone who knew where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there. This was all the more curious because he knew neither, but he was going with determination. It was as if free will was a myth, he was acting without consciousness.

Markesh had told him it would be like this, acting on instinct, not letting his mind intervene in what had to be done, lest the awkwardness of it all give him reason to hesitate. It would make him a better man, saner at least, if he did not dwell on it. It was telling that this was what he was thinking of instead of planning what would happen shortly. He wasn't focused at all, but he was locked in, unvaryingly.

As he came up on the brownstone he could see cops milling about smartly outside, one tapping another on his badge with his nightstick, no laughter, but smiling at some quip. This was no place for laughter, even black humor was unwelcome here. It was already too dark, too soon, and even that smile had come grudgingly. They saw him coming, a nightstick to the brim in salute and a nod, parting to let him pass with respect. He could see Markesh through the doorway, and knew for certain this was something heinous if the Chief Inspector came out in the rain.

Markesh nodded as he crossed the door, shaking the rain off his back, removed his hat and proffered his hand as he was introduced.

"Lord Eland, this is my colleague, Inspector Captain Estrand," then turning to him, "John, Lord Eland, First Lord of the Admiralty." John shook the man’s hand, noting a sense of resignation in the older man’s grip. Lord Eland pressed his lips together, released his grip and stepped wordlessly away, furthering John’s sense the man was emotionally wilted.

"The dead man is his wife."

Markesh had John’s full attention.

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The Edge of Lightness

He stared into the sharp edge of darkness, and admired its definite lines, its curves and angles sharp, shimmering, flawless. There was a beauty here that in the beginning he could not appreciate, but now having lived within its shadow for some time, he had moved from fear to respect. It seemed somehow true that in not killing him, it did make him stronger, though in the beginning he would rather have died. Now, as he patiently, deliberately walked towards it, he could see that in this three-dimensional place it had only two dimensions, and when seen from flat on, there was only the darkness. From this place he was now, he could the see the brilliance of a thousand suns rising from its distant edge. The edge was hope; it meant that this too had an end, and that depending on where he started, the journey across might be long and tortured, or short and swift, but it would come to an end. The light was bright, distant, expanding to fill the void, not yet within his grasp, but from where he had once cowered, he could not see it at all. Now the light guided him, made his step more certain. Now he knew it had limits and where the path would lead, and that he could cross it.

The Potential of Ruins

Tock, tock, tock...

He took a slow deliberate sip of the neat whiskey, resisting the urge to swallow it wholesale. Pause, a swish, then a moment to fix on the unlit cigar. He wasn't supposed to smoke in the house, the unopened guilt keeping it on the edge of the vintage Yeungling ashtray. A long slow sip, reminded himself his father had been an alcoholic, and while he was becoming fond of the notion, using the soothing burn to calm his nerves wasn't a rabbit hole he wanted to venture down. He was a cauldron of potential ruins.

Tock, tock...

The room was quiet but for the sound of the fan on the dehumidifier at the other end, and that damn clock, it's beat reverberating through the soft light, louder for being almost alone. It kept giving him the illusion that time was moving forward while he waited the interminable wait of the brutalized. He was raw, emotionally on fire inside, ice on the outside, the constant gnawing of the unknown, the unpredicted, cutting deep into his psyche. Wounds had opened that frightened him for even being possible. The deep fear came only in waves, less of late as if he was becoming immune, separated by moments of emptiness, a dark that he was comforted by only because the fear was not there.

Another sip, setting down the glass, taking up and fingering the cigar, bringing it in close and gracefully inhaling its fragrance like the perfume of a lover.

To hell with it... He lit the cigar, long drag, another sip.

Tock...

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I do not wait well...

It was a quiet wait, filled with turmoil and angst,
alive in its silence with a need to move,
still and without an edge.
it laid itself down and made no one aware.
A murmur of life lost in the rest of the noise
it languished in its inertia
waiting to spring forth without fetter.

It's time would come, but that time is yet nigh.
But when it does,
be wary,
for it will come like a storm.

I know, so I breathe deeply
and mind my helm,
trim the sail,
and I wait,
though I do not wait well.

Into the darkness and light

The road turned south, dipping into the valley, leaving behind him a cascade of evergreens as far as he could see. The fog layered in the deeper hollows, the low slung clouds capping the peaks, giving room to a space between where he had stopped that seemed all his own. This was a good place to pause and put the liner under his jacket before entering the valley where it was surely cooler. He zipped his jacket, put his helmet back on, and set himself on the bike still warm and thrumming. The kickstand snapped up and he accelerated off the shoulder back onto the damp roadway, and headed into that abyss that was his past and future. He wasn't going to think about it, just go, see what happened. It was much like touching two wires together not knowing if they were live, just to find out. And he was just as likely to get burned, badly, as he was to find nothing there at all.

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