Salt Water Sound

 

Enlightenment and…

“Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha, Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha…”

Perfection is action, action is perfection.

They are almost here now.

They are already dead.

They are the walking dead, processing silently up the tenement stairs with their automatic rifles aimed at everything but me.  They think I don’t know they are here, think they are going to catch me unawares.  They think, they think, they think.

They do not act.

Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha, Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha…”

The lotus no longer hurts.  Was a time when my joints would have screamed protest at the awkward position.  But we of the Oneness of the Pure Land Way know nothing of pain.  Anyway, I am too close now for me to allow my body to distract me from enlightenment.

Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha, Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha…”

They are on my floor now.  They keep their backs to the wall, signaling for silence.  There is no need for me to rise to meet my guests.  They will find that they already know me.

Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha, Amidha Buddha, Buddha Amidha…”

They surround my door.  The leader signals to his man and the man steps forward, pulling his battering ram from his back.  They are too late.

He pulls the ram back.

“Amidha…”

Slow pendulum, the ram swings back.

“Buddha…”

Height of the arc, gravity pulls the ram.

“Buddha…”

There is light, One, light.  The ram is pulled towards the door.

“Amidha…”

First strike.  Not strong enough.  Their cover is blown.

“Amidha…”

They rush the door.  Wood shatters at hinges.  A six inch splinter lodges in my thigh.  Blood begins to flow from the wound.  No matter.

“Buddha…”

It is over.  I am One.

“Buddha…”

They step into the room, guns trained upon me.  There is only light.

“Amidha…”

…Rebirth…

 

Lieutenant Santa Espada is finishing his second line of coke when the call comes.  He ignores the first two rings, punching a hole in the dry wall of his apartment instead.  Ignoring the blood running off his knuckles, he crosses the floor of his one room apartment, kicking aside bottles of whiskey (some finished, others only just begun), and answers the phone.

“Who’s it?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line for a moment, confusion oozes through the line and Espada, already bored after three seconds, hangs up.  Returning to the site of his recent injury, he stares at the hole and then at his knuckles.  The blood had slowed and he can already see some of it clotting.  He can’t think of any reason why he would have struck the wall and yet there is the evidence of his attack.

The wall is thin, he can see through to his neighbor’s apartment.  He’ll have to deal with that in the morning.  In the meantime, he grabs a bottle of Jameson from the ground and unscrews the top.  The phone rings again.  Espada curses, takes a swig from the bottle and then tosses it to the ground.

“What do you want?”

Again there is silence at the other end o the line but this time the person recovers and clears his throat.  “Is this the number of Lieutenant Santa Espada?”

It had been months since anyone had addressed him as lieutenant, long enough that Espada had almost forgotten who he was, forgotten what he was.  “Yeah, that’s me. What do you want?”

“This is Sear gent Aukera of the 1^st Precinct.  I have an assignment for you, Lieutenant.”

Espada wanders his room fighting shadows at every step, breaking that one’s neck, shattering the arm of another, sidestepping yet a third.  “I don’t know if you heard over there but my badge has been suspended.  I don’t go on assignment anymore.”

“Yeah we all know about the incident.”  Aukera pauses as if to elaborate but then clears his throat.  “Anyway, I spoke to Captain Oharra, and he agreed to remove the suspension.”

“Well isn’t that…”

“Under one condition.”

In a different time Espada would have given Aukera hell for even thinking to offer him a condition but this was not a different time and Espada had no job.  “And what’s that?”

“That you don’t bring any of your bullshit into this case.” Espada bristles at this but holds his tongue.  “That you do what I ask you, when I ask you and nothing else.”

Lieutenant Santa Espada, who has never promised anyone anything doesn’t hesitate for a moment.

“Done.”

 

…Reveal…

 

                Humans would be more perfect if they would lose their fear of pain.  They are too afraid of pain.  I am not afraid of pain.

Mark me: I am not afraid of pain.

They have already recruited the man who is going to kill me.  They think that in killing me, they end me.  They know nothing of Zen, know nothing of One.

Perpetual motion, perpetual existence.

Moving down Sullivan Street I think about the men who came to kill me.  Killing isn’t anything new to me.  I’ve killed men before but this was different.  I knew their deaths as well as I know my own.  When they died I felt their pain as though it was my own and with that purifying epiphany I was able to step forward as what I am now.

But it was not just those men who brought me to my present state.  My realizations as a Buddhist, the path that I chose, one of three, is what led me here.  Zen Buddhism, the true school of Buddhism, founded on the notion that enlightenment is not found on paper but in realized action, was also what brought me here.  This school, the school of truth in action and action in truth, convinced me of this: violence is the truest form of Zen expression.

For what is violence if not action?  Action for the sole sake of action, action for the sole reason of discovering the one truth: that action is all.

Humans, afraid of the consequences of their actions, have ceased to act.  Convinced that their social networking and online donations to who knows where will change the world, they have forgotten to act.  So now I will make them act.  I will make them act or they will die.

…Three Paths…

 

                Lieutenant Santa Espada is standing across the street from the crime scene an hour or two before the summer sun begins to rise.  He is a shadow in a city full of shadows.  He wears a long black coat; the wind picks up the tail and tries to drag him away with it but Espada is not one to be carried away.  He wears the collar high to prevent the biting wind to strike his face but it serves a second purpose.  To hide the stark white scar that runs up from his chin to right below his right eye.  The coat is large enough to hide the two pistols he has in holsters under his coat.  His pants are tucked into high laced, black boots.  The boots add to his militant nature, his stern posture and the hard angles of his face give him the aura of a seasoned veteran, a man returned to the battlefield after too long away.

He is sipping from a cup of coffee, concentrating on the coffee to avoid the fact that he is still slightly strung out.  The cocaine had run its course and his body was beginning to recall its exhaustion, six hours of sleep over the course of three days will tax even the strongest man.

He does not sleep much anymore.  When he sleeps there are always the eyes, six sets of pretty young eyes, staring at him from the rubble.  Better to be exhausted than to deal with those eyes.

The sun has not yet risen on John and Nassau streets in the financial district of New York City.  Sunlight rarely ever fully reaches these streets, the old factories, now converted into luxurious lofts, are shoulder to shoulder and the streets are narrow for the city that never sleeps.  The streets here are physical history, cobblestoned roads that anger drivers to no end but against which no one would file a complaint.  Espada’s boots click, clock, click, clock as he crosses the street towards the apartment building where the coroner is waiting for him.

The building is still cordoned off by police tape and a young rookie, Espada can tell by the way the boy addresses him, too eager to prove dominance, holds out his hand.  “Can’t come through here, chief.  This is a crime scene.  Unless I see some sort of identification from you, you’re going to have to keep walking the other way.”  Espada bristles at the upstarts tone but takes a deep breath and draws his badge from his pocket.  He takes two fingers, his pointer and his middle, and taps them on his arm.  The rookie isn’t all that naïve, he recognizes the sign for a lieutenant, and begins to apologize, speaking rapid fire at his superior.  “Shit.  Sorry, lieutenant.  I didn’t know we had any stars coming our way. Especially not any stars in plain clothes.  Go right on in.”

Brushing past the rookie, Espada heads into the building and upstairs.  The coroner waits for him at the top flight and extends a hand.  Espada grabs it and immediately regrets it as he looks up at the face of the coroner.  The man looks starved, not of food, but of something more important than that, his skin is pulled tight across his skeleton, giving him the impression of having no flesh, a skeletal collector of the dead.  He grins widely at Espada, the skin pulls tighter, Espada is sure that it should tear, should snap like a taut wire, but the skin holds.

“The unit asks for some brass and we get the famed Lieutenant Espada.”  He runs a tongue across his teeth and then smacks his lips together, a wet, hungry sound.  “You’re the best there will ever be.  How many arrests do you have again?  Something like 200-300 right?  Most police don’t even break fifty.”  Espada takes a step back and the coroner smiles again.  The act isn’t comforting.  “Well enough gushing about you and your accomplishments.  My name’s Heriotza.  Heriotza Burua.  You want to see the site I’m sure.”  He turns away from Espada and begins to walk down the poorly lit hall.  That wet, hungry sound again.  “You won’t believe this.”

Espada follows a few feet behind the coroner, his hands itch to draw his guns; the man makes him nervous.  “So what made you return?”  The coroner is looking over his shoulder at Espada.  He can’t see the man’s eyes in those deep eye sockets; they’re like tiny lights in pools of black.  “After the hostage incident, I was sure you were gone.” A sound rises from Espada’s throat that resembles the deep low growl of an angered dog.  The coroner doesn’t seem to notice.  “Six girls.  Young too.  I saw them when they came in.  Well I saw what was left of them.” Espada’s fist slams against the wall and the coroner turns around.  He doesn’t look particularly concerned.  “Sorry.  I guess I forgot that’s probably a touchy subject.  Didn’t happen that long ago.  Well, fine.”  He turns to his left and turns the handle of a door covered in yellow tape.  “We’re here anyway.”  He opens the door and steps inside.

The room is empty, not for lack of decoration but as a result of whatever had occurred the previous night.  Ducking under the yellow tape across the door, Espada steps into the middle of the room and turns in a slow circle.  There is a film of dust settled upon the walls and floor.  Going to one knee, Espada runs a finger through the dust and raises the finger to his face.  Looking up at the coroner, he turns his finger away from himself and asks, “What is this?”

The coroner grins, his skin pulls tight across his face.  “Notice a lack of furniture? And bodies?”  Espada looks at his finger and feels bile rise to his throat.

“How?  Do we have any idea who the hell this man is?”  He brushes his finger off on his pants.  “How the fuck do you vaporize a room?”

The coroner shrugs and angles a bony finger towards the wall by the door.  “Hell if I know but have you noticed this yet?”

Espada turns towards the door and the bile rises again.  There, against the wall, are five silhouettes.  They are embedded in the dust, the silhouettes etched in tormented positions, limbs splayed as though the men had been slammed against the wall before they died.

“A regular old Hiroshima, don’t you think?”

Espada swallows hard and looks up at the hollow coroner.  “What?  Hiro-what?”  The coroners grin broadens, white teeth gleam through fleshless lips.

“Hiroshima?  Nagasaki?”  Anthony’s face remains blank.  “You soldiers never are the most well read.  Hiroshima was the site of the first A-bomb drop.  The blast leveled the city.  Countless were killed or would suffer from radiation poisoning.  There are pictures of the aftermath.  Those who died were found as shadowed silhouettes on the wall.  The blast removed all signs of their humanity.”

The grin never leaves the coroner’s face.  Anthony returns his gaze to the wall.  One of the silhouettes is pointing upward towards the ceiling.  Following the finger, Espada notices a message etched into the wall above the men.  He steps towards the wall, feet shuffling through the dust, and stops a few feet from the wall.  On it he reads the message and this time the bile does not rise, instead settling deep in his stomach.  [God Is Awe]

Anthony stares at the writing until he can’t stare any longer and then turns to the coroner, who has not moved once.  “What the fuck does that mean?”  The corner grins as the shadows play with the hollows of his eyes.

“God is awe.” Anthony has been repeating the words again and again as he walks click, clock, click, clock down the cobblestoned streets of the financial district.  It is still dark, the sun is beginning to rise on the horizon and a dull glow bathes the streets.  He has been walking west for a few minutes when he suddenly realizes where he is.  This hole in the ground, where the towers once stood, is where Anthony needs to be.

Here at the edge of the abyss, he allows himself to think.  The coroner hadn’t been able to shut his mouth, had to bring them up.  He had heard them the entire walk.  Even the line of cocaine that he had done on the way to the hole proved unable to assuage his anxiety.  But this place could help.  Here three thousand men and women had died and this made him feel better.  What was his six to that number?

“You think that those numbers make your failure any less real?”

The voice is many voices and one voice all at once.  Espada hears it and he already knows who it is.  He spins around reaching into his coat and comes around with his guns leveled at the source of the sound.  A man stands in front of him.  He wears the garb of a Buddhist monk but the colors are off, when Espada focuses on the clothing, his eyes slide off, unable to focus on anything; it is one color and no color at all.  The man’s head is bald but it is his eyes that capture all of Espada’s attention.  It is like looking into the face of the sun, his head hurts and for a moment he can’t see anything.

When his vision begins to return, he swears that he can see, behind the man, a great eastern idol.  The idol is holding out its arms, in one hand he holds a sword, in the other a lotus blossom.  His eyes are flames, his skin is light.  Espada’s head hurts, he looks away.  “You’re the one who killed those boys, right?”  No reply.  “Who are you?”

The voice is all around him now.  “I am the avenging angel of the Pure Land Way.  Buddha has deigned to give me the name Azrael.”  Espada’s head is ringing, he can’t see, he is alone in this moment.  “What you see now is me.  I know all about you, Lieutenant Santa Espada.  You think that coming here, to this hallowed ground will save you from your own failure.  Weak man.  You failed because you did not act.  I will show you how to act.  You will remember how to act.”

Espada struggles to look at Azrael, finally turns towards him.  The man is still standing there.  Then he isn’t.  He appears a few inches from Espada’s face, disappears again, is to his left, is gone again, appears at his back.  Espada can’t focus.  He refuses to believe that this is any sort of reality.  He closes his eyes and the voice returns.  “Coward.  You refuse to see what I am.  I am everywhere and nowhere.  This is truth.  You aren’t ready yet.  Look at me!”  The last words are shouted and Espada cannot help but obey the man’s command.  He opens his eyes and Azrael’s eyes are only inches from his, those spheres of pure light glaring at him until he loses all focus.  He falls from consciousness.

…The Struck Snare…

 

                I am whole.

That man was not able to stand against what I am.  He could maybe.  I felt in him what I feel in me.  The endless, forever ending pain that is his and my failure.  Looking into him was far from comfortable; it shattered the oneness for a moment.  For a moment there, I was something less.  There are eyes inside him, six pairs of young, dead eyes.  Those eyes decided something for me.

I will enlighten this man, this Santa Espada.

I will bring him to action so perfect that it will bring tears to his eyes.

I will show him perfection.

I will do all of these things because I can.

He will find the way or he will die.

 

…The Never So Eternally Vibrating Cymbal…

 

A fist smashes into Lieutenant Espada’s ribs and he sees stars.  If not for the padding of the gloves, he would have lost a rib to such a blow.  Taking a step backwards, he rolls back to the balls of his feet and strikes upward, catching his opponent on the chin.

Sear gent Aukera holds his gloves up before him and Espada lowers his hands.  They are in the gym at the 1^st Precinct.  The rookie who Espada had found so irritating at the crime scene had found Espada face down in the street and called an ambulance immediately.  A few minutes after his discovery, Espada had come to.  He was slightly disoriented but other than that he was fine.  When the ambulance arrived, the rookie had to apologize to them for Espada’s absence.  Espada had not seen fit to wait for the ambulance and had instead walked north to the 1^st Precinct.  He had gone straight to the gym and had not left in five hours.

“So you met him?”  The sergeant is breathing hard, he is not as young as he used to be, a fifty year old cop in a teenage criminal’s world.  Still, Sear gent Aukera was a hard man for his fifty years, a granite statue, his body all hard muscle.  He wore no shirt now on the mat, clothing was a cumbrance in a fight and Espada was offered a history of the Sergeant’s career.  His body was covered in scars, it was hard to tell where the scars ended and his healthy flesh began.  He wore a thick, snow white mustache on his face; it had been years since anyone had seen the skin under that hair.  Running a hand through his mustache he looks at Espada expectantly.  “Well?”

Espada glares at the Sear gent; he does not like to be rushed.  “Yeah.”  He remembers the eyes, remembers a light that blinds him with the thought of it.  “Yeah, I met him.  You owe me some explanations, sarge.”

Aukera’s eyes narrow and his muscles tense.  “I owe you what?”  Espada steps back and his arms raise a little but he does not entirely retreat.

“You sent me after this guy.  Why were we sending five police to kill the man?”  Aukera steps forward but Espada does not back down.  “Who the hell is Azrael?”

The sergeant stops his advance and then puts his arms up.  Espada understands.  He comes in low, his body crouching under Aukera’s vision and then comes his left.  Aukera is ready and he rolls backwards, right arm deflecting the coming blow.  “Azrael, as he seems to call himself now, is a bit of a sore subject for the NYPD.”  He rolls back on his heels and then strikes forward, his age forgotten in the attack.  Espada rolls to the right and comes up on his feet, looking for the sergeant’s next attack.  He is too slow.  A right hook catches him hard in the ear and if not for the helmet he is wearing, he is sure that he would have lost his hearing.  “His name was Christopher Venganza.  He used to be a captain at the 35^th precinct up in Harlem.  He was one of the best too.  He had the sharpest intuition I’d ever seen in a police officer and his skills as a fighter were unmatched.  Everyone in the department was sure he would end up wearing the commissioner’s coat at the end of his career.”

Espada has recovered from the strike to his head.  Spinning to his right, his right leg hooks out and catches the sergeant right behind the knee cap.  Aukera’s leg gives out from under him and Espada rushes forward pushing the man to fall.  “So what happened?”  Aukera falls back and catches Espada’s wrist using his weight to bring the lieutenant down with him.  Catching the lieutenant in the stomach with his feet he heaves and Espada is thrown behind him.

Rising to his feet, Aukera crouches into a defensive position and waits for Espada.  “What happened to this entire fucking city?”  He brings up both of his arms to deflect a strong right kick and grabs the leg, pushing his opponent backwards.  “His was one of so many precincts that rushed downtown when the first plane hit.  He brought ten men with him.”  Espada rolls backwards and waits.  “They needed brass on the ground, needed someone who wasn’t going to rush into the tower.”  The sergeant does not allow Espada to catch his breath.  He comes in hard, right fist, left fist, sweeping leg.  Espada blocks it all and then throws a hard punch to Aukera’s side.  The older man takes the hit and circles backwards.  “Azrael didn’t want to stay but they made him.  All of his men went inside along with all those other poor fucks and they never came back out.”

Espada holds up his gloves and slumps to the ground, chest heaving.  “How do you know all this?”

Aukera grabs a towel and begins to rub the sweat off his body.  “I was there, boy.”  The sergeant’s body, the scars laced all over in odd patterns, looks as though it has been stitched together.  “Azrael and I were on the ground when the towers came down.  When the first tower began to collapse I remember running.”  Aukera’s eyes have taken on an inner light, he is there again, it is September; the towers are falling on his head.   “All that metal coming down.  All you could hear was the screeching of the metal and sometimes the screeching of other things.  But…I realized that Azrael wasn’t running.  He was staring at the tower as if he wanted to go in.  As if he thought he could do something to stop it from coming down on his head.”  Taking the helmet off, the sergeant settles down on the mat across from Espada.  “After that, Azrael wasn’t the same.  He went off to a Buddhist retreat somewhere in Japan.  When he came back he was a different man.  He’d shaved his head but that wasn’t it.  He kept talking about how he had failed.  How all he had needed to do was act and that he had been too afraid to act.  They transferred him to a different precinct and then he fell off the map.  And now you’ve met him.”  Espada had not known that the sergeant had been there on that of all days.  He felt almost sorry for him.  “You two aren’t that different.”

Espada is quiet for a moment.  “He knew about the incident.  He knew about the girls.  How would he know that?”  He thinks about it for a moment and then laughs.  “After what I saw, I don’t even know if I can question how he knows.  What really matters is how do I kill him?”

The sergeant holds Espada’s gaze for a moment and then gets to his feet.  Stepping away from the mat, he strides over to a chest in the corner of the room.  Espada cannot see what he pulls from the chest.  The sergeant returns and tosses the lieutenant something which lands in his lap.  Looking at the item, Espada recognizes the sparring knives that the department issues each precinct for training purposes.  They are dull blades but they are blades nonetheless and Espada offers his superior a confused look.         Aukera stands across the mat from him and gestures.

“Let me show you something.”

Espada rises from his spot.  His body protests the movement but he is not about to back down from a fight.  The sergeant comes at him fast, the arm with the blade is held out far above his head.  Espada almost laughs at how open his superior has left himself.  He barely moves, falling to one knee and swiping out at Aukera’s ribs.  The sergeant crashes into him but Espada does not allow this to distract him.  The dull blade slams into the older man’s ribs and Espada grins.  “Got you!”  His proclamation is followed by the dull edge of a blade poking his spine.

“Got you  too.”

The sergeant steps back and looks at Espada.  “Sometimes there are moments when you most allow yourself to take a blow in order to inflict one.  It should never be your first option, but you will know if you need to.  Azrael is strong.  He always was.  Whatever he is now is probably beyond any of us but maybe you can take him down. “

With that, Sergeant Aukera bows to his officer and walks out of the gym, leaving the lieutenant with the faint memory of a blade poking his spine.

 

…The Perfect Staccato Of The Circular Roll…

Where does this end?

Where do I end and the oneness begins?

Somewhere on my way to the place, I find a young woman.  She screams when she sees me.  She screams; an action but not the right one.  I will enlighten her.  I will fill her with my being so that she knows only the truth.  Then I am in her, energy so pure that her organs erupt from her body and she lies there, a dark mass of blood.  Too weak.  Her soul did not even attempt to combat me.

I leave her to be found later.  They won’t understand but it will put fear in their hearts.  Maybe fear enough to illicit action from them.

Maybe.

Espada has learned something. I don’t know how I know but I do.  I cannot figure out what it is he knows but I can feel his presence and I can feel that he is greater now.

It is almost night again.  Espada will return to his hunt and I will be given the pleasure of being hunted.  He will find me, of that I am sure.

He must find me.

 

…Imperfection…

 

The Canal Street station is relatively empty for a Friday evening in the city.  Espada needs to think.  He is struggling with where to go next, with what the next step is and subway rides always allow him to think.  Espada waves his badge at the attendant in the booth and slides through without paying the fare.  He gets a few glares for this and a whispered “Fucking pigs” but he ignores them.  Stepping down the platform, Espada leans over and glances down the tunnel.  The train is coming, so he steps back from the platform; his coat is long and he has always been afraid of being caught on a train and dragged down a tunnel.

The train erupts into the station and a powerful wind sweeps across the passengers waiting on the platform.  It slows to a halt in front of Espada with a hiss, a metal serpent arriving at its destination.  He steps onto the train and looks around the car.  It is crowded but there is a space next to a young boy and his mother.  He steps over and sits next to the boy, muttering a polite, “Excuse me” as he does.  The train jerks out of the station and Espada settles into his seat.

Despite the packed nature of the car, there is no sound.  The passengers are all staring straight ahead, dead eyes in living faces.  He feels a finger in his side and looks down to see the boy staring up at him.  “What happened to your face?”  His mother grasps and slaps the boy’s knee.  The boy begins to wail and at this moment, with a screech of wheels, the car turns sharply to the right.  The lights flicker and Espada loses sight of the boy.

“Yes Lieutenant Espada, what happened to your face?”

The lights flicker back on and the boy is gone.  Looking around the car, Espada realizes that there is now no one on the train.  Drawing his guns, Espada looks for the source of the voice.  The lights flicker.

“Yes, what happened to your face?”

The lights return and when Espada looks again, he isn’t alone.  Lined up across from him, spaced evenly with a foot between them, are six young girls.  Espada recognizes them, he knows those faces.

“You remember us, don’t you?”

“Yes, do you remember us?”

The girls begin to repeat the question and soon all he can hear is their voices and the screeching of the train’s wheels.  The lights flicker again and suddenly he is no longer on the train.

He is in the warehouse, the only warehouse he will ever be able to remember.  There are the six girls all tied around a barrel.  They are begging him to help them.  The barrel is filled with some nitrate compound that would inevitably explode when put under pressure.  Espada is standing fifty feet from the girls, his gun leveled on a man who is standing next to the girls, his hand on a detonator.

“Don’t!” Espada is near begging the man, the girls look so afraid, they’re so fucking young.  “Look, we can fix this.  Shit doesn’t always pan out the way we want but they don’t deserve this.  They’re just kids.”

The man’s face is covered in tears, his eyes are red from lack of sleep and long hours of drugs in dark places.  “Bullshit!”  His hand trembles for a moment and Espada almost shoots but he holds back.  He still believes that everyone can be saved.  “You weren’t there!   My wife was in one of those planes!  She called me from the plane just moments before it hit the tower.  I could hear everything.  Everything.”

“I know.”  Espada’s voice is soft but his gun never falls, they remain trained on the man’s chest.  “We all know.  We all lived through it.  But these girls won’t change the fact that your wife is dead.  Won’t change the fact that the towers aren’t coming back.  Just put it down.  Let them go man.”

The man begins to lower his arm and Espada sighs, bringing his gun to his side.  It is in this moment that the man screams, “There is nothing for us here anymore!  There was never anything here!”  And with that he presses the button and the pressure is applied.  Espada does not remember raising the gun to shoot the man but he remembers running towards the girls, remembers the horror in their eyes as they realize it is over.  He begins to run towards them only to be thrown back by the power of the blast, he feels a sharp pain in his face as a shard of the barrel tears across his chin.

When he comes to, the warehouse is aflame.  There is a hot wetness running down his face but he ignores the pain.  He looks around, ears ringing from the blast and looks towards the spot where the girls had been, already knowing what he is going to see.  Where the barrel had been there is only a hole in the ground, a hole covered in the remains of six girls he had had been too weak to save.  His stomach heaves and he is on his knees, a purging of its contents being the only solution he can think of.  The fires rage around him and—

–he is back on the train.  The girls are gone, replaced by the passengers that who had moments before been nonexistent.  His guns are out and he is looking around wildly at the passengers.  They are staring at him; the mother has picked up her son from the seat next to him and is eyeing him warily.  Espada flushes; he must have been dreaming.  But the memory had been too real, and those girls had been there, hadn’t they?  The train has arrived at its next stop and Espada finds himself getting off the train, avoiding eye contact with any of the passengers.

He looks up at the station name and nods.

Of course.

…To Reach…

 

I am back.  At this place which harbors all the pain of a city and a country.  It bubbles and writhes here like some angry animal; it swipes at me but I do not fall back from it.  I do not fear pain.

It is midnight in the city that never sleeps.  The financial district is always quiet after the offices close, especially after the towers were lost.  Now only I stand on the edge of the abyss, looking down to where my men rest, to where countless men and women rest.

On that day, I did not act.  I allowed countless men and women to die.  I should have died with them.  And now, now that I can act, I cannot rebuild, I cannot revive.  What is the point of all this power if I cannot even achieve what I want?

A person walks hurriedly by behind me.  I do not need to turn around to know that he is behind me.  For a moment I consider attempting to enlighten him but find that I cannot bring myself to.  I am not so sure that I want him to share in this.

I am not so sure anymore.

…Perfection

                Lieutenant Santa Espada has risen from the ground, emerging at World Trade Center station.  The memories of the train ride drive him forward towards a destination he already knows.  His mind rushes as his boots move click, clock, click, clock rapidly along the cobblestones.  The streets are empty now; a full moon shines down on Espada, momentarily obscured by clouds and then returns.  He knows now what he must do.  There will be no more thinking.

Only action.

He turns a corner and finds himself in front of the hole.  A man stands at the precipice and Espada’s eyes slide off him, his eyes incapable of focusing on the fabric.  “Azrael!”  The man ignores him.  “Azrael!”  He doesn’t know why he shouts it the second time, but when he again receives no response, he charges, long legs covering ground, black coat falling off his body as he lets it go.  The wind howls in his ears but nonetheless he can hear the multitude of voices that is Azrael’s voice chanting.

“Compassion and wisdom!”

The first chant sounds like a plea.

“Action before inaction!”

Espada’s guns are out; Azrael still pays him no mind.  The wind picks up and Azrael glows liquid fire.  He is the birth of a sun.  The hole is lit for all to see.  There is nothing to see.

“Namo amidha Buddha!”

It is too bright.  Espada can’t see his target, heat sears his body.  He stumbles but forces himself back up.  He remembers the girls, remembers their eyes, remembers that he could not act then.  But he will act now.  He pushes forward.

“To the never ending action!”

Espada pulls the trigger.  He hears the shot go off.  He cannot see where the shots are going but he continues to shoot.  He must continue to shoot.  He can feel his flesh being seared; feel it peeling back as the heat reaches new heights.

“I commend my soul!”

One more shot and suddenly the heat is gone.  It feels almost cold after the inferno but all Espada can think is to make sure that Azrael is dead.  He crawls in the direction of the monk, his clothes are long since gone and his skin is nearly gone but he forces himself forward, ignores the pain.  He can barely see, white spots hover over his vision but he can see enough to know when he is near Azrael.

The monk is lying on the ground; hand over his chest, breathing heavily.  Espada can just make out the blood running from between Azrael’s fingers and he slumps to the ground.

“You did what needed to be done.”  Azrael’s voice is only one voice now.  It sounds weak.  It sounds alone.  “You acted where I could not.  You are a better man than I.”

Espada can barely hear anything now; he does not feel the heat anymore.  His body is beginning to cool.  “A better man wouldn’t have had to kill you.”  He turns towards Azrael.  The hole is in the background.

“You acted appropriately.”  The monk’s voice is wet now; he coughs.  “I will now return to the cycle to be set on my path.”  A pained gasp rattles from his chest.  He is looking at something that Espada cannot see. His eyes are wide.  There are tears.  “God is awe.”  The rattle again, heaving, gasping sighs and then nothing.

Lieutenant Santa Espada, body torn to shreds, near blind, forces himself to his feet and stumbles to the edge of the abyss.  Looking down, he cannot see anything.  There, on the edge of the precipice, on the edge of his death, he begins to know.  A slow understanding creeps into the back of his mind.  Shadows creep in at the edge of his vision as he falls to his knees.  Blackness takes his vision.  Azrael’s last words echo in his ears.  He whispers into the hole, his words echoing forever into the vastness.

“God is awe.”