Emotion

The sunlight filters through the canopy and slices its way between the branches, making the leaves seem fragile and translucent as it exposes their veins. From certain angles, the beams of light look like you could reach out and grab them with your hands. The dust particles rise and fall slowly, floating in a vacuum unaffected by gravity.

I see none of this as I sit in the solemn silence of the forest, for my eyes are closed, and my thoughts are elsewhere. Nothing moves around me except the dust and the occasional soft breeze in the trees above. My mind ranges far over the mountains in search of inspiration and peace. In the stillness, I feel my normally anxious heart subside and beat slowly, until I can hear nothing but the sound of it palpitating within me. Out here, the small issues of the village seem petty. Temporary. Illusive. In the depth of the forest, the pain and the injustice of it all are distant and remote, like the happenings of another life in another part of another world. I retreat further and further into my own consciousness. Within each concentric circle of being is a new level of letting go.

I direct my passion inward, searching for the dot within the endless concentric circles. A sea of faces passes in front of my mind’s eye, and I love that sea, unexpectedly but genuinely. The faces are full of laughter, and I see their potential, and I love them. As I love them, I watch them grow. The faces turn toward different things. Creations burst forth from the crowd; new innovations that no one has ever imagined before. Why have they never been imagined? Anger attempts to penetrate the outer circles, but I dive deeper, away from it. Some may hate the crowd; some may not see its potential. But I am not they, and they are not the enemy. They, even they, are part of that crowd.

I want to stay here, deep within myself, free from anger and fear. For I am tired of being angry and afraid. I am so very tired.

The elusive dot runs further away, but I chase it all the more. Renouncing and recanting and repenting, I flee the outside and dive deeper, deeper, deeper into the recesses of my own mind. I will chase the dot until it is mine, and nothing…

            Gunshot.

I shake myself, and the subconscious slips away. Blinking at the dust and the beams of yellow and the fragile leaves, my eyes readjust to the light as my mind readjusts to the mortal world. Seizing my things, I leap across the stream and sprint back toward this world. The cries from the village draw me further from the forest, and I am wistful. But soon I forget this. I reach the clearing overlooking the village, and I stop dead in my tracks as I see what is making the noise.

My home is being overrun.

Soldiers are marching through the streets with machine guns, dragging people from their houses and lighting fires in the beloved, primitive structures. None resist them, but flee in terror and despair. Tanks are rolling in over the beautiful green hills, leaving ugly tracks in their wake like scars. In the square in front of town hall, a dark sedan rolls to a stop. A tall man in black steps out, surveying his new territory, the only controlled presence in the midst of chaos. He has come for me at last. My people are kneeling, sitting, and weeping in the streets, watching their houses burn.

But there, off in the northwest corner of the village, there is resistance! A girl has seized a chair from the wreckage of her home. Violently, she hurls herself on the invading soldiers. Her golden hair blows back in the wind as she leaps toward them. The wooden chair is aflame as she brings it crashing down with vicious grace upon a soldier, breaking both chair and man with the force of the blow. Both lie smoldering in the mud. The soldier does not get back up.

My heart leaps with momentary hope, but that hope is soon squelched. Others come and rip the rest of the chair away from her. They throw her down in the mud and kick her, and they drag her away as the house of her parents, of her childhood, is consumed behind her.

This sight moves me back to action, and I sprint out of the clearing and back into the woods. My friend is in trouble. My village is in trouble. Something deep in my gut shifts, welling up angrily inside of me. The musings of the forest from a moment before no longer apply.

Or do they?

In my mind, a courtroom appears, one which will decide my actions. The defense attorney rises to speak. These soldiers, this man in the black vehicle: they were in the crowd, too. Their faces had also laughed. They may hate the crowd, but they cannot ever fully escape it. I know nothing of their orders or of their intentions, of their childhoods, their hopes, their dreams, or their training. The defense attorney attempts to sway me into contemplation, into rationality. Then the prosecutor stands; spittle flies from his mouth as he furiously refutes the logical defense. These soldiers are not people; they are animals, and they must die. They cannot stand against me. They must not be allowed to go unpunished. The man in black will regret his decision forever. The consequences of my actions are banging on the door of the courtroom, screaming about my lack of training and my inexperience, but they are denied entrance. The judge has sided with the prosecutor. The jury comes back unanimous: my inexperience is irrelevant, for my rage will be enough. All that matters now is finding relief from this unquenchable fire in my belly, and inaction will never bring relief.

The edge of the forest gives way to the outskirts of the village, and I run up the street through the corridor of burning homes. Everything seems to have moved to the center of the village, but at the moment I cannot hear what is happening over the roar of fire, the pounding of my heart, and the roar in my ears.

Only one soldier is on this street, and he is in my way. His machine gun and his tall, muscular build will only add to the triumph of his defeat. He barely has time to turn before his ribs crack and his breath is taken away by the hurtling frame of a person half his size. I tackle him to the ground and he lies, disoriented, on his back. The rock from the ground I use on his nose. It cracks with sickeningly little effort. The knife from his belt I use on his throat. Blood spouts from it like a fountain; his eyes bug out with terror as he suddenly realizes that he cannot breathe. His fault—wrong town (that is what the prosecutor screams inside my head). I use the rock again to end his misery and direct his accusatory gaze away from me.

Leaping from my kill, I sprint again toward the main square. Now I hear something that stops my heart: weeping, loud cries of pain, and…another sound which I do not want to contemplate. Thoughts of my friend enter my mind, and I shake them away; I do not want to face reality. But as I run closer toward reality, I realize that what I had heard was exactly what it had sounded like.

I did not think I could be further enraged, but I was wrong.

The crowd in the square is whimpering quietly. I push past them breathlessly. There, in the middle of the square, hands tied to a post, is my friend, her once-beautiful back bleeding and striped. The man in black stands above her with a look of hatred on his hardened, weathered face. In his right hand is his instrument of punishment. To my left, her parents are held in the vice of soldiers, crying and pleading for mercy, helpless against the injustice. Her tortured cries make their suffering worse with every stroke.

The soldiers do not even realize I am here. Nothing can stand in my way now. I will be the hero. Then I hesitate. That pesky defense attorney is speaking again in my head. Who am I to pronounce judgment on this man? I hear his voice, but his words carry no feeling with them. The consequences and arguments are desperately trying to get through the door in this last moment, but the officer at the door of the courtroom shoots them, for judgement has been passed. In some ways, I am as helpless as my friend’s parents, as tied up as my friend, for nothing can stop me now, not even myself. Something clenches deep in my stomach, and I move forward with the execution.

I enter the circle, clutching the knife of my vanquished enemy. As the man in black pulls back his arm for another stroke, I slash it off at the forearm. It spins end over end through the air and lands several feet away, still clutching the beloved whip. The man in black cries out in horror and agony, clutching for his hand in disbelief, but his hand is gone.

Before anyone can react, I drop the knife and kick the back of his knee. As he collapses, I wrap my arms around his neck and clutch the back of his head my hand. There is a moment where I stare out defiantly at all of them. The soldiers are shocked. The crowd is dumbfounded. My friend’s parents are horrified. They stare at me with confused, wide eyes. But they will never know. None of them could ever know. Then that moment is over.

With a roar of passion and unbridled rage, I snap his neck. His lifeless body falls into the blood of his victim, which splatters on my leg.

I am alone in the middle of the circle now. Whatever will come will now come. It does not matter. The man in black lies dead at my feet. His strength has been reduced to nothing. His authority has been extinguished. He has become the victim of the one whom he would have victimized. All of his training was powerless against the passion of one angry kid. He came to oppress, and I spit in his face; I laughed at his power. I slaughtered him like an animal. As soon as he stepped into this village, his fate was determined—his doom was inevitable. For this village is my village, this crowd is my crowd, and this day is my day.

In the mental world, the consequences were not destroyed, and they now force their way past the officer and into the courtroom. Wounds still bleeding, they scream at the stupid judge with predictions of fear and doom. But the angry judge stands up on the bench and throws his gavel at them. “I win! He loses. Nothing else matters.”

In the mortal world, I scream at the soldiers and any of them who are listening, “GET OUT OF MY TOWN!”

As those words leave my mouth, I feel my heartbeat begin to slow. My shoulders were tensed in anticipation, but now they relax, and my arms, no longer flexed in anger, hang loosely at my sides. My chest was heaving passionately a moment before, but now I release a satisfying sigh, and my soul sighs with me.

I am at peace.