Tuesday, December 27, 2005

I looked at her, mystified.

The world was too small for so many coincidences. Too many things didn't fit.

Her tears were coming thick and fast, now. The old man was no ordinary acquaintance.

Surreal. Very much so.

She was leaning on the car now, and I braced myself in case she gave way, entirely. Amid the sobs, she whispered, "Daddy..."

I drew in my breath sharply.

Out of the hazy fog that surrounded so many mysteries in my life, a piece of the puzzle finally settled in the proper place.

"I thought you said you lost your parents..." I couldn't stop the question rushing out.

She looked at me, her eyes a mess of smudged eyeshadow and congealed mascara.

"I did." She choked a sob back, then went on. "He left me, my mother..."

Then why the tears?

But I already knew the answer.

Perhaps the only person she could not turn her back on.

Regardless of what she and I had shared, I was nothing in comparison.

The breaking of bonds forged in blood was, perhaps, an inconceivable anomaly after all.



The feeling of jealousy passed quickly.

Maybe I had become less irrational after all this while. Or maybe not. It was always hard to tell if you had changed.

Lost in reflection, I was totally unprepared for what came next.

The shadow haunting my footsteps finally made an entrance onto the grand stage of the real.

Before I could react, a grizzled old man had crossed my line of sight and grabbed her in a vice-like grip, pinning her arms behind her.

Normally I would have nothing to fear, but with an automatic handgun pointed at her head, there was a compelling reason to remain where I was.

I raised my hands slowly.

"Easy, old-timer. Let her go," I said slowly.

She screamed.

"Shut up, bitch!"



The old man had a wild look in his eyes.

Eyes that looked so familiar.

What?

I had seen those eyes before. In fact, I was still looking at them.

I looked into her big, pretty eyes, willing me to rush in and save the proverbial damsel in distress.

Those big, pretty eyes.

My mouth widened.

Shit.

The other pieces of the puzzle, as if eager to make up for lost time, were rushing in to fill the empty void.

How could I not have guessed?



"Shut up and get lost!" the old man snarled.

The facial features, the mouth... even the hands.

I pursued my lips.

"Easy, now... Dad," I grimly concluded.



I had assumed the dead guy was her long-lost father.

Assumptions were so often wrong.

The old guy, still breathing and still clutching the gun, was living proof her paternal guardian had not perished.

Quite the opposite, seeing as how he intended to grant her that favour instead.

The kicking and the screaming were almost a mute comparison to the silent noise of the gun pressed to her temple.



"Shut up and stop screaming, you whore! You and your mum were always the same!"

Daddy wasn't being very nice today.

She had exhausted herself against his surprisingly strong grip, and now lay limp in a neck-hold, sobbing quietly.

"Well now I'm gonna make sure you never run away again, you ungrateful brat!"

Amazing how much can be said with such an economy of words

I had seen some crazy-ass fathers in my time, but this guy beat the lot of them.

He must have seen me inching closer, because now he was waving the pistol at me.

"Any closer, and the slut gets it!"

I had seen many stand-offs involving the requisite gun-wielding psycho or two, but never thought I would re-live one.

Reality is so much stranger than fiction.

Sirens in the distance. Already the cavalry was rolling in to save the day.

It was just a question of who would be left alive when they got here.



"C'mon, just let her go. The cops are already on their way. You can still escape," I offered.

The old man's eyes darted around wildly. The knuckles clasped around the gun grew whiter.

Keep him distracted. Give the good guys time to arrive.

I slowly backed away, my eyes never leaving his. If I kept him staring at me, it would all that harder to notice the sirens getting louder.

Just about long enough to...

He raised the gun to my face.

I froze.



"Drop the weapon!"

"Do it, put down your weapons, now!"

"Drop it, goddamnit!"

A posse of uniformed officers had rushed up behind me, guns leveled at the old guy. Running ahead of them, clad in black Nomex coveralls and bulletproof vests, were the local friendly SWAT team members taking up firing positions and training their laser sights on the only target available.

Which was fine by me, except that she was directly in their line of fire.

My mind had already quit trying to rationalize the event, and had simply resigned itself to reacting to whatever would come next.

The old guy still had her in front of him, and he was sidling away, slowly.

Until he tripped.



They say that in times of life and death, time slows down.

Events compressed into the cramped confines of mere seconds unravel themselves, expanding to meet the theory of relativity, filling the consciousness of those involved.

It was no longer surreal. Time had degenerated into a simple proposition.

I had two seconds to save her life.

I had long enough.



The shouts of the cops behind dissolved into a whirlwind of background noise as I leapt from my position and crossed the boundaries of time and space.

Already in panic from the fall, the sight of me looming over him pushed what remained of his sanity over the edge.

He pulled the trigger.

I hardly saw the cloud of gunpowder, hardly saw the shocked expression on his face, for all I could perceive was the cloud of redness that had exploded from her chest.

No.

She collapsed on the dusty ground with barely a groan.

Then I was on him, struggling with the devil incarnate.



Once upon a time, I might have been too weak to resist the efforts of a man who clearly was possessed of greater strength than I.

But the ghosts of my past, sensing my need, emptied the vigour of love and revenge upon my soul.

And so, I did my best to prevent him turning the gun on me.

Not enough. The barrel was slowly snaking in my direction. I could not succeed.

Then I looked into his eyes, and I glimpsed the eyes of a woman I had always loved.

Always.

With one final surge, I emptied my life's struggle into a right hook that caught him on the left jaw and knocked him aside.

He was no longer behind me.

I rolled aside.



The crack that followed echoed throughout the world of my perception.

When I looked back, all I saw was a red stain seeping out slowly from under his head as he lay there limply.

I had won.

Then I looked back, and saw her limp form lay still, unmoving.

No.

I turned her over.

Too much blood. As before, I reached to feel her pulse, but stopped short.

Her breath, an exquisite scent that had always captivated me, had now ceased. Her cheeks were devoid of all colour, her lips already turning cold and lifeless.

I had lost her.

This time, without hope of redemption.

Cradling her head in my arms, I felt the world begin to blur.

"You okay?" was the distant echo from another world.

I looked up and could only see a haze of rapidly dimishing afterimages.

I was not okay.

Then darkness took me.