Tag: Hope

Bonus Short Story: Délok

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 3 Comments

No one realizes they’re about to die, or at least that they have. I know I didn’t. I’d been inside a hospital room surrounded by friends and family for months. My prognosis had never been good, and the fact that I hung on so long was miraculous to just about everyone I met. That’s the interesting thing about pancreatic cancer, it’s the most dangerous of all of those terrible diseases. It has the highest mortality rate of any disease, disorder, or cancer around– including Ebola. That last point’s important for posterity’s sake as it needs to be understood what is meant when I say things weren’t looking good.

I’d accepted that, along with everyone else around me. That included the whole world– literally– They’d been watching me die for months, and were riveted. ‘Cause of the type of man I’d always been– a high-powered CEO whom demanded one-hundred-percent transparency from myself and the people around me– I’d managed to amass quite a following on the reality television and web-markets. Twenty-four hours a day I had cameras around me– although those last few months I couldn’t imagine made for very good television.

All the same, my death came with about as much obviousness as an ant crawling on a paralyzed limb. I woke from sleep to find myself standing before the window in my meek hospital room. I must have had one of those strange blackouts again, I figured. The cancer had a way of doing that, you see. It had metastasized to tumors in my spine, brain, and lungs. Sometimes I’d go hours acting totally normal. Then, a moment later, a tumor would shrink enough not to press a nerve, or cut-off certain blood flow, and I’d suddenly exclaim, “What!?” all the while wondering why I had no memory of the goings-on.

That day was different though, I felt it. That, and the duplicate of me in my hospital bed, told me something was off. I thought maybe I was hallucinating again– another thing that tended to happen from time-to-time– but the way the aides, nurses, and my family-members ignored my pleas for an explanation told me something more was afoot.

It must have been one of those fabled, out-of-body experiences, I reasoned; a sort of transcendence of space and time that a properly-positioned mind could enter. I’d heard and read about them before, and in most cases, they were the results of psychotropic or hallucinogenic drugs. I was certainly on enough of those, but with none of the associated euphoric feelings.

In fact, I felt terrible, as if all at once I could feel every growth, cyst, and tumor in my body. The pain throbbed within me– or rather, I throbbed completely, overwhelmed by the pain. I doubled over onto the floor only to feel something pass through me. I looked around to see my family, the medical staff, and a camera-man in a somber, shuffling procession for the door. On my hands and knees, I could do little more than retch as their progress through me sickened my core. A white-light overtook me then, and I knew I was dead– or dying at least.

Then, something curious happened. I found myself in a field of white-light– actually that’s misleading. It was more like an endless sprawl of white-light with no beginning nor end, a trans-dimensional terminal for those to pass through, alone, on their way to whatever after-life they were destined for. Those were my sentiments at least. The Christians would have called it purgatory, but I just called it, “What the hell?”

He materialized before me; an old, hunched man that wore robes like the old Buddhist monks you see in Tibetan flicks. His wide smile and prayer beads affirmed the likeness. He leveled both hands before him, prayer beads hanging from one. They lifted slowly with a singular word; “Up.”

I felt myself rise to my feet, found once more standing and painless. He turned away with a gesture to follow. We wandered through the field of light together, he with a timely shuffle beside me while my gait lightened with a languid caution. I wasn’t sure where I was, but the pain was gone and I knew I was safe. After months of agony, that former point was really all that mattered. I was ready to shuffle off to any number of the great beyonds if it meant I wouldn’t feel the pain again.

That hunched figure led me to an edge of the light that formed mist around us. I must have seemed hesitant at first, because he gave me a look of beaming pride like a grandfatherly master to his beloved apprentice. He disappeared into the mist that obscured all beyond it.

I felt compelled to follow, if only for the sake that his radiant kindness was euphoric. I’d had enough people around me lately whom had lost their warmth. I missed it. They were all too concerned with avoiding the elephant in the room, too fearful of rousing any further pain in me. I really just wanted a game of cards, or a cup of coffee– something to remind me that being human wasn’t just a series of painful moments underlined by others’ fear. Somehow this old man exuded every game of cards, cup of coffee, and everything else fun in my life all at once.

I followed through the mist, found myself beside him on a dock. The sun shone with a brilliance that kissed a river’s pristine surface with diamond radiance. Slightly ahead and below us in the water, a wooden row boat rocked gently from an invisible current. He shuffled his way to the boat and I followed, allowed him to brace himself on my shoulder for support as he stepped wide for the boat. To think of myself in the state being the lesser of two, fragile souls warmed my heart. I was human again, even if– as I suspected– only in death.

He thanked me with that beaming smile that needed no words, settled onto a bench in the boat and gestured me beside him once more. I took my seat, and as if pulled by a distant tug, the rowboat launched along the river. All around us the flats and foliage of his once-native China rolled out around thatched-roof huts of bamboo and grasses. The sunlight was heavy overhead, traced a morning arc that warmed us. Despite the ever-present haze of thin mist and fog that seemed to amass in the sky only, it warmed us, let just enough light refract rainbows over that untouched surface-water.

I cannot say how long we traveled through that beautiful land for. I know only that I had an amazing sense of wonder, awe, and more than a little profound belonging. It was only at those feelings’ apex that I began to wonder what might come next. I was soon granted visions of terror that matched the beauty.

The water became chopped, rough. All of my pain returned at once. Beside me, the old man sensed the impending doom. All the same, the only change in him was that of his smile fading to a determined indifference, and the slight draw of the corners of his eyes that complimented it. I braced myself against the water’s attempts to throw me overboard, saw ahead the reason for its tumult; a waterfall emerged from the mist with a chaotic spray all its own. From the echoes beyond it, and the carrion-birds that circled above, I knew it would kill us.

It was only with that thought that the old man put a hand to my tense leg, looked at me knowingly. As if by some magic, he read my mind, silently imparted a thought to me; if I were so convinced of my own death, what fear did I have? What more killing of me could there be? If this was to be the end of the end, why would it be any worse than the last end– where I’d been completely unawares and only noticed after awaking beyond it? The questions’ answers formed one, collective thought; I had no reason to fear. Whatever lay beyond that water-fall, something in the old man beside me said, was to be faced as a challenge; not as a thing to fear but rather overcome.

That euphoria that had once before flooded me returned with enough force to blot out the pain in my body again. I gave the old man a stern, knowing nod, and relaxed into an equal determination just as the rowboat plummeted over the edge of the fall. I feared nothing. Not even as we fell like stones through the air, pinned to our seats on the boat.

We landed with a heavy splash that rattled the boat’s joints. Even so, it kept afloat, as firm as our faces against what terrors lay before us. It was only then that we once more emerged from the mist to see blackness all around us. Then, sparked by something in it, red skies descended. All of the world’s worst terrors were upon us: We saw men murdered, women raped, villages burned. Pickpockets pilfered while thieves liberated bread from stalls, only to be shot by the guns of faceless soldiers. Heavy tanks chased flocks of children and families, herded them toward firing lines.

I wished to help, but boat’s speed was double that of the atrocities around me. I knew I could not help. My teeth grit in anger, enmity. The old man touched my hand, gave a shake of his head. At first I did not understand, but his face returned forward, empty. I saw then what I had missed.

This was not a thing to be helped, not here least of all. It was, as it had always been, the way of human suffering. Whether real or imagined, these horrors were as much a part of the human condition as the death I had so recently succumbed to. He protested my anger for one, simple reason: anger, fear, spite, these things that I’d felt were the very core cause of the atrocities around me.

My shoulders sank helplessly, and suddenly the world around me flared with that ambiguous white light. All of my emotions left, drained through a sieve of confusion that couldn’t even manifest its usual ways about me. Suddenly the murdered men embrace their killers, the raped women held those that assaulted them as babes while they wept on their shoulders. The burned villages were extinguished by the bucketfuls of water from those that had set the fires.

Like them, the pilfering pickpockets sought forgiveness, returned the stolen goods with shame. The half-dead and dying thieves broke bread with the faceless soldiers whose countenances were now those of their comrades. The heavy tanks too, turned to other men, women and children whom chased the others in joyful play. All along the former firing line, the weapons dissolved to form the faces of more, smiling family-members; brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers.

Just as I began to understand, the boat and the field dissolved once more into that endless sprawl of light. I was once more on my feet before the old mam. He raised his hands again, this time pressed them together as though in prayer. He gave a small, hunched bow. I felt compelled to return the gesture, and with it, came his beaming smile.

He placed a palm flat against my chest at my heart, and I spoke, “Me?” A small nod from him, and with the opposite hand over his own heart, I said, “You.”

He said only a single word, “Délok.”

Somehow I knew what it meant. Perhaps in that mysterious way that all of those things had occurred, I had also been imparted with new knowledge. In either case, I knew that like myself, he was meant to help show others the way, impart messages from the dead. Those places we’d visited were realms of beauty, pain, and finally peace. There was only one way to reach them yet, and in that, only one way to assure that one day it would no longer be necessary: relay my journey, tell others what I knew was its purpose, intent.

When I awoke on my hospital bed, I had been confirmed dead for two-days. In wishing to observe some ritual of closure, the hospital staff and my family had left me as I had died. There were no doubts to those thousands– maybe millions– of viewers that I had died either. Even fewer doubts were present in the learned medical staff and my family. An immediate series of tests confirmed that my cancer had gone, and I yet lived. As if healed by death, I was once more pain-free, and with a perfect forum to tell my story. I sat in my bed, and began to speak…

And here we are.

I cannot say why I was chosen, having never known of the ways of the délok, whom return from death to relay the wishes of the dead. But now knowing it, I am certain that my journey must be heard by all. Whether those that hear believe it or not is of less import than that they feel its sincerity in their hearts. Only then, perhaps, may we find a way to reach those blissful realms without first succumbing to death. I know, for my part at least, that is the purpose of the délok; to help Humanity reach its collective Nirvana, and one day, shed this mortal coil without fear. I know too, that it is not a thing we should fear, but rather, take as a challenge that we all must overcome, together.

Bonus Short Story: The Wound Thus Healed

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

A great sickness ravaged a group of tribals in the middle of an angry winter. Each day that the men rose to hunt game, they returned later, most often in fewer numbers. The women would leave to gather what few nuts and berries still grew in the freezing temperatures. At least one or two would not return, their bounties lost with them. The few that managed to survive both parties, would end up confined to a pair of huts, the fires in their centers stoked by the tribe’s Shaman.

He wore a garb of animal furs, white tattoos across his face and body, and carried a walking stick to aide his hobbled gait. Each morning and night he would stand beside the beds of the ill and dying, chanting his healing magics with mantras from the back of his throat. His two apprentices would remain beside him, eyes cast downward in prayer as the guttural sounds billowed robustly over distant screams from the wind. Even so, his power was not great enough, and none of his sparse humors or poultices seemed to help.

He was forced to make a trek in search of aid, leave his apprentices to observe the rituals. Through the driving winds and snow, he planted each step with unshakable faith, determination. First, to the North, to seek the spirit of the mountain and plead with it for guidance and mercy. The mountain was high, had taken the lives of many men and women in his lifetime alone. Like his people, he knew it had a wrath and beauty that entwined in one another, was as unshakable as his own determination to find a cure.

He stood at the foot of the mountain, prayed in silence for the Great Mountain Spirit to hear him. It did not reply. Such was the nature of it that many times the mountain was spiteful toward man. The Shaman could do little more than turn away after a day’s prayers, ready to weep at the losses his people suffered. He collected what few herbs and roots were to be found at the Mountain’s feet, grateful for what little the blessing the spirit had bestowed in the lateness of the season.

He turned next for the East, trekked through the forests filled with deer, rabbits, and the occasional wolf. In the distance, each of their heads rose at him in time. The deer’s eyes were frightful. The rabbit’s spine was cowardly. The wolf licked its lips with a sniff of the air. Still not one of them found him of interest, not even enough to run from. So rotten were the stenches of sickness and death on him that even the wolf turned its eyes away in respect. The Shaman was grateful that the forest had let him pass unhindered, unharmed. His people needed him, would not survive without their Shaman’s eventual return.

The Shaman then reached the hills, where even in the gray of winter the highest peaks graced the sky with a serene bliss. Upon the highest hill, he planted his staff and knelt to pray once more. This time, he pled with the sky to repeal its harsh proclamation of winter to lessen the people’s suffering, prevent the rest of the hunters and gatherers from contracting the sickness in the cold. Again there was no reply– and this time neither herbs nor roots. Still, he thanked the sky for its past blessings, and left.

He trekked back Westward, through the forests. The animals were nowhere to be found. He found no solace in the fact, but still thanked forest for allowing him to pass unharmed once more. Beyond it, he continued West, for a river that ran even in the harshness of the winter. He followed its winding pathways to a clearing where stones were laid out for tribal meetings. In their center, her sat to face the river, and prayed that the Great River Spirit once more nourish his people with life-giving water. In it, he asked for there to be something which might heal the sick, dying. He drank of the river only to sense that his prayers had once more gone unanswered.

He wept at the river’s edge.

All of the Great Spirits had abandoned them, unwilling to aid them through the harshest winter they cast upon the tribe. Though the Shaman’s people revered him as a great healer, and master of the white-magics, he knew it to be merely the concoctions created from the blessings of these great spirits. His only magic was that which allowed him to keep the secret confined to himself and his apprentices.

When he rose from the river’s edge, he trekked back eastward only to stop where his three sets of tracks led from the mountain, the forest and hills, and the running river. There was but one pathway left to him; the South, past his own people and toward those with whom they had so often warred. Were he not in such dire need, he might have never considered it. After all, they were usually hostile, and with good reason. Were he to fall at seeking respite, with him might go any hope his tribe had. He could not bear to think of the ills that would be suffered without him. But neither could he bare to watch his people die knowing he had not done all he could.

He walked South, skirted the tribe’s edge so that they might not have the moment of false-hopes his supposed return would bring. His path continued away from his village toward his rivals’. At its edge were no guards. Even in the season it was unusual. The Shaman’s tribe had no guards posted either, but only as a result of the sickness that ravaged it. He continued into the village’s interior and found their people, like his, scattered in states of sickness. The ill, dying, and dead told a similar story to that of the Shaman’s village. The sickness was here too.

He entered the hut of the black-tattooed tribal Shaman that had, for so long, been his rival. Like himself, the other man had healed the wounds of more than a few of the injured in their fighting. He was as competent as the white-tattooed Shaman himself.

He found the black-tattooed Shaman tending to his people as he had, waited beside the fire for the guttural chants and mantras to end. Then, with a swivel, the black-tattooed Shaman met the other’s eyes over the dance of a fire between them.

“It is here as well,” the first Shaman said. The second gave a nod. The first spoke again, “I have just been to ask the Great Spirits for aid. The Mountain, Sky, and River do not reply.”

The second Shaman responded, “I too have spoken with them, been refused replies as you.”

“They are angry then,” the first Shaman surmised. Again the second nodded.

Then, with a small gesture, the second Shaman drew the first to his side, then lowered his head to pray. Unsure of his intentions, the first also prayed– if only to show his own, peaceful intentions. The dual guttural sounds synchronized in harmony over the pain of the afflicted. For many hours they chanted their prayers and mantras, neither Shaman certain of why the other kept their peaceful bent.

It was late in the evening, after the sun had sunk and the stars rose, that the first man rose from his death-bed. The black-tattooed Shaman’s-apprentices made sounds of surprise, shock, leapt back with a start. The first Shaman opened his eyes, though he would not stop his chants, to see something miraculous: The man lived. He had been near death, drawing his last breaths when the white-tattooed Shaman entered the hut. It was miraculous the man had lived this long. That he now stood beside the bed to thank the Shamans and weep, was unbelievable. Still the Shamans prayed, chanted, heads bowed and eyes once more closed.

In time, each of the afflicted once more re-took their feet, no longer ill and now reinvigorated. When the Black-tattooed Shaman’s village was cured, he followed the other back to his village. As before, they took a place in the hut where the worst of the sick and dying were held. It was not long after, that they too, were all healed. Both men thanked one another after the last of the sick once more returned to their families. The white-tattooed Shaman then asked of the second what he believed had changed the Spirits’ minds.

The black-tattooed Shaman put a hand to his shoulder, his eyes and voice level, “The Great Spirits were angry… with us. For all the pain that our peoples have caused one another.”

The white-tattooed Shaman understood, “And it was our penance to seek brotherhood in one another if we wished to heal our sick and dying.”

The second Shaman gave a nod, “We are stronger together, the Spirits know–” he put a closed fist over his heart. “Brother.”

The first Shaman bowed his head, clenched a fist over his heart in turn. The Great Spirits did not wish to spite either tribe, but rather bring them together the only way they could: through their medicine men. In healing the sick, they too healed the wounds that had separated brother from brother, sister from sister, family and friend alike. The wound thus healed, a new era of peace and cooperation could begin.

Poetry-Thing Thursday: Stranger

~ S.M. Nolan ~ 1 Comment

The stranger is strange
when just out of view,
comparing the range,
of each bread loaf’s hue.
I’ve no idea,
just what I’m to do,
when I see the stranger,
with bread made for two.

The stranger is strange,
when hidden by night,
you fear their footsteps,
and so revel in light.
When once they pass,
without second sight,
you see the stranger,
means not to fight.

The stranger is strange,
‘specially in the full-moon,
they’ve bright whitened teeth,
a view with no boon.
Yet look through their eyes,
just a little to gloom,
you feel the stranger,
at home in your room.

We are the strangers,
alone on the path,
that each of us is asked,
to walk without wrath,
But sometimes we forget,
start a blood bath,
of strangers and strangeness,
from poor mental math.

Fear not the stranger,
who smiles at your face
no matter the danger,
we’re all the same race,
for strangeness is Human,
and so too’s our place;
acceptance and tolerance, compassion and grace,
for a stranger seems strangest,
when you greet with a mace.

Short Story: The Proverbial Hand-Grenade

~ S.M. Nolan ~ Leave a comment

Private First Class, Benjamin Harrison; named for America’s 23rd president that Ben’s father found an inexplicably queer fascination with. Why, no-one by the elder Harrison was sure. Even then, it was doubtful a sufficient explanation could be gleaned from the man’s meticulous, daily research and record-keeping of the long forgotten president. What is a matter of public-record however, is the intense sense of duty and honor in the young Private.

All through his life he was teased; from his rigid-postured, vegetable-eating youth, to his JROTC, fatigue-clad teenage years. Life wasn’t a living hell for Ben, at least not between the off-school hours. Otherwise, for his first decade of schooling he suffered the curious ire of his classmates that somehow formed insults from the half-historically honored words of “President-boy,” “Chief Harry-son,” and even “Army-man.”

Such is the crude humor and reckless abandon of youth that these insults, formed of prestigious titles, turned to weapons of psychological warfare. In their way, they were harmless to all, but Ben wasn’t everyone. He was a person; living, feeling, and with a sense of duty and honor that only made him feel worse when he’d decided to devote his life to protecting and serving his country. Unfortunately, grade-school and junior-high were made all the more intolerable by the occasional history course or class that focused on US presidents.

Each year, Ben’s father would dutifully speak to classes about former-president Harrison. As part of a locally-famed historic society, and due to his knowledge of the aforementioned, he was called in without fail to give small lectures each year. Generally occurring just after the winter break, it made Ben loathe the month of January even more than the normal boys whom were simply peeved at the return of scheduled classes.

Thankfully, most of that subsided in high-school. Joining JROTC gave Ben a sounding board of peers with whom he could sympathize. Having been groomed to follow in his father’s boots and join the service, finding others with a similar goal made life all the more bearable. But again the fickle nature of humans eroded much of his enthusiasm. Contrary to intuition, a boy clad in camouflage fatigues was easier to see in the halls of an American High-School than a sore thumb.

Ben and his JROTC-mates were often the targets of the vile underbelly of the school. Being six-foot tall, crew-cut, and peach-fuzzed didn’t help. He was already gangly, lean, and looked weak; perfect prey for the undesirables that even the ‘heads and jocks disliked. Fortunately for Ben, most of the bullying was done on a psychological level– that curious battle-field seemingly isolated to schools, distant war-zones, and clearance shoe-sales.

The only, minor incident that turned physical could not have come at a better time for Ben, nor ended more favorably. The bully, clearly insecure about his vertically-challenged stature, taunted and tormented for a week before he got physical. He’d cornered Ben and a pair of JROTC girls against a locker. The girls were the usual JROTC types; slightly more butch than the others, average-looking, and one more pudgy than the off-brand, preppy-girls that roamed the halls like packs of parental-wallet succubi. As a result, their confidence was less than stellar, their protests shot down with quick, monosyllabic insults masked as swears.

The aggression was met with a firm tongue, and more rigid posture than Ben had ever manifested. He made himself a target, threw himself on the proverbial hand-grenade to shield his friends from the explosion about to be unleashed.

Indeed, Ben’s quick quip back drew the bully’s attention. He spat a swear with a shove at Ben’s chest. Ben was more limber than he appeared, like a cobra raised up and ready to lunge. The second shove only connected to give Ben his opening. In a flurry of arms and the thrust of a fist, the boy flipped through the air. He landed on the ground, hands clutched at his throat, to gasp for air. Ben’s first girlfriend was the pudgier girl present that day. They lasted all through high-school, her hero and his love.

That proverbial self-sacrifice was repeated years later in a middle-eastern desert. On sweep-and-clear orders, PFC Ben Harrison and his unit came under heavy fire. Cornered inside a bombed-out brick building, laid out like a series of low-hurtles and half-walls around them, they exchanged fire with native insurgents. That day was hardly Ben’s first taste of war, but unfortunately, it would be his last in-country.

They spent over a thousand rounds, pinned down by surplus-Soviet AK fire. The irony that these bullets had been stockpiled to kill Americans during the Cold War was not lost on Ben so long as he thought about it. That day, he did. In fact, he thought about a lot of things; home, his first love, sex with her, beers, smokes…. Everything good and bad seemed to trickle on a steady IV drip through his body while Russian weapons sang songs of middle-eastern pride.

Even so, nothing could have prepared him for what came next. Biggs, the guy with the 249-SAW, was encamped just below a rise of destroyed brick and mortar. He had just enough room to roll to his right, sit upright, and slap the SAW around to reload its box-mag. By the time it finished screaming “Die Motherfucker Die!” Biggs was already sitting up to reload.

That’s when it happened. Even then Ben saw it in a play-by-play. He was holed up a few paces down from Biggs, in a piece of wall still tall enough to stand behind. He peered out, saw one of those assholes across the way had detached to rush along side a fuel truck in front of them. It was a stupid place to take cover in a fire-fight, even Ben knew that. One stray round, a spark; that was all it would take to ignite the fucker, blow it and everything in a few hundred feet sky-high– assholes included.

But this particular “insurgent” wasn’t thinking about that. Instead, he lobbed an old-war pineapple grenade through the air. Ben was already in motion when it landed beside his left foot. He dove through a hail of gun-fire, tackled Biggs further sideways. It wasn’t enough for the would-be savior.

To say he walked away from the war would be a misnomer. In truth, he was wheeled away. While the majority of his unit had survived largely unscathed– Biggs the victim of minor shrapnel and facial burns– Ben lost his legs. Both of them. His lower limbs had been torn, shredded to bloody-wet, fleshy nibs by the pineapple. Then, whatever was left had been char-broiled by the heat, the left-over bones pulverized by the shock-wave.

He left for war over six-foot tall, returned two shins and feet shorter. There was a purple heart that came by mail, a lot of doctor’s visits and surgeries, and eventually, some nimble prosthetics that– with therapy– allowed Ben to walk again. There was no welcome home ceremony, no parade, no politicians commending him for his service or sacrifice. Just his parents and extended family; the only ones to notice he’d left, returned, or the pain he’d endured.

One night, he walked into a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. He waited patiently in line, posture rigid as ever, behind a man that fidgeted and scratched like a meth-head. In his little town, this particular disease was becoming rampant. There were too many two-bit meth-makers living in trailers on rural land, brewing up cat-piss and chemicals. It had been hard enough to return home half a man, but returning home to this was worse.

It was no secret to any casual observer that this particular man was ready to crack. He needed a fix, would get it however he could. So, of course, he decided to hold up the gas station. And being the man he was, of course Ben dutifully kept his cool, waited for the man to turn away with an arm full of money. Ben stuck out a single arm that clothes-lined the man as he made to sprint. Then, he was on the ground from a hit to the throat, unable to breathe, money fluttering to the ground all around him.

Ben retrieved the gun and held it on him while the clerk called the police. His metal leg pinned the man to the ground as their eyes met.

“Ben?” The junkie asked through his balsam wood teeth, and pale, scabbed skin.

Ben stared at the man for a long moment. It took time, and a firm, prosthetic foot to stir the images in Ben’s mind. Before long he realized this wasn’t the first time he’d bested the man before him. Ricky was the same punk-kid he’d laid out all those years ago.

“You’re going to Jail, Ricky,” Ben finally said.

Clearly Ricky wasn’t right in his mind, too focused on the prosthetic that held him in place, “What happened to ‘yer legs, man?”

“War happened, Ricky,” Ben replied.

Ricky descended into a mental fit that concluded the conversation with incessant rambles, a mental state akin to psychosis. The police finally arrived to thank Ben for his quick thinking and service. A moment later, Ricky was escorted out to a cruiser as he wailed back at Ben.

“I’m sorry, Ben. Sorry for everything. Shouldn’t’ve…. shouldn’t’ve picked on you.” His head was shoved down, his body forced into the cruiser, “You’re the better man, Ben.” The door shut and he screamed through it, “You’re the better man!”

Ben watched the car roll away, Ricky still screaming that tell-all phrase. Ben had heard it all his life, been told it by everyone he knew; be the better man. When faced with bullies; be the better man. When angry or fuming; be the better man. When called to war; be the better man. When life shits on you; be. The. Better. man.

All his life he’d been the better man, lost friendships, love, even his legs ’cause of it. But something about watching his old bully, now turned to a fiend and junkie, being hauled away gave him perspective. If that mentally disturbed man could, in a moment of clarity, find peace in Ben’s betterness, the man himself had no excuse.

In a decisive moment, Ben turned away from the gas station to climb into his car. He didn’t care about smoking, killing himself slowly by the hit. Instead, he was ready to be finished proving himself– both to himself and the world– and start living. He’d thrown himself on the proverbial hand-grenade for the better of others, but was not ready to do it for himself. That needed to change.

He put his car in gear, and drove for home, chasing a setting sun and a better life.