walking thru hostile waters |
| Fizzled out and left to stand in the aftermath, his psyche couldn't stitch itself back as it once were. The fractured jaw was almost as new. Skin growth replaced the charred, and his body was on track the way it had been before the tussle with a maniac forged of metal and burned upwards up to degrees he couldn't comprehend. The trip home had came at a surprise because he would always find his way there. This time with bags of his clothes mopped around on the porch. For the neighbors to see. For people passing by to see. It didn't become the only thing they witnessed while he made attempts of breaking and entering for better answers. In the knot holding the true explanation in the back of his mind, he knew. He knew why his things were left where they were. Why she didn't allow him inside. And its reasons were validated by the actions that had grown from him only to recede with a catastrophe unwilling to fade away like the bits of destruction the city saw. He recalled the great lengths of being unable to remain indoors easily until Boston's finest appeared. There was a disagreement. A solid turn of events that placed him in the back of a squad car because of the entering a place that was supposed to be sacred. He didn't fight. Tried to be reasonable and explain he lived there but it wasn't enough to ease the suspicion. He looked unkempt and worthless as if the life had been removed, scrambled in a blender, and thrown back together for results one was still attempting to figure out. The blood stained shirt was deep in black. Soot and dirt bounced off of him when laid against the back of the car. His resistance could have come easily. Breaking the spirit and bones of those with the badges. He could have fought to preserve what was left of his dignity and some right to see her. Even the visual of fear on her face was all his doing. He was reminded of it during the night in jail. During the time he was processed out thanks to his kid who wouldn't have the details and didn't ask questions, but came through for the aide. He didn't want to put her through the what he caused by recalling it moment by moment. Ever since Sunday, he walked between holding the line to figure it out. How he allowed the power to become corruptible and those that seemed to perish from the wake of flames left behind. A piece of decency left him, perhaps forever. Changing the fabric of his identity for the worst and processing the damage not including lives that easily burned down, to the one who was his home. He sat about for days. Sulking in quiet, keeping the ears plugged from outside sounds. Only to remember the voice that coerced him to do what it wanted to be done. It was like velvet. Burned slowly and told him of his potential. Cared what he wanted only to use it as a means of manipulated. He became the person who lost at the art of manipulation and it sat its heaviest as the days trickled away. Late in the month, alone, with his cats tumbling around. They too were apprehensive of his presence instead of crowding around him in the usual way. Isolation seemed better for the time being until he could find a way to make it right. To have her home where she belonged but not without time apart. Not without that dark ring hovering above him, where in his one eye he saw it reflected in each passing mirror. Any exchanges of words were done at a safe distance. Where he wasn't the danger but still had the potential to be because it happened. Twice now, in a span of a couple of years she was in the line of near death. On opposite spectrums and for faults split down the middle, it was his time to own up to faults out of his rule. Nathan crawled his way to the forefront as Slade eased behind to lick his stupid wounds. Ones that were shared in capacity to the person they were. Much was at stake, not just the place where he laid his head but the kid involved who was close who came with the package. On this Friday morning, where he traveled on the off road and site. The truck parked itself just outside the cabin that had once broken off after flames got to it. Slumped he sat, the vehicle dead. The music ending in the ruckus that lingered towards his hearing. He looked outward, the windshield his scope. No amount of space would try to keep him away but understood what had to be done. Time, some of it will help. Endure the gravity and its place of being sunken by it. Have it become the new exposed as if he was laying on the ground barely breathing himself. Wide for the taken and the most susceptible of dying. The thought passed on, tying down to him like a rusted anchor. Fusing with old hazard thoughts of not wanting to be here. In the physical where suffering would finally die out. He knew if the attempt was made, he'd be back. Resurrected and made to suffer but he wasn't an idol of a religious sect, just a man altered by means to destroy. A weapon once used for government operations and in turned his own when it came to the multiple dollar signs. None of the past, even the present, could determine what he would do in exchange to leaving most of it behind if it meant peace back home. It pained him how much he had been feared as that weaponized body and mind of his nearly turned on the one that was part of him like his rib. His entire world. Nathan exited from the truck, grabbed a few things, then marched up the trail to meet the first step leading to the cabin. It was a luxury of sorts but also a place where cutting corners wasn't allowed. The same way he would enter would be the same way to exit when it was time to go back home, if ever it were safe to do so. |