Hearts of Darkness, Part VIII
What he saw was a giant. Since leaving the island, people’s description of David had changed, all reflecting how much smaller he was than the average American male. Several inches shorter, and less broad, the words used decreased him even more. The men in suits were taller than him, with bulging chests and legs beneath their formal wear. The individual they were after was to them as they were to David.
He was wearing clothes not too dissimilar from the thugs in the alley, tough looking boots and military pants, a worn leather jacket thrown over a zip up hoodie. All black. Things began to fall apart in David’s mind. Nothing made sense.
From his floor level vantage point, the man did not look cornered at all. His posture, even ringed with a dozen pursuers was unaffected. David strained to hear, but the distance was too great. He couldn’t know what they were talking about. He could not imagine someone defying what was so obviously encasement. A cage.
Then the wind changed, and what assaulted David’s nostrils made him clamp a hand against his mouth to suppress a snarl. He tumbled back into the stairwell and clamped a fist onto the guard rail, grinding his teeth. He had never sensed such… rot. It reminded David of the family’s cemetery, what an open grave smelled like after a gentle rain. Deep, dark, dead earth. He knew, without knowing, that everyone on the rooftop had already died.
The gun shots shocked him back to his senses, and he chanced another look, but he immediately wished he hadn’t been so curious. The scene was surreal. It was like watching a crowd of people scurrying underwater, trying to catch one person who was unaffected by the medium, the lack of traction, the need to breath.
It wasn’t David’s intention to stay for the massacre, but he was there for the last body to drop, a perplexed man looking down into his empty holster, then raising his head to look around at all the prone bodies of his colleagues. He made eye contact with David there at the end, right before he was shot in the head from the side. He was shot three more times as he fell, and then his pistol was dropped onto his chest, still smoking.
David was angry, and he couldn’t say why, which was a terrible sign. It had taken him years to understand that when most people became furious, usually there was something they could point to. Pain or frustration, powerlessness or grief. This was that other rage, the one David had avoided for a lack of control. But it had been building for longer moments than he acknowledged, and as always, disrespectfully tossed him over its shoulder and carried him off. There was a golden explosion in his vision, and all his other senses were multiplied in intensity. His skin burned. His bones broke. And David Cruz was gone.
He was wearing clothes not too dissimilar from the thugs in the alley, tough looking boots and military pants, a worn leather jacket thrown over a zip up hoodie. All black. Things began to fall apart in David’s mind. Nothing made sense.
From his floor level vantage point, the man did not look cornered at all. His posture, even ringed with a dozen pursuers was unaffected. David strained to hear, but the distance was too great. He couldn’t know what they were talking about. He could not imagine someone defying what was so obviously encasement. A cage.
Then the wind changed, and what assaulted David’s nostrils made him clamp a hand against his mouth to suppress a snarl. He tumbled back into the stairwell and clamped a fist onto the guard rail, grinding his teeth. He had never sensed such… rot. It reminded David of the family’s cemetery, what an open grave smelled like after a gentle rain. Deep, dark, dead earth. He knew, without knowing, that everyone on the rooftop had already died.
The gun shots shocked him back to his senses, and he chanced another look, but he immediately wished he hadn’t been so curious. The scene was surreal. It was like watching a crowd of people scurrying underwater, trying to catch one person who was unaffected by the medium, the lack of traction, the need to breath.
It wasn’t David’s intention to stay for the massacre, but he was there for the last body to drop, a perplexed man looking down into his empty holster, then raising his head to look around at all the prone bodies of his colleagues. He made eye contact with David there at the end, right before he was shot in the head from the side. He was shot three more times as he fell, and then his pistol was dropped onto his chest, still smoking.
David was angry, and he couldn’t say why, which was a terrible sign. It had taken him years to understand that when most people became furious, usually there was something they could point to. Pain or frustration, powerlessness or grief. This was that other rage, the one David had avoided for a lack of control. But it had been building for longer moments than he acknowledged, and as always, disrespectfully tossed him over its shoulder and carried him off. There was a golden explosion in his vision, and all his other senses were multiplied in intensity. His skin burned. His bones broke. And David Cruz was gone.
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