Memory Fragments: Probity

As It Begins (VI/X)

Flowing through here, I have come to reminisce about all the images and feelings I am seeing. Not just the ones pertaining to you, but the ones deeply tied to me that, somehow, are inside you. Maybe we do share more than I originally thought of. Maybe it's just, I don't know, the most bizarre bond shared between two people? I wonder, by going deeper, what would I see? It's like going down memory lane, like time-travel. But I'm going from my life, to his; which was just mine long, long ago. Or, maybe, this is just Crow's memories. Another life not in the past, but in an alternate lane. As I go deeper, this only gets more confusing. Which heart am I truly peeking into? Which version am I really relieving?

...All this blood, savagery, unfiltered debauchery and adultery. What of it? I am no stranger to all of them, yet I feel repulsed at the thought, well, memory of it. And yet, I do not regret it. What Crow did, I did too. What Edward did, so did I. And yet, this shared past is something I will not forget nor I want to forget. As a detective, and now father, should I really show this to her? Should I show her the ropes of dealing with a guy like me turned guardian? As in, teach her the worst of the worst and how to deal, and solve, it? I don't know yet. After looking at all of this, is she really ready to confront Faust head-on, or should I just let her figure all of this out? I'm worried, and yet, I feel a sense of pride? What the fuck is this feeling? Why would I feel proud and prideful about this? Edward, are you messing with me again? Is this place starting to get to me? As I go deeper and deeper, this feeling only intensifies my confusion.

But I know one thing is for certain. What feeling is truly my own and nothing will ever change it. I have lived a life I do not regret, and I have shared that life with the people I do not regret meeting and keeping. Maybe they will help me through this confusion, or maybe they will just make it worse. Gods, why am I doubting this now? I...I do not regret anything. Not the meetings, not the killings, not the familiar stranger memories.

...I once heard about your early life, Edward. Back when you were Erick. Such a long time ago, I thought it was another person, like your father. As I investigated it further, I was made sure of one thing: Time starts to corrupt life when they are not together. When you chose to pursue infinite perfection, well, you should have known that the path to it is, indeed, infinite. It was the progress you made, the unprecedented accomplishments and record-time milestones you set for posterity's sake that truly gave you a wind of...probity in your life. Not perpetual perfection, just a sense of probity ever so close to it. Yet you went on this endless path hoping to bend it your way as a shortcut for everyone else.

...When I made sure to remember all there is to Crow, I began to shiver. Like a broken-down carriage, or an old car; the path they used to travel on daily seemed more dangerous and uncertain each time they went through it. When I put on the suit, after that long, it felt like a second wind. A way to redo all, but without the psychopath stuff. Yet it also felt like that second current would blow away any progress I made without it and revert me back to when I started. Not how or who I was, just when it all started. Should I really go back to the past? Given the now that I am, should I go back? Become a you, uncorrupted, and stir the world just like you did?

Politics were never my strong suit, though. But if it means not starting over, but branching over a new path; with the memories I have now, the past I kept. Maybe I will truly guide the people out of yours and give them an end-goal to their lives. A purpose and a past constructed by old merits, death, and reminiscence.

As it begins, the beginning of reminiscence. Maybe I have taken a wrong turn, now that I think about it. But all wrong turns lead to a destination, regardless of the path one is on. It's just harder and, sometimes, lengthier. The memories one makes as we travel; one does wonder if they are truly so black and white when it comes to affecting our morality gained through past experiences.