Farisia Rising

Mercy/?

By midnight, Reggie was lounged flat on the hotel bed, right arm angled behind his head situp-style. The bandages had made bending it harder, as they were tight and stiff. But he'd cut a slit at the elbow joint to accommodate.

Eva was curled up at his side, resting her head on his chest, his left arm draped over her. The braid was out, and her unwashed vineage of hair fell in waves, blue in the moonlight.

The whole room was deep and dark and blue.

He felt her weight and her warmth on him, and it felt strange. Hardly ever did he grapple with feelings like boredom or loneliness. He hadn't the disposition. Perhaps in consequence, he rarely felt the antithesis. Excitement. Togetherness.

They appeared, in brief snatches, across his life. But they never stayed.

They couldn't.

He remembered being drafted by a homeless woman, as a subject to test her psychology skills on. She was eccentric, and wore a mass of overlapped rags. A patchwork cloth covered her graying hair. Her fingers were spangled with rings, most cheap and worthless.

She was blind in one eye, and she claimed the dead eye had been a tradeoff—that she could now see into the soul.

They had spoken awhile, him seated on an empty paint can, her seated on a small wooden crate. And her conclusion had etched itself into his mind, as evidenced.

"You act like a brash little idiot," she said, "but thus far, it's served you well. There's no pretension, with you, even when you're pretending. Your unsubtlety encourages unsubtlety in others. It disarms them. It opens them up. It's the way most things work—you get what you give, even if what you give is fake. They see you as base, classless, devoid of complexity. It provides them a sense of security—of superiority—whether they know it or not. They think they're in control, but they never are. Are they?" The shadow of a smile played at her wrinkled lips. "You're a dirty troglodyte, after all. A stick-and-rock thrower. A hick from nowhere. ...How do you think you've gotten this far? It starts with a "u". I know you know the answer."

"Underestimation," he nodded.

"And you understand this."

"Yes."

"And you've understood this all along."

Silence.

"It's a double-edged sword," she continued. "Your feigned personality can trick enemies, sure, but you feign it too well. You use it on strangers, unconsciously and indiscriminately. It's come to be an inseparable part of you. And for those who have no stake in your war, of course they buy in, because what reason would you have to deceive them? They don't understand this is your survival. This has been ingrained in your bones from the foundation. You are a product of your environment, not the other way around. And now you can't stop—" Her eye reflected him, milky and dead in its socket. "People feel comfortable with you, but you have no real comfort to offer them. People feel they can trust you, since you first trusted them. But your trust is an artifice. Your capacity starts and ends with artifice. You can read others like a book, but never yourself. You are shut out of your own mind, and that makes you angry. Whether you recognize that anger or not."

"So what do I do?" he asked.

"You take what I've told you," she replied. "You take that awareness, and shatter your way inside."

"That's impossible, though," he wrinkled his nose. "What kind of a quack are you?"

The old woman was insane, he sighed, watching the ceiling. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.