Glitches

Glitches - Chapter 1

The old typewriter snaps and wheezes it’s way across the page.  And out stammers an unalterable truth that is as real and inviolable as the musty paper its printed upon:

“I’m going to die.”  

I stare at the etched and dimpled words pressed against the page.  I’ve come to terms with this already.  I am to be executed in less than 24 hours. And I’m certain it will be horrifying - I am going to pay for what I’ve done.  For humiliating them.  I was an outsider after all.  I did make a laughing stock of them.  It will be bad.

It will be slow.  It will be painful.  And above all, I am certain it will be humiliating.

Just thinking about all the pent up power they hold and the infinite possibilities available to them to crash fury down on me… it spikes my heart rate and dilates my eyes.  My heart begins to run and to flee.  It scurries, scampers and finally sprints into a staccato rhythm.  It is the pulse and drive of an oncoming freight train speeding too fast for the precarious rails it is on.

But then I catch a vision of wispy red hair glimpsed in the evening wind.  Its a vague fragment of a memory.  And it’s quickly followed by the beginnings of a smile caught in the corner of her lips.  It pauses, holds, and then explodes like the morning sunrise.  Then, slowly, crashing drive of my pulse settles and subsides.  The freight train passed and I am left with a swirl of memories of her walk, a glimmer from her eyes, her hair flipped behind her ear, and her closeness.  

The typewriter continues its snap, snap, snap against the page as I continue to try and capture the memories of the extraordinary past couple of months.  Could it have only been just a few short months really?  Seems impossible.  Just a few moons ago I was completely unaware of the world around me.  Unaware of my own mind and its potential.  I went from mindlessly traversing the city to spinning the entire world on its axis… and am now on trial for what I know and what I have done.

Then a desolate vision arrests all other thoughts.  Its a dark memory of a dilapidated farm.  I see the outbuilding.  A building that was used for tractors and the other farm equipment detritus that tended to wash up in any free space available over the years.  The memory stops my heart hard.  Through my bones I feel a since of dread seeping into my core.  It’s a paralyzing fear that I know will overcome me if I’m not careful.  

This memory has either been my the beginning of my transformation and awakening or my undoing.  I am still unsure really.  I know that if I don’t find away to control this vision that is hitting me now my heart could just stop.  As I struggle to gain control, the weathered outbuilding looms ever closer.  The sullenness and despair of the rough and jagged walls pulls me in and repels me simultaneously.  

And with a practiced skill I invoke her smile.  It is the only talisman that has any sort of power over this overwhelming terror within my mind.  She is the only one that can stay the darkness. At first the maw of the open barn doors laugh at my feeble attempt to stave them off.  But then, slowly and subtly the fear begins to ebb.  The danger of the image breaks and then scatters like an explosion of crows scared to the air by some unheard sound in the wind.  

I saw her red hair again.  A vision of a Celtic beauty filled my vision now.  A slight bemused grin slid across my face at the thought of her.  And then, just as quickly I was afraid again.  Afraid for her.  Afraid for me.  Overwhelmed by this situation I found myself in.  That tomorrow I would die and she would quickly follow if she hadn’t already.  

That they will kill me now is beyond ironic.   I was ready to take my own life less than six months ago.  I was on the verge of doing their job for them.  But now that my eyes have been opened?  That I can see beyond the veil?  Now I know what is happening throughout the world and have seen with eyes anew.  Its now that I finally see the truth, and the larger purpose that I have been called to that they have decided I am a threat and I must be condemned.  Now it is they who want me dead. 

So I am sitting here at this wheezing typewriter hammering out my story as quickly as I can in the hope that I can get it finished before they come for me.  The first thing I must get across to you is that there are people sitting next to you on the bus or on the train who have unbelievable and extraordinary skills and abilities.  Powers I guess would be what you would think of them as.  But I have learned that they anything but.  They are actually skills that are learned with patience and practice.  You may even be capable of such feats if you could only tap them.  

I was surprised at what I was capable of anyway.  But look where it got me.  Glancing out the window I can see a fairly innocuous looking young person sitting on the roof of the building adjacent my apartment.  Walking closer to the window I see two more on the street trying to appear as casual as possible.  I can tell though that they are scared out of their minds right now.  That is why there are over forty of these guards surrounding the building.  They are here to make certain I won’t be leaving until it is my time.  

I am K in Kafka’s ‘The Trial’.  I have no idea really don’t know what I am explicitly on trial for beyond challenging their norms.  Sure, I have killed and known the death of innocents.  I have been hunted and in return I have hunted.  I destroyed buildings and decimated city centers.  Maybe it was my upending of their rules and their society that has me imprisoned here.  Or maybe it was because I have known love.  Were we star crossed lovers from the very beginning?  Was it my love that doomed us from the start?  

Regardless, I have had the chance to love the most extraordinary woman the world was ever lucky enough to know.  I have seen her stand up in my defense when I deserved it the least.  We fled together from the inevitable onslaught that we could only forestall until yesterday.  And now I don’t even know where she is or if she’s even alive.  I can’t imagine that they would let her live for what she’s done on my behalf.  But she is my only hope.  If she is gone now I have nothing else, no other reason to continue.  I would be back to where I was at the beginning.  

There were rumblings about a few other crossbreeds like myself that have existed over the centuries.  And the rumor was that those stories didn’t end well either.  The scraps of stories that I heard were that the different houses were so enraged with jealously and terror that the moment they were discovered they were hunted down and executed.  There wasn’t even a need for a trial.  

So in that regard I’m doing better I guess.  At least they gave me a trial.  Though I didn’t realize that’s what it was.  I was under the misimpression that it was an interview of sorts.  I tried my best and did everything I could to impress everyone around me.  But that was the worst thing I could have done.  In my defense though, I was ignorant of their plans.  But I was warned… I definitely was warned.  I think every single person I met warned me in some way shape or form.  I was too high on this newfound power though.  The last thing I wanted to do was to listen.  I really thought I was different somehow.  I thought that I would be able to change the course of history with my sheer determination and make them understand.  

And yet, here I am under house arrest awaiting execution.  I can only guess what will happen when they come.  They know I am a threat and they have no idea what I’m capable of because no one like me has ever lived long enough to find out.  

My one hope and my only desire is to see her face again.  One last time.  I know I can’t be with her again.  If only I could bargain with them I would hand over every skill and power I have learned over the past six months and retire to a simple cabin in the woods with her.  I would never invoke them again if I could spend the rest of my life in obscurity and anonymity with her.  I can’t think of anything else that would make me happier than this.  

And yet, she may be dead right now.  I don’t even know.  I can’t sense her anywhere nearby.  I can’t imagine they would allow her to add her voice of descent to mine.  The two of us and our few friends were way too much for them to handle and they are now too afraid to think straight.  I can hear the fear rippling off of them even now.  

It just doesn’t matter anymore.  I am going to die soon.  The woman I love is gone.  The life I have come to love is being ripped from me.  And they will make sure that I die the most excruciating way imaginable.  

And yet, as the typewriter clacks its rhythmic percussion against the page I begin to hear the subtlest of sounds.  A whispering.  I continue to capture my story without slowing to cover my surprise… but the whisper is clearer now.  Its growing in strength and form.  I try and control my heartbeat to avoid tipping my captors to the truth.  The truth that hope is building.  That hope is rising.