METANOIA

SMILE

He never really opened them either. They were forced open for him.

The moment a disaster strikes has an absurd effect of the body. The sympathetic nervous system kicks in, numbing all the senses. The brain slows down to process only the most elementary, necessary, responses. If you have a well-developed sense of awareness, you will realize that even recounting how you felt about the event will be a lot clearer than the events themselves. That is because, to some extent, emotions are a constructed thing, while the reality goes on even when you are on autopilot.

The impact lifted him off the ground. He felt a sudden force that shattered his bones as it violated the wholeness of his body. His eyes were forced to watch his reflection on the glass. It was almost as if he was having an out of body experience as he saw himself flying through the window of Kafka, his solemn face meeting Kafka's just before it shattered into a million pieces.

There was glass everywhere.

Then, as quickly as the moment came, it ended. Silas felt no pain. His body bent in impossible directions was crushed under Barry's flaming car as it rammed into the cafe.

His phone flew inside the cafe and landed right before his eyes. It had died with the impact and showed only a white ghostly after image as the screen lit up one last time. The last remnants of the droplet faded as his life slowly escaped him.

The way the droplet had been killing pixels on his phone now looked like a smiling face.

Something about the smile eased his passing.

He too smiled back and drew his last breath. He was happy.

Seth was miraculously unharmed. As he walked steely past Silas' mangled corpse, he whispered.

"A pity you had to go, my friend." He ran his fingers softly through his messy hair.

Then he picked up Silas' phone, and looked at the screen and beyond it. The droplet too knew this was the end for it. It scorched itself gracefully as a final act, a solemn seppuku of sorts. Its own departure was yet again its choice.

Seth looked at the warrior with respect. There was something powerful in its defiance, one that Seth himself would never dare. He pocketed the phone as it was an artifact of great importance, a tomb for an unsung hero.

Seth paid his respects to the droplet in the way the samurai show respect for their enemies.