The Word Is - Part 4

all starts with this single ball right here.”


“Does it kill her?” Janus asked, a bit of curiosity in his voice. “I don't recall seeing anything in your file about this Anne person.”


“You wouldn't,” I sighed, “and no, it doesn't, thankfully. You're thinking too literally. My story isn't that simple. I'm not some one you can put into an easy box and call a terrorist. You had to know that going into this.”


“We did,” Apathe said, “so why don't you show us what happened?”


“The same thing that always happens when something is destroyed. Destruction happens.” I unfroze the memory and the ball went flying, zipping straight through me. Janus and Apathe watched it, but I didn't need to see it again – I felt it every damn day of my life. The ball zipped straight at me and ripped a whole through my thigh. I was already falling forward against the door from the force of the blast, and the memory of it made my leg hurt all over again. Young me slammed his head against the door then fell back and blacked out.


Not a single thing hit Anne.


I froze the memory again, turning to look at them. “Anne was by my side when I woke up in the hospital the next day. She didn't even know my last name and she couldn't bear to apart from me. I didn't have my wallet on me, and in all the chaos, it wasn't until the next day that my roommates figured out I might be in the hospital. They were talking to the nurses at the front desk around the time I woke up. I spent the next few months learning to walk again, and Anne clung to me like I was the only thing keeping her afloat. She was falling to pieces, talking to a shrink twice a week, having night terrors.”


“There wasn't a scratch on her?” Janus asked.


“Nope,” I replied. “No idea how or why, but the shrapnel missed her entirely. She felt guilty about it. Like somehow she had deserved some of the pain, but was spared due to some cosmic oversight. We argued about that a lot. We hadn't even known each other until that moment in time, and within a month, we were lovers and living together.” I walked up to the frozen memory of Anne bending down to cradle young me in her arms, tears running down her face. I crouched down to look at her, and at myself. It's always odd looking at yourself in your own memories, mostly because your image of yourself isn't stable. It flickers.“It wasn't a good idea. It wouldn't last. But somehow, this moment started everything. In six months time, she'd be gone, I'd be a mess, and this memory would haunt us both.”


“Was the bomb your fault?”


“If it was my fault, why would I run out there?” I replied with a scowl. “What am I, the worst terrorist ever? Hell no. You people weren't even calling me a terrorist at this point. I was just a normal college student trying to figure out what he was going to be when he grew up.”


“Was 'number one enemy of the state' ever in your plan?” Apathe asked.


I glanced past Apathe, the explosion of the market in freeze frame behind her. The paint on the chunks of wall flying had changed color, so I let the memory play once more before either of them noticed. The explosion finished and the younger version of me blacked out, and the memory faded around us. We stood back in the dark room once more, just me, Apathe and Janus. “No one ever sets out to become a criminal, baby,” I told her, “it just happens. And, besides, your definition of criminal and mine certainly aren't the same thing. I was doing what I thought was right, every time I took an action that someone like you called 'terrorism.' And you don't see yourselves as villains, so why would I?”


“Because we're not criminals,” Janus answered. “But you are.”


“You're not criminals because the people can't get laws put into place to make what you do illegal. Since they can't, they put people like me into place.”


“You're saying you think people support you?” Apathe asked, incredulously. She either really was as naïve as she was playing, or she was one hell of an actress. “With all that you've done? You've hurt far more people than you've helped!”


“You really think so?” I cocked my head and peered at her, trying to decide. “Because I've hurt people, sure, but we're at war right now. The common folk and the ultra-elite. And you don't get to decide which side of that war you're on – you're just on one. You've never known what it's like to lose your third job in a year. You've never known what it's like to have to go from one minimum wage job to another to another, putting in hundred hour work weeks just to be able to afford a roof over your head and a cup of noodles to eat. You can't look at poor people and think they WANT to be poor. Nobody WANTS to be poor. And it didn't used to be the way it is now. Not since the time of kings and pharaohs. And you know what happened to them, now don't you? Or are you so ignorant to the world that you discarded history along with the people who tilled your land?”


“So you're a freedom fighter then,” Apathe said, disdain obvious in her voice. “You're a communist who thinks everyone should share everything and that there shouldn't be any rich people and any poor people. I hate to tell you, mister, but those kinds of dreams are just that... dreams. There's always going to be a rich class and