A Scripta

Thwunk.

Lodestar knew that sound well. It was the sound of something forcibly entering a human body. The object was usually not sharp, but didn't have the same "crunch" or "pop" as a hammer or a bat. This object would actually go through the body somehow.

Slurp - Thwunk.

Lodestar stared at the mass on the ground that might have been a man but was now a pile of flesh, blood and bones. He looked at Nate, who had a wild, feral look, as if he would jump over the pile to attack him in the same way. Nate had in his hand a simple carpenter's hammer, full of blood and gore.

If I leave him alone with this he'll be stuck here forever, killing the man who frightened him more than anything, the man who actually beat him within an inch of his life; who, when Nate didn't do what he demanded, proceded to beat him with a paddle used for paddle-ball, broke it, grabbed a poker, then started beating him with that. Then the man proceeded to get his way anyway.

Nate was five years old and wouldn't sit on his uncle's lap.

"Nate, look at me, Nate. Focus."

He looked up, took a shuddering breath, looked down at his handiwork. "I hate him, I hate him."

"He's gone. He can't hurt you."

"He hurts me here!" Nate grabbed his chest.

Lodestar kicked the body. "You've gone beyond this, Nate."

He looked up at Lodestar. "What do you mean?"

"You know what he was trying to do, your uncle the pedophile." Lodestar stepped on the mass of flesh. "But it didn't get to you, you know why?"

"Why?"

Lodestar smiled at him. "You love Dais'ke."

He looked confused.

"You can love a man or a woman. Some people can't after being exposed to that." Lodestar looked into Nate's eyes and said, "Let it go."

Nate stared at him, dropped the hammer. It disappeared before it hit the ground.

Nate perked his head at the older man's approach. Expectantly, he asked, "Daisuke?"

"No."

"Oh." He looked down disappointedly. "Anyone?"

"Star."

He smiled. "She a good person."

Lodestar sat down and nodded. "That she is. A rare pure jewel."

"I don't hate her."

He said nothing, looking across to him.

"Daisuke," he said wistfully. "He's left me."

"Nate, I don't--"

"I don't really blame him. I was never good for him. I destroyed him."

"Nate, he hasn't left you."

"Nothing. Not even tried to find out how I was doing." He sat back down again. "I hurt him so much." Nate focused on Lodestar. Nate's eyes were clear, without any anguish. "Lodestar, it's okay." He looked down. "He doesn't want me anymore. I've hurt him too much."

Lodestar touched Nate's hand. "I don't think he's left you. I think he's giving you time to be alone so you can work things out here," he gestured to the empty land before him.

"If he never comes back, I'll be all right. I'll just move on, find some nice girl, or find no one at all."

Lodestar looked at Nate's face, studied his aura. He hid nothing, no anger, no defiance, no lying. "You're serious."

He nodded. "I'm sad, but I'll be all right. I couldn't take it out on him."

"Will you take it out on anyone?"

Nate smiled slightly. "I'll try not to." Lodestar looked beyond Nate to see a woman standing a few feet behind him. Nate didn't turn around to see where Lodestar was looking.

He sighed. "It's my mother." He got up from kneeling on the ground next to Lodestar. "I'll be with her for a while, but if Daisuke comes..."

Lodestar nodded and watched Nate turn to go back to see this woman - who had knives sticking out of her back.

Sleep is overrated, I tell you.

When I'm stuck, I pull out the cards. I have the Robin Wood deck, which I think is beautiful (though overtly caucasian) and simple. I usually cleanse them through incense, passing them through the cloud, then through a candle flame. Then I shuffle, thinking about the question. Sometimes I cut the deck into three piles, sometimes two, sometimes I just pull one out. In this case I just picked the top card.

Eight of swords.

Swords is a suit of action, mostly drastic or "bad". Swords cut, after all. In this deck, the card shows a woman tied up or in restraints standing on a desolate seashore, with eight swords surrounding her. It means being held back, tied up, restrained - and no one can help (the swords stop them). Mase is restrained with more than cuffs on his wrists and ankles. He's restrained by his own anger (also the swords). Swords cut him and others. His anger hurts himself and others.

Who is he angry at? This is what he's going to be out of it for, to try and figure it out. But the body can't just lay there...

or "I have writer's block!"

Once I remember going to a workshop/seminar on writing and the person there suggested using flash cards with words on them as a spark to writing. I had a better idea: Tarot cards.

Quick and dirty history lesson: Tarot decks were the harbingers of our playing decks. (Spades = Swords; Hearts = Cups; Clubs = Wands; Diamonds = Pentacles/Coins, and the Joker was the number 0 of the deck, the Fool) Where they came from is debated, how they changed from fortune telling to poker is another story too. They lost the Major Arcana, the number 0 - 21 cards. The ones you hear about "The Devil" and "The Lovers" are the Major Arcana.

Tarot decks originally had the number of the item printed on it and that's it. Eight of rods had eight sticks. It's believed that the Rider-Waite pack, under the direction of the Golden Dawn, is the first deck to use pictures in the minor arcana (the numbered and suited cards). These pictures, along with their interpretation, can usually spark a seed into at least sticking its head out of the sand.

When I'm stuck, I turn to the cards. People have different ways of preparing the cards for receiving. I'll tell you what I do later.

Shoot, falling asleep...

Masonry gazed at his lover's eyes and wished he could do something to take the pain away. He knew he was the one who caused it.

"I hurt you, and I'm sorry."

Frosty turned away. "You're always sorry."

"I know, I know, you think I won't change."

"It's your nature."

"It is NOT my nature."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Because I'm a kid with a gun."

Frosty closed his eyes. Masonry went to put his arm around him. Frosty shrugged and turned into a block of ice.

He refuses you. So what're you going to do about it? Now? Later? Tomorrow? When he's dying?

He promised not to leave me. He's keeping his promise, and it's hurting him to do it. I should let him go. Let them all go.

Let them all go.

Masonry sank to his knees before the ice block, not in tears for once. Not begging. It was going to take some work, and he didn't want to be standing. He went through in his mind's eye all the people that he had been angry with, and they were legion. Frosty disappeared before his eyes; Tommy Sass stood in front of him. He wore the school's varsity coat with its letters on it, looking entirely like he did in his yearbook as Nate had memorized. Masonry looked up into the eyes whose life he had snuffed out, the first one he took his revenge on.

"If anyone should be angry it should be me at you, don't you think?" he snarled.

Nate nodded quietly.

"Do it again."

"I'm done," he said, and Tommy slowly faded out of sight to be replaced by Hammer.

Hammer laughed at him, his arms folded across his chest. "This is gonna take a long longer than what you think, Booger," he said, calling him by the nickname they all had for him. "Because we ain't gonna let you go that easy. . ."

---------------------------

"Doctor, 15a won't get up."

Dr. LaPlaca stared for a moment at the orderly. "Have you given him a stimulant?"

The orderly shook his head. "Jessica doesn't think it's a good idea. She said he's almost in a trance."

Jessica had a Kheldian, so LaPlaca knew what she was talking about. "Should we restrain him?"

"Maybe so? Just in case?"

The doctor nodded. He hoped when 15a woke up that he wouldn't try and kill them all.

Masonry opened the door to the individual therapy room and stopped, his hand on the handle of the door. "You," he whispered.

"Come in, Nate."

Masonry sat down across from the person that he hadn't seen since his time in prison. Dr. Orbison sat straight and stiff at the other side of the table.

"We have all the time you need, Nate." He uncapped a pen and poised it over paper, eyeing Masonry as he did so. He scribbled something, recapped the pen and sat back. "So how's your life been?"

"It was fine."

"Until you fucked it up again." He rattled off, counting on his fingers, "Threatening your teammates. Going to the Isles. Getting taken into the Repatriation Program at the FBSA. Assault. Murder."

"Murder?!"

"At least a dozen murders have already been pegged on you over in the Isles. You go back over there, you're dead."
"I have no plans to go back."

"You had no plans to fuck it all up, either."

"So you don't believe me."

He folded his arms across his chest. "Not a bit."

"What the hell do I have to do to satisfy you people?"

"Do what you're supposed to do, for one. What're you here for, Nate?"

"I'm a danger to myself and--"

"No, here. As a hero. What for?"

"Glory."

"You had people who worshiped you, I hear. Not good enough?"

"I had to leave them."

"Were they good enough? Rumor has it you killed them."

"Some."

"And you don't feel one bit of remorse."

"I didn't at the time. I do now."

"Did you feel anything at the time?"

"Anger."

"Who are you angry at?"

Masonry had been pondering that all day and all night. He looked up and snarled, "Everyone."

"Why?"

"You're all a threat."

"Because..?"

"You'll all hurt me."

Orbison looked at him, and gave a short laugh. "You think my life is centered around you? You think I stay up nights plotting ways to hurt you?"

"No, I--" He stopped, "No."

"So who are you angry at?"

"Myself?"

"Oh, don't start the pity parties, I didn't bring along any cake."

"You, right now."

"Good. And why?"

"Because you're insulting me."

"Something small like that statement makes you ready to jump over this table and kill me."

"Among other reasons."

"Reasons that had to do with me doing something with you that you didn't like. Don't like to think, do you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're lazy."

"I'm not getting it --"

Orbison leaned back. "I'll wait."

Masonry stared at him. What does he mean? He remembered Star's words, Stopping easy and hard. Hard to start to stop, but easy once you do it. Why is it hard to start to stop? Because you have to physically - or mentally - switch what you're doing. Like handling the mace, the momentum carries it along, and your weight's behind it as it moves through the air, but what if you know it's heading toward a target you didn't want to hit? How hard is it to stop it? You've pulled muscles by pulling back on the mace and stopping a swing. Same with the anger - it swings, heading toward its target, you need to yank it back. With Ben helping you along, validating your anger and using it, you forgot how. But you can if you really want to.

"Were you born evil?"

Masonry came out of his reverie to stare at him. "What?"

"Were you born evil? Were you set on this world to kill people?"

He blinked and thought back. "No, it wasn't until the abuse at school."

"That's when you thought you were evil?"

"I wanted to hurt them at the time, but I couldn't."

"Were you evil, then?"

"Is wanting revenge evil?"

"My question first, Nate."

Masonry said quietly, "No."

"Did the drugs make you evil?"

"No."

"Your first Kheldian made you evil?"

"No, no, I think it was before that."

"So somewhere between graduating high school and your first Kheldian, you became evil."

"I don't think evil."

"Then what."

"I know what you mean by being lazy."

Orbison gave him a nod. "Then explain it to me."

"If I'm going down a path of anger, it's easier for me to keep on going than it is to stop. It's like pulling back something you already have in motion."

Orbison nodded. "Good. It only took you ten minutes to figure it out. There's hope for you, yet." He smiled. "I can see the anger in your eyes already. What're you going to do about it?"

Masonry sighed. "Nothing."

"Because you can't, can you? You jump over this table and you'll be dead within ten minutes. You and your Kheldian."

"Jack too? They said Jack would be extrac--"

"They won't have time if you attack me now. Ah, so that stops you, the death of your Kheldian. The death of your boyfriend won't?"

"Don't bring him into this."

"He's the one whose name you utter in dreams, who you depend on, and he's refusing you. What're you going to do about it?"

He's refusing you.

Orbison sat back and buffed his nails. "Kill him, I say. He's not doing what you want. He doesn't worship you anymore, he doesn't trust you. That's what you're thinking, isn't it? You want to kill him."

"He's done nothing to me. He's always been there. I l--" He stopped.

"If you loved me like that, Nate, I would have committed suicide a long time ago." He stood up. "I have plenty of time to go through this, Nate, but you don't. Think about this: How do you stop yourself?"

"What do you mean I don't?"

"For your safety you're going to be moved to the Peregrine Island facility. Think about my question, and you won't have to worry about yours."

He disappeared from sight.