Redemption

Saturday #14

Levy was dead. The truth was rather simple under this context, and it could not have been purer – Levy was dead. But Lee did not know how to interpret something so painfully clear and laughably apparent – he could have been sad, disappointed, grieved, angry, but he chose to embrace either none or all. As a result, his heart presented a signal comprised of multiple faces that entangled onto each other, creating more of a strange mingling of sensations than a single suitably distinguishable emotion. Hence, Lee could not clearly define what his heart was speaking of regarding the death of a muted individual.

Levy never said much about his own personal life – which was a perfectly understandable decision for many evident reasons – but Lee remembered the one time Levy conveyed some sort of a clue that may potentially reveal what his true mission was. Despite being a member of the team, Levy rarely showed up to any of the roll calls. All he ever did after making an appearance was listening to (and possible cherishing) Lee's wild fantasies for a couple of hours; he soon disappeared when Lee had no more stories to share.

Lee once asked Levy about his intentions – 'why even bother coming?' he asked. Of course, Lee did not expect a thorough explanation, but he believed it was worth an attempt. As a response, Levy did nothing terribly shocking: he took his knife out, swung its blade around his wrist, and pointed at Lee.

Lee wished to interpret the sign as a signal of friendship. He wished to believe that Levy wished to know more about his story, his dreams, his ambition to solve the most gruesome conundrum East End has ever experienced. The truth would always remain uncovered, but it surely was a pleasurable imagination.

And now, Lee was standing at the bosom, only a step away from seizing the moment. The air around his presence fluctuated, trapping Lee in a sentimental prison of undecided anomalies and confused mediocrities. Levy was trying to tell him a message. His death was apparent, but the message was not. Lee searched for the truth, and the duty he ought to fulfill – under the gaze of the famished ravens, however, no elements of his trivial life sustained its past relevance.

Decayed eyeballs, or what used to be such things, pierced through the last police officer of East End.

He had to make a choice sooner or later. Death was not the adversary; it was the 'how' and the 'why.' 'Who' was not as pertinent – whoever had the unfortunate privilege of getting a ticket to explore the unexplored realm beyond mortality, it did not matter. Lee's job was to find who the scalper is.

Nothing has changed but the mere addition of certain personal motivations. His job was to pursue the path of the truth – it will so remain until he grasps what he deserves.

Lee, after sharing a gaze with the maggots, rubbed his eyes and coughed. Still trying to battle the urge to empty his vacant stomach, he managed to speak in an intelligible voice.

"Alright, wow..." A sigh and a turn from an unsightly observation. "The head won't help us now... there are no tools we can utilize to run inspections on any leftover evidence."

Lee gave himself another quick pause and continued. "The murderer must've arrived within the past week or so at the latest."

Lily, behaving almost absentmindedly, had a sense of dull curiosity incorporated within her pair of eyes. "Why is that?"

"Now this is the million-dollar question: why now? This could've happened any time. Assuming that this is the same murderer from the south a decade before, just like he was back then, he would still be the same blood-thirsty psycho-maniac."

"Assumptions are unsafe to be made, lieutenant."

Her point was, without a frame of doubt, valid.

"Their move immediately after finding a new shelter would've been... to acquire a victim to satisfy his bloodlust," Lee went on as his voice slowly shrank at an inappreciable pace, "if the moment of arrival was, say, a year ago... why'd he stay quiet all this time?"

"Then why did the murderer stop after 15 victims ten years ago?" Lily posed a flawlessly reasonable inquiry.

"That..."

Tragically stubborn and undaunted, though Lee never realized, his voice implied something beyond some earthly confidence. Rootless, self-righteous, but stupidly formidable like a colossal metal mountain that endured countless hits below the hands of a veteran blacksmith. It enriched his heart with an abiding sense of abnormal prestige and fidelity.

"Circumstances have turned different for everyone," Lee insisted, recalling a known possibility that he nearly neglected earlier that day. "there was a murder case in the concentration camp very recently. And now, we're looking at the 16th victim of the serial murderer who was presumed to have ceased their actions long ago. This cannot be a coincidence."

Lee did not give Lily a chance to respond.

"I believe that the murderer was imprisoned for a long time – that's why they were silent for so long. They escaped yesterday and committed an additional murder during the process -- released once again into their killing field."

Lee paused and waited for Lily to concede with his theory, but uneasy tranquility reigned supreme. Lee chose to assume that she was getting closer.

"So all we need is the list of people who entered East End during the past few weeks. Not many come to East End nowadays. I reckon the job will be... easy."

The odor emerged and crawled up to the pivot of his eyes. They gradually turned humid, submerged under thin layers of barely perceptible teardrops silenced amongst specks of dust and ghostly goals. He brought himself into a state of temporary isolation, complete and almost irreversible, embracing all there is that remains throughout the wailing wind. Those were all there were, as the two simply loitered.

"There are no refugees newly accepted." Lily ventured through the unbearable silence.

With that as a signal, Lee returned to reality after an unpleasant yank.

"...officially, no." Lee mumbled, "but there are other ways..."

Lee uttered plainly, unresentful and intransigent, a plan and a belief that he would pursue and protect even when the truth alludes otherwise. "We're going to have to speak with the smugglers."

***

I was surrounded by a barrier of clothes; my hands were hidden under subtle tunes that I hummed with a fabricated sense of temper; the moon shined like the collapsing lightbulb, and I, below the clothes, reduced to mere tatters long before the night's arrival, hid from the condemnations of the light.

On the silent night where our imaginations became our momentary reality, I chose to remain within the borders of my truthful yearnings.

It was only a matter of time before the world crumbled into mere flakes of superficial memories that told me about an image, that of the purest form of smile, joy, innocence, beauty, all the things that I once was a stranger to.

My hands trembled ever vainly. An image and a memory, flashing against my will as my breathings became extensively quicker – as a response, I tried singing a triumphant melody, yet to no avail.

An impulse, a fundamentality tickling my fingertips, the nails digging deeper, my flesh emancipated, until, at last – a profound climax and a sharp decline of such feelings, of longings and attractions, made whole under the unavoidable eyes of the watchful moon.