Beyond Grace [ON INDEFINITE HOLD]

Beyond Grace: 10

People liked to keep themselves busy. That used to attract Cash to gaming, too, then policing. It was all about action. But now there were these masses of Nothing people, who were equally, if not more, dissatisfied with their monotonous Nothing lives. Who wanted more action than games or policing could provide. It was these Nothing people that caused the stir.

They were keeping themselves busy, but in a more-than-Nothing way. Now there were closet paedophiles and rapists, murderers and hormonal teens. The public screamed outrage at minor hiccups of celebrity melodramas yet turned a blind eye to the desperadoes corrupting impressionable youths.

So eventually, the jail cells and honourable judges would be filtering through diaphanous court cases backed by money-oiled lawyers with slick tongues to worm confusion out of the jury. These Nothing people would have a wife, two kids and three cars, yet become seduced; intoxicated by the grunge of an alleyway with a five-dollar hooker and a six-figure attorney to back them up. There would be those Nothing teens with wealth and popularity at ease, yet would stain the streets with their low-rise jeans, backwards caps and cans of spray paint to claim ‘turf’ in another bloody massacre.

The women – they were really what caught Cash’s tongue in a mousetrap. Gone were the days of romance and candle-lit dinners. Gone were the roses and holding the door open as they walked past. Women wanted someone to tie them to the bed, to abuse them and scream words of torture and pain in the vanity of love. Women wanted the mafia image with the romance of the royal family. And men were all too happy to give it to them.

So of course, when these pruned-to-degradation women waltzed in with accusations of rape, abuse and torture, the court would give out that pitying tsk-tsk, and throw them out like used and abused Barbie Dolls.

But — and Cash had debated this many-a-time when he was awaiting the breath of movement — there was always crime and injustice. Inevitable, like the rain on a funereal day. There had been the coveted bushrangers to challenge the whims of the wealthy; the modernistic cyber hackers to corrupt the online buccaneers. The rebellion of society stroked the young virgin hands of innocence into felony.

That birthed the purpose; to chase, to capture, to right the multi-faceted wrongs of this world. There were no shortcuts; no CTRL+Z function to any mistakes. There were lives upon lives upon lives wherein mere words, mere actions could be the differentiation betwixt community service and 25-to-life.

He used to think of himself in that way. A hero. Superman. Harlough’s knight in shining armour boasting morality and justice. A steely look would send crooks at rest. The idea would puff his chest out just that little bit more with the throbbing of an ego (now inevitably tarnished by time). Yet, after the first case a little more major than shoplifting, the fantasy died with it. The chest deflated somewhat, for it really was little more than a job; an inevitable obligation.

And that was all he really was here for, if anything was existing. For it was more of a drift. A drift of a person; a life. And the threads — long and whimsical like yarns of wool, intermingled with the shining threads of others to form a dewy gossamer web. A web of connectivity. And one of these threads, metaphysically beautiful and enchanting, strengthened with the whims of attraction with Mariah.

But Mariah was not here-and-now and there were pages to read, scenes to memorise. Cash sighed, turning to another paper, savouring the sheer crispness of the sheet, the tendrils of its subtle scent.

Take a deep breath in; take a deep breathe out.

Sigh…

Another page caught his eye — the timeline. Cash drunk in the words, dates and times faster than the ignorant devoured drugged wine. Again and again and again the words echoed out to carve a sequence. The evidence was circumstantial — it was immediately obvious. Innocence could be argued through lack of lucidity.