FILTERS 15

OTHER

Sight falls on another man. Physically gifted but indifferent to sport. When he was young his parents saw athleticism without joy. He felt no call to prove himself, he had no concept of having something to prove. His parents pushed him to other endeavors but he wouldn't sit for piano or stand for violin but he would read and think. Youthful idling wonder about his soul and the souls of those close to him. Naive consideration of success without proof and of failure and the unrequited and the strange feeling of control.

He had good parents. He loved them but he never told them that last truth. His father had a troubled home and mostly raised himself, he took such life for granted, as if all sons made their way with little from their fathers. His mother had no brothers and held in faith they were doing right. They were Christians and they did as Christians did. He had the Book for morals and his parents for example. His examples were better than most but from circumstance comes responsibility and that loving home and easy life did not temper his ability. When his nights extended and became his subject he hid away to read and think on questions of power and greatness. He could have told his clever father, but his father was not cautious like he was. He could have told his clever mother, but she would tell his father.

Long nights in books and screens, light always edged his door. Insomnia he explained, I'm fine. His grandmother had it too. His grades were good, his teachers loved him, he never seemed to struggle. All the easier for his parents to ignore. The sleepless elite his mother once said, executives and generals need less sleep than most. Yes mother, less.

He finished school at the top of his class and went to college. Easy in his mien and attractive to his peers. Taller than most and better physique, the latter was also unintended. Those around him could feel his conviction. He is different than you. He wasn't justified by his power, he still had no concept of what it meant to prove. But he had moral certainty that he was different and that brought indelible change. Shared experience fruits compassion and offers an escape from despair. Others did not feel what he felt, he found nothing in years of search and soon he could not stand being alone. He needed to know he was not alone. They could feel it. When he talked to a woman and looked in her eyes and could not hide that conviction as if God said You will not be enough. It pushed some, it drew others. One among the many who looked and felt dismissed out of hand and became unrequited. She yearned and leapt and lost herself to the throes of his silence.

He was not cruel but he was honest. He told a truth. I am not your one he said, and in time despite his promise of fleeting attention she asked for what he would not give and one more joined the many. He had good friends and he loved them. They might spend days together, but he could hide the truth, so they would never notice and they would never ask. One more secret. He did not talk about adolescence and he did not talk about control. He thought there was nothing he could say. If he were in their place he would be afraid.

He finished college but didn't quite join the world. He worked at home and lived alone, but he had a dog to keep him company. He would be God to his dog even were his dominion figurative; she would believe he walked on air even if he couldn't. His house was in a forest close to a town that was far from any city and he would walk into the trees and raise into the sky where he screamed to the heavens God, don't let me be alone.

He waited.

He was standing at his desk when he felt the crashing wave. A wave, a pulse, a call–of meaning, of proof, of greatness. His mind took to search his sight and he found nothing. He held his dog and typed. I scheduled this because something came up and I could be gone awhile. If you're reading this please take care of my dog.

It was summer, he had flown in daylight and he knew the countryside. He passed the farmlands of the plains, rolling runs of maize split by roads and windbreaks. Past alluvial land on the Missouri and then the Mississippi, to great concrete webs and Chicago and Lake Michigan and the border, Toronto somewhere east, to Quebec and forêt boréale and bouclier canadien. But he felt no closer and still found nothing in his sight and he screamed again now to the sun and made the journey home. He said sorry to his dog and at his desk finally saw what he had felt and in that destruction and loss of life he wondered if he too would have died.

He was cautious. He did not feel earthquakes or storms but he felt that because he could wreak calamity himself. He feared he had already. What ill servant but creeping hunger that formed a maw and bit earth and sky and devoured difference itself until only sand was left. They were different, we now are joined as victims of this power. The righteous some who would want him dead before the first; then there were four. Then there were five.

I could reach that he thought. I could see it. And what of death? asked a voice. Yes, what of it. Fly when I want, and what? And what. Stand away in evening and morning and wait and wait. Love no one. Sow nothing. Be nothing. What of death? Don't you know who you ask? Yes, I'll let the sun spin on until I won't leave my dog when I go. That my talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless–but a voice replied "Another."

In rain a flash of white above the blue. Above spanning bridges and the bay and little jutting inner peninsulas with lines of trailing wakes of boats that rushed to spectate or evade. He had a glimpse. In the city a second glimpse. A third above a campus. Another between towers and finally in full sight at the teeth. Another. An other. He saw and understood but was still dumbfounded. He could do what they had done. He could do what they had done. In white and black and through the teeth into the very throat that could not harm them, only fall around them and with a final lash strike revelation of a third. Then he saw the woman perish. No he said, two of us, the other five were broken.

He wondered about this other, about this First. Every inch concealed before the white rainjacket. He wondered if it was some last need to express themselves, or perhaps German camaraderie. He felt foolish, he should have known someone was at the center. Did they know this too? And did they know it couldn't harm them or did they only guess? Maybe they were also tired of a life spent waiting. Maybe when they felt the pulse they too took flight and at some post over the ocean screamed as well and turned. Did they worry they were alone, or did they even care? I make two, there must be others. But where? Have they found ways to spend their light? That one has, he stopped destruction.

I can stop it too. I can stop it too.

He ran with his dog and ate with his friends and fell into bed with a woman. For the first time he thought maybe I can tell her. Not this her but that Her. There must be more. There must be someone for me. He stood and read and watched everything he could find. Footage of the other at the barrier and then their work in the city. Razing buildings and recovering those within. His approach from and return to the gulf. Reports of sightings everywhere but only one compelling: the ring in Mexico. This gave him pause then troubled question. If they knew what they could do, why hadn't they before? Was it curiosity–or was it contrition.

He waited unburdened. He would stop the next. Of course, he did not wait long.

He held his dog but did not write a message. West this time, still over verdant plains, but soon he saw the mountains. Fresh eyes beheld destruction, the swarming mass of teeth. He saw the person that stood within and took their power from them.

Then he found the camera.