a man and his bear

[Kaizen]

v. Five

it's a flash, but it's there and quite the bitch. he will never forget because the ring won't let him.

he's dragged himself out too thin, again; he understands what it means and should have just stayed the fuck down, "I'll not tell you again ..." he yelled, and it's not a near death experience, it's a death he won't get to experience, so he said, "i was wrong," he's surprised, for once, and his arrogance comes to a screeching halt - but this time the lightning bolt doesn't shatter the rocks but rebounds.

the ring, his breathing and movement all faded into the background.
-his heartrate?

(1. and it's dropping ... dropping ... dropping,

2. like the rolling echoes of fading thunder as the storm dissipates or the punch line to a joke no one will ever understand. jokes are funny that way,
or not-

depending; a person has to know their audience, themselves, that niggling sensation in their personality discolored just enough to piss them off; it's everything or nothing and the joke's found

between, in that all encompassing balance that he seeks to find.

3. if found at all.)

like listening to the pitiful and cowering voices of the Wardens who sought peace with their neighbors, but, ultimately, invited them to do as they please, and yesyoucanstayandtakeallthatyouwant.

but maybe he was wrong?

the endorphins flooding through his system don't seem to be working and this pain...

life sucks and then you die.
death sucked, too.
the Reaper forgot that circle of hell;
it's not even a circle, probably;
not sinister enough;
perhaps a trapezoid?

he had visions of storms and showers, death and rebirth. you must lose everything to gain anything, there is no gain without loss, there is no take without give, or so he believed as he sat next to the Keeper, with his brown hair and always-approval;

Kaizen would forget his temper and humility somewhere up in the stratosphere, so Ra'Aman would share his, displaying the greatness that was the Balance, an aged hand against his own face was calming, would settle the tempest. what a way to die.

then he felt a tightness in his chest, like his ribcage was shrinking, or his heart was shocked beyond recognition, or something fantastic (the surge of pain endorphins) to be explained away later (using completely stupid and irrelevant metaphors involving storms and tempests and ...). and the white light went back from wherever it had come; it was never good, didn't divide sun from moon; it was only black and white; he didn't have time to glance at the trees. he wishes people would stop asking:

"how long were you dead?"

without blinking, or caring, "i'll tell you when i'm alive," he answers, because even when his heart is breaking, when he's dying, he doesn't miss a beat, an opportunity to show a person just how human and a part of this world they are.

(confusion; not on his part.) there is a law of nature, of this earth, that which exists outside the cycle are unnatural, a disgusting parody of what is sacred in this life.

he woke up, a let down, of sorts. he had expected to be dead, one with the Earth, requiescat in pace. come full circle. when he dies the ground will shake, the skies will scream and tear in protest and the storms will rage in his wake. or he thinks it should, hadn't he done enough? no, not in the least - he'd fall to the earth and not be swallowed whole. but, there he was.

he still had his finger, though, however, he managed to lose
most of his muscle from his body
somewhere,
when he was in the Fugue, and
... the Reaper!

he knew the Balance existed; he's smart (his one certainty), because he looked around the Grove, the pain in his finger and hand and arm pulsated throughout his body, his bitterness and resignation radiated off of him, drifted away with the pain in the ring, and he knew the Balance existed because it cried out to him so desperately in the face.

He answered.

[Kaizen]

i. One

he cares, she knows. he doesn't say anything nice because he doesn't have to; poignancy and tenderness expressed entirely in fits of rage and rash decisions.

a question is in her voice when she says his (laughable) title, uncertainties among his limited knowledge of her that will always falter, onward or downward. mostly downward.

she radiates light (the spaces between) and he radiates anger (the words between). they have been lost to each other for so long. (forever.) she is everything; he is dust.

ii. Two

"Chauntea."

she smiles. it's him; the confusion surrounds him as a barrier. his story is old; it's a long, heavy epic whose characters are forgettable but only for their faces and fears.

she walks over to him because it's different.

he stares at her (not) blankly, words on the tip of his tongue like leaves on an oak. each lacks the proper motivation.

"we do this," she whispers. his eyes, she notices, are heading straight for the ground. "let's not," and she walks away.

pretend there is no oak and no him; he spends half of his life perpetrating imprudent actions (himself out of things). actions add (rebirth), subtract (death), divide (and conquer, but lose everything in the process); actions build and destroy; his foolish beliefs that are constantly killing himself and everything around him.

iii. Three

the fugue is quicksand; he's sinking underneath the weight of time. it feels vaguely familiar.

"what's wrong with me?" he asks.

how to make this better?

"what's right?" she responds.

he needs to define his own edges, draw a line, split the chaos, him and her, lose awkwardness that hangs, dragging everything down with it, to its knees, to the floor, to nowhere: everywhere.

he is rendered speechless in the cold gray of the Fugue, has no response. he's lost track of how long he's been dead and floating in limbo.

she says: "stop trying so hard to love me.”

iv. break

he's been dead for a century and a half now, floating, hopeless and ageless and pathetic in the Fugue, the pain in his hand his only constant companion.

it's a flash, but it's there and quite the bitch. he will never forget because the ring won't let him.