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territory, mark it and make it yours, and he stares down at his naked hands and realizes that he left the sword in the tea garden. His dazed eyes cannot adjust to the dark. He can hear her in the distance, she is moaning, and the echo carries and reflects off the alley walls so that it seems to hover before him. He makes a decision, not a wise one or a considered one, just a resolution to move forward, and he is at the bottom of the steps, atop another set of steps that cut steeply into the hill, passageways and cul-de-sacs and arches that seem like street entrances but are actually the gateways to stores and residences. The uneven cobblestones under his feet throw off his stride. Everywhere there is no movement, no hint of others. Her voice is getting farther and farther away. He moves forward, convincing himself that to go back is to lose her forever, but the voice gros more indistinct the further he  |
walks, until finally he hears nothing but his own gasps for breath and the grinding of his boots against the steps, and he swats at the blood soaking his face, his foot missing a step -- he tumbles down to the bottom, coming to a full stop on his back, his teeth grinding so hard that he can feel one of them coming free, rolling inside his mouth along with the metallic sting of blood. He swallows the tooth, staring up at the sky, the short rooftops and barricaded windows, and overhead the searchlights continue to scour the skies for an enemy that might not come. This will be the sight he will remember years from now, this last view of this seaside village, the anonymous meeting of roofs and sky and searchlights. He is laughing, a great swell of laughter that he cannot contain, and even as he does so the pit of his stomach is curling into itself, wrapped in a knot that will not come  |
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